WOMEN 
 AUTHORS 
 
 OUR DAY 
 
 homes 
 
ten ten ten ten ten ten ten ten unter. ten ten ten ten ten ten ten ten 
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 g AUTHORS OF OUR DAY IN THEIR HOMES. e 
 
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tFomen ^Authors of Our 
 in 
 
 Their Homes 
 
Note 
 
 CT"" 1 WE NTT of these sketches were printed originally in 
 JL The New York Times Saturday Review of Books. 
 They are republished here by the courtesy of The New 
 York Times Company. The six other sketches were 
 prepared especially for this volume. 
 
c©o coo coo (JOn coo ceo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo coo c©0 coo coo coo 
 
 § § 
 
 I Women Authors S 
 
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 | of Our Day I 
 
 § § 
 
 | In Their Homes | 
 
 § _ _ § 
 
 § Personal Descriptions & Interviews § 
 
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 g Edited with Additions § 
 
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 | Francis Whiting Halsey r 
 
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 R With many Full-page Illustrations § 
 
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Copyright, 1898, 1899, 1901, 1901, by 
 THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY 
 
 Copyright, 1903, by 
 JAMES POTT & COMPANY 
 
 Published, March, 1903 
 
Preface 
 
 THE two volumes already issued in this 
 series have dealt exclusively with the 
 homes of men. tfhey have illustrated 
 the marked improvement in the worldly state of 
 authors that has occurred since Hawthorne lived 
 in the Old Manse at Concord and Poe in the 
 cottage at Fordham. Meanwhile, authorship has 
 become a source of income to women, a considerable 
 number of whom have found it the means to a 
 comfortable livelihood, The present volume, in 
 accordance with the original plan of the series^ 
 presents accounts of the homes of some of these. 
 It is the last volume of the series. 
 
 The editor begs to say that he has derived no 
 little personal pleasure from the reception which 
 the reading public has accorded to these books — a 
 pleasure which has been something more than an 
 echo of that which he derived from the reception 
 given to the sketches when first printed in The 
 New York Times Saturday Review, of 
 which he at the time of their publication was the 
 editor, tfhe success of the series probably could 
 
 [vii] 
 
Preface 
 
 not have been so great had the books appeared a 
 generation ago. 
 
 Popular interest in the homes of authors be- 
 longs indeed to quite modern days — at least in so 
 far as we may judge from booh that have been 
 zvritten about them. Ben Jonson wrote an ac- 
 count of his visit to Hawthornden and the chron- 
 icle has become more interesting in our day than 
 anything Drummond himself ever wrote. Eras- 
 mus was not unmindful of the interest which lay 
 in his stay zvith Sir 'Thomas More, while V ol- 
 taire's journey to England bore fruit of the remi- 
 niscent order. But it remains true that for the 
 widespread attention now paid to authors' homes 
 we are indebted to the taste of our times. 
 
 To IV ashington Irving, more perhaps than to 
 any other person, is this growth to be ascribed. 
 To the impulse created by his writings, we must 
 ascribe the success of such later publications as 
 " The Knickerbocker Gallery " and " The Homes 
 and Haunts of Our Elder Poets." Before Irving 
 went to Stratford, few were the pilgrims who 
 sought the streets of Shakespeare's town. Before he 
 wrote of Poets' Corner, the sacred precincts of that 
 storied aisle had shared little of the world's per- 
 sonal regard. These things have now so changed, 
 that Stratford and Stoke Pogis, Abbotsford and 
 [ viii ] 
 
Preface 
 
 Grasmere, Concord and Irving s own Sunny- 
 side, seem likely to rival the shrine of Becket or the 
 dome of Michael Angelo as places of pious pil- 
 grimage. 
 
 IV ithin the walls of houses where books grew 
 into life nothing more than memories may remain, 
 but men and women will not pass them by un- 
 heeded. 'They haunt such homes. Imagination 
 comes to their aid and they readily restore the 
 former scenes until the very atmosphere seems 
 still to breathe of minds which dwelt there. Be 
 the place simple or be it grand, the interest is 
 ever the same. No resplendent dwelling-place, 
 neither Stowe nor Cliveden, neither Lyndhurst nor 
 Biltmore, can hope to become familiar to one per- 
 son where Shakespeare's birthplace, Sunnyside, 
 or the cottage of IV ordsworth is known to a thou- 
 sand. 'Thus does time accomplish for the writers 
 of books poetic revenges, and thus do we see 
 vindicated the remark of Emerson that "that 
 country is fairest which is inhabited by the 
 noblest minds." 
 
 [ix] 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction : The Pecuniary Rewards of 
 Our Older Authors. By Frederick 
 Stanford I 
 
 I. Marion Harland in Pompton, New 
 
 Jersey. By Charles T. Sempers 17 
 
 II. Bertha Runkle in New York. By 
 
 William Wallace Whitelock . . 31 
 
 III. Agnes Repplier in Philadelphia. By 
 
 Warwick J. Price 41 
 
 IV. Margaret Deland in Boston. By 
 
 Julia R. Tutwiler 51 
 
 V. Lucas Malet in London. By Will- 
 iam Wallace Whitelock . . . . 63 
 
 VI. Frances Hodgson Burnett in Eng- 
 land. By William Wallace White- 
 lock 73 
 
 VII. Kate Douglas Wiggin in New 
 
 York. By W. de Wagstaffe . . 83 
 
 VIII. Mary Johnston in Birmingham, Ala- 
 bama. By £. S. Boddington . . 91 
 [xi] 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 IX. John Oliver Hobbes in London. 
 
 By William Wallace Whitelock . 101 
 
 X. Amelia E. Barr in Cornwall-on-the- 
 
 Hudson. By Edgar Mayhew Bacon 1 1 1 
 
 XI. Louise Chandler Moulton in 
 
 Boston. By Wilder D. Quint . 121 
 
 XII. Mrs. Humphry Ward in London. 
 
 By William Wallace Whitelock . 129 
 
 XIII. Mrs. Sherwood in Delhi and in 
 
 New York 137 
 
 XIV. Blanche Willis Howard in Mu- 
 
 nich. By Olivia Howard Dunbar. 143 
 
 XV. Harriet Prescott Spofford in 
 Deer Island, Massachusetts. By 
 Wilder D. Quint 165 
 
 XVI. A. D. T. Whitney in Milton Lower 
 Mills, Massachusetts. By Wilder 
 D- Quint 175 
 
 XVII. Margaret E. Sangster in Brook- 
 lyn. By Flora May Kimball . .187 
 
 XVIII. Ruth McEnery Stuart in New 
 
 York City. By Stanhope Sams . 199 
 
 XIX. Mary E. Wilkins in Randolph, 
 
 Massachusetts. By Wilder D. Quint 209 
 [xii] 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 XX. Julia Ward Howe in Boston and 
 
 Newport. By Mrs. Sherwood . 219 
 
 XXI. Jeannette L. Gilder in New 
 
 York. By Julia R. Tutwiler . 231 
 
 XXII. Edith Wharton in New York. 
 
 By Julia R. Tutwiler . . . .241 
 
 XXIII. Gertrude Atherton in New 
 
 York. By Julia R. Tutwiler . . 249 
 
 XXIV. Mary Mapes Dodge in New York. 
 
 By Julia R. Tutwiler . . . .257 
 
 XXV. Rebecca Harding Davis in Phila- 
 delphia. By Julia R. Tutwiler . 269 
 
 XXVI. Edith M. Thomas in New Brigh- 
 ton. By Julia R. Tutwiler . .277 
 
 XXVII. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps in 
 Gloucester, Mass. By Julia R. 
 Tutwiler 283 
 
 INDEX 2Q<: 
 
 [ *i» 3 
 
Illustrations 
 
 Marion Harland's Home . . . Frontispiece 
 
 Facing 
 page 
 
 House in Onteora Park in the Cats- 
 
 kills 32 
 
 Where Miss Runkle first wrote "The Helmet 
 of Navarre ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Deland's Drawing-Room . . . 52 
 Mrs. Burnett's Home in England . . 74 
 
 Mrs. Wiggin at Home 84 
 
 Mrs. Barr in a Corner of Her Home . 112 
 A Corner in Mrs. Moulton's Library . 122 
 Mrs. Humphry Ward's Home . . . .130 
 Mrs. Sherwood's Home in Delhi. . .138 
 
 Mrs. Spofford's Home 166 
 
 Mrs. Whitney's Home 176 
 
 A Corner in Miss Wilkins's Home . .210 
 Mrs. Howe's Home Near Newport . .220 
 
 [XV] 
 
Illustrations 
 
 Facing 
 page 
 
 Miss Gilder at Her Desk at Home . 232 
 Portrait of Mrs. Wharton .... 242 
 Portrait of Mrs. Atherton .... 250 
 Mrs. Dodge's Desk at Home .... 258 
 
 [xvi] 
 
Introduction 
 The Pecuniary Rewards of Our Older Authors 
 
1 
 
 1 
 
Introduction 
 
 'The Pecuniary Rewards of Our Older Authors 
 
 a suggestive record of some of the slight pecuniary 
 returns that were derived by authors from their 
 books, one, two, and three generations ago. It is 
 not more than twenty years since Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes wrote to a young writer, with whom he 
 sympathized, that all the authors in the United 
 States, he believed, were as poor as church mice. 
 The young man had aspired to act as amanuensis 
 and private secretary to Dr. Holmes for any com- 
 pensation he might offer, but the doctor assured him 
 that he had never indulged in any such extravagance. 
 The only professional man of letters of whom he 
 knew who had had a private secretary was Prescott, 
 and he lived on inherited wealth. 
 
 If we look backward to the very beginning of 
 any adequate pecuniary reward for the American 
 author, the success gained by Irving will naturally 
 be suggested first. The initial part of " The Sketch 
 Book" was published in the United States in 1819 
 
 OW that women have invaded the ranks 
 of successful authorship, readers perhaps 
 will find it interesting to have given here 
 
 [3] 
 
Introduction 
 
 in an edition of 2,000 copies at seventy-five cents a 
 copy. Irving, or one of his brothers, assumed the 
 publisher's risk; and it is presumed that he received 
 eventually about $600 on the venture. With the 
 exception of $150 he had been paid for the work of 
 translating a volume from the French, and some 
 slight profits from the humorous " Knickerbocker " 
 in 1808, the returns on the sale of " The Sketch 
 Book " were Irving's first earnings in his own 
 country. 
 
 He was at that time thirty-six years old. " I 
 have suffered several precious years of youth and 
 lively imagination to pass unimproved," he wrote 
 from England to his brother, " and it behooves me 
 to make the most of what is left." Two-score years 
 remained to him after that resolution; and the 
 tabulation of the money his works yielded him dur- 
 ing that period presents the total of $205,383.34. 
 Of that amount $122,380.11 was derived from sales 
 and the leasing of copyrights in the United States, 
 so that we have an average of $3,059.50 yearly dur- 
 ing forty years. 
 
 The largest returns came from the " Life of Co- 
 lumbus," of which there was an abridged edition 
 for use in schools. The two editions of the book 
 brought together $9,000. Next in pecuniary profit 
 was " The Conquest of Granada," yielding $4,750; 
 then " Astoria," for which Astor paid Irving $4,000 ; 
 [4] 
 
tfhe Pecuniary Rewards of Our Older Authors 
 
 and after that the " Alhambra," bringing $3,000; 
 "Bonneville's Adventures," $3,000; "A Tour on 
 the Prairie," $2,400; " Crayon Miscellany," $2,100; 
 and " Legends of the Conquest of Spain," $1,500. 
 The lease of the copyrights of " The Sketch Book," 
 " Knickerbocker," " Bracebridge Hall," and " Tales 
 of a Traveller," from 1828 to 1835, brought the 
 further sum of $4,200. 
 
 From 1842 to 1848 Irving's works were out of 
 print in this country, and a noticeable fact is that, 
 of the entire amount they earned for him in the 
 United States, $88,143.08 came during the last 
 eleven years of his life and after there was a revival 
 of his reputation and his works, when the books 
 were offered in a uniform edition. Irving, in fact, 
 was not in easy circumstances until renewed interest 
 in what he had written had become pronounced in 
 his new publisher, who was now George P. Putnam. 
 The total amount subsequently earned by Irving 
 excited remark and wonder. No American author 
 of the first rank could make such a showing. 
 
 Cooper, who might probably have come the near- 
 est to it, always took pains to conceal his earn- 
 ings. Professor Lounsbury states, in his biography 
 of Cooper, that there appears to be no way of dis- 
 covering what amounts he received. His earnings 
 by his pen began with the publication of " The Spy," 
 in 1 82 1, and continued for thirty years. Divide, 
 [Si 
 
Introduction 
 
 however, the total amount received by either writer, 
 and especially Irving's earnings, which are known, 
 by the number of years, or the number of works, the 
 amount represents and the result may assume a less 
 dazzling appearance. Until a period of unprece- 
 dented sales for popular books had arrived, Irving 
 was the one author who could be cited as an example 
 of what a prolific writer might hope to gain if he 
 captured great popularity on both sides of the At- 
 lantic and retained it forty years. 
 
 In Charles T. Congdon's delightful, but almost 
 forgotten, " Reminiscences of a Journalist," pub- 
 lished in 1880, the statement is made that fifty years 
 before the time when Congdon was writing there 
 was no such thing as remuneration for authors, 
 apart from the money paid to preachers and the 
 writers of school-books. " I should be surprised," 
 he adds, " to learn that Bryant received any pecun- 
 iary compensation for ' Thanatopsis,' which was 
 published in The North American Review in 18 17. 
 I believe that Godey and Graham, the Philadelphia 
 magazine publishers, were the first to pay at all 
 handsomely. The coolness with which an editor 
 would graciously accept an article and print it 
 without a word of thanks was even then irritating, 
 though we did not expect anything else. Now it 
 would be regarded as a piece of swindling. Mr. 
 Willis was the first magazine writer who was toler- 
 16] 
 
tfhe Pecuniary Rewards of Ovr Older Authors 
 
 ably well paid. At one time, about 1842, he was 
 writing four articles monthly for four magazines, 
 and receiving $100 from each. Even this would not 
 now be considered much for a man of his great 
 popularity and reputation as a writer." 
 
 It was Willis who took the lead in pecuniary 
 success among authors that were next in succession 
 to Irving and Cooper. We must remember here 
 that Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell, Poe, and 
 Willis were all of about the same age, and began 
 authorship contemporaneously. Both Hawthorne 
 and Willis were leading contributors to The Token, 
 an annual published by S. G. Goodrich. To the 
 former Goodrich wrote in 1830 regarding four 
 sketches, "The Gentle Boy," "Roger Malvin's 
 Burial," "The Wives of the Dead," and "My 
 Uncle Molineaux," that, as a practical evidence of 
 the uncommon merit of the tales, he would offer 
 him $35 for the privilege of using the first, which 
 must have delighted the man to whom for some of 
 the " Twice Told Tales " only $3 each was paid. 
 
 Later Hawthorne was offered by the same pub- 
 lisher $300 to write a book of 600 pages on the 
 manners, customs, and civilities of all countries. 
 His college friend, Horatio Bridge, wrote to him 
 the same month : " I have been trying to think 
 what you are so miserable for. Although you have 
 not much property, you have health and powers of 
 [7] 
 
Introduction 
 
 writing which have made you and still make you 
 independent. Suppose you get but $300 per year 
 for writing. You can with economy live upon that, 
 
 though it would be a d d tight squeeze. You 
 
 have no family dependent on you. Why should 
 you borrow trouble?" This friend, unknown to 
 Hawthorne, assumed any loss the publisher might 
 suffer who dared to tempt the public with the col- 
 lected tales. 
 
 It remains to be related that Goodrich's other 
 discovery, Willis, was doing much better than the 
 recluse at Salem. He broke away from New Eng- 
 land early, and hastened to New York. There he 
 became a partner with George P. Morris and 
 Theodore Fay in publishing The Mirror. One day 
 in 1833, while the three put their heads together in 
 Sandy Welsh's oyster saloon, so runs the tale, it 
 was agreed to send Willis abroad to write weekly 
 letters. For this undertaking Morris and Fay 
 scraped together $500, and it was promised that 
 Willis should receive $10 a letter. 
 
 That was the amount which floated Willis while 
 he was making the acquaintance of English society 
 and producing the first of his " Pencillings by the 
 Way." The book brought him repute and $5,000. 
 Four years later, in 1839, he stated that his income 
 for the year had been $7,500, " all used for ex- 
 penses and accumulated debts." And thirty years 
 [8] 
 
T'he Pecuniary Rewards of Our Older Authors 
 
 later, when he died, something similar might have 
 been reported. 
 
 During this period, while Willis was the most 
 popular and the best paid author, Edgar Allan Poe 
 appears to have been the writer of real reputation 
 who got the smallest remuneration. His first earn- 
 ing was the prize money, $100, he received in Bal- 
 timore for " The MS. Found in a Bottle." After 
 that success he got employment as assistant editor 
 of The Southern Literary Messenger at $10 a 
 week. Later, when he was a free lance in Phila- 
 delphia, he contributed much to Burton s Magazine 
 at the rate of $3 a printed page. Several of his 
 best tales were published at that price. He sent 
 reviews and critical articles to Lowell's Pioneer in 
 Boston for $5 and $10, but that publication finally 
 failed, leaving him one of the unpaid creditors. 
 
 In 1 84 1, when he was thirty- two years old, Poe 
 wrote to a friend in a Government office that he 
 would be glad to secure any regular work which 
 would pay him $500 a year. " To coin one's brain 
 into silver at the nod of a master," he declared, " is, 
 to my thinking, the hardest task in the world." In 
 1843 he won from The Dollar Newspaper a prize 
 of $100 for the story entitled " The Gold Bug," 
 which had been rejected by Burton. That, with 
 the single exception of the other prize already men- 
 tioned, was Poe's best pay for any single produc- 
 [9] 
 
Introduction 
 
 tion. His greatest success, " The Raven," was sold 
 in 1845 to The American Review, a second-rate 
 monthly, for $15. The Mirror reprinted the poem 
 immediately, calling attention to its exceptional 
 quality, and it was soon afloat in all the papers of 
 the country. 
 
 Poe's next best achievement was " The Bells," 
 published in Sartains Magazine for November, 
 1849, the month following Poe's death. The editor 
 who accepted the poem, Professor John S. Hart, 
 once related to the present writer the particulars of 
 the transaction. Poe called with the manuscript 
 while on his way to Baltimore in the spring of 
 1849. Professor Hart paid him $15 for it. Sev- 
 eral weeks later Poe sent him the poem rewritten 
 and lengthened, asking for $10 additional, and that 
 also was paid. When the poem was published it 
 was discovered that Graham had also bought it 
 from the author at the same price. 
 
 The literary pay which Lowell and Longfellow 
 received in their early days was not sufficient to en- 
 courage either to dispense with a salary as pro- 
 fessor of $1,500 a year at Harvard College. There 
 used to be a statement current in Cambridge that, 
 about the time when Lowell was appointed to a 
 place in the diplomatic service, his neighbor, Mr. 
 John Bartlett, the compiler of Bartlett's " Familiar 
 Quotations," had realized more on three editions 
 [10] 
 
^the Pecuniary Rewards of Our Older Authors 
 
 of that work than Lowell had received for all he 
 had published. Lowell's first pay of any conse- 
 quence was earned by editorial work and articles 
 contributed to The North American Review. It 
 is inferred from a passage in Scudder's biography 
 that when Lowell had $800 in hand he felt at ease 
 in money affairs. 
 
 Longfellow enjoyed the labor of composition, pay 
 or no pay. Although the publisher of " Hyperion " 
 failed and one-half of the edition was seized by the 
 creditors, the author wrote : " No matter. I had 
 the glorious satisfaction of writing it." He also 
 informed his friend Green, in 1840, that all the 
 publishers, whether of books or periodicals, were 
 desperately poor just then and that the editor of 
 The Knickerbocker Magazine had not paid him for 
 his work during the last three years. A letter from 
 Park Benjamin at the beginning of that year makes 
 it apparent, however, that the editor of The New 
 World was not without money. " Your ballad, 
 ' The Wreck of the Hesperus,' " he sent word to 
 Longfellow, " is grand. Inclosed are $25, the sum 
 you mentioned for it." 
 
 " The Skeleton in Armor " was printed in The 
 Knickerbocker for January, 1841, and the pay for 
 it was $25. A few months later Sam Ward, who 
 was then in Wall Street, began to act as Long- 
 fellow's literary broker in New York. He wrote 
 [11] 
 
Introduction 
 
 to Ward that Benjamin wanted a couple of poems 
 and had offered $20 for each. " If you have not 
 disposed of ' Charles River,' " he directed, " send 
 it to him. I shall send him a new poem, called 
 simply ' Fennel.' It is as good perhaps as ' Excel- 
 sior.' Hawthorne, who is passing the night with 
 me, likes it better." 
 
 It was Ward who negotiated the sale of " The 
 Hanging of the Crane" with Robert Bonner of 
 The Ledger in 1874. Longfellow knew nothing 
 of the affair until Ward carried him a check for 
 $3,000 and asked for the manuscript. The money 
 proved too tempting to resist. Bonner, in addition, 
 made Ward a present of $1,000 for the service he 
 had rendered him. In 1877 Harper & Brothers 
 paid Longfellow $1,000 for the right to publish in 
 their magazine the long poem " Keramos." These 
 two amounts were the culminating prices for Long- 
 fellow's single productions. His executors esti- 
 mated in their accounting that the plates and copy- 
 rights of all his works in 1882 were worth about 
 $30,000. He had been an industrious literary 
 worker for more than fifty years. 
 
 Other items which may be added, giving evi- 
 dence of the remuneration that the most famous 
 have received, should include the first instalments 
 to Harriet Beecher Stowe. For " Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin," as a serial in The National Era, during 
 [12] 
 
The Pecuniary Rewards of Our Older Authors 
 
 part of the year 1851, she received $300. Then 
 John P. Jewett, a young Boston publisher, offered 
 to bring out the story in book form if Professor 
 Stowe would share half the expense. That offer 
 was declined. The daring publisher— many others 
 having refused to consider the book — thought twice, 
 and boldly signed an agreement on March 13, 1852, 
 to publish an edition of 5,000 copies and give the 
 author ten per cent, on all sales. The yield to her 
 in the first four months was $10,000. 
 
 As a money-earning novel Mrs. Stowe's work 
 left those of her contemporaries far in the rear. 
 That famous book is commonly believed to be the 
 most widely circulated book ever written in this 
 country. None of the recent great successes has 
 rivalled it — not even " David Harum," the chief 
 success of all, with its total sale to date of 675,000 
 copies. Hawthorne had published " The Scarlet 
 Letter " the year before " Uncle Tom " appeared, 
 and when Mrs. Stowe was counting her thousands 
 he had in the bank $1,800 as the profits, which he 
 meditated investing in a house and land somewhere 
 in the region of Lenox. 
 
 Next to writers of fiction, Prescott, the historian, 
 is believed to have had the largest financial success 
 during the years immediately following the period 
 of " Uncle Tom's Cabin " and " The Scarlet Let- 
 ter." Six months after the publication of the first 
 [ 13 ] 
 
Introduction 
 
 two volumes of " Philip the Second," in 1856, he 
 stated that in England it had been published in 
 four separate editions, and in the United States 
 8,000 sets had been sold. The impulse it had pro- 
 vided for the sales of his other works had resulted 
 in an absorption by the public of about 30,000 vol- 
 umes. That sale brought him $17,000. 
 
 But here we have only the credit side of Pres- 
 cott's account in writing history. The debit would 
 reveal, during about twenty-five years, a large ex- 
 penditure for books imported from Spain, researches 
 essential to his work, and the cost of all the stereo- 
 typed plates, which he leased to publishers after his 
 reputation had grown sufficiently to attract them. 
 
 This summary of the value of authorship in 
 money, in the long twilight, or gloaming, before 
 the dawn of a golden age, may be left to a comment 
 by Bayard Taylor, with whom a retrospect con- 
 cerning rewards and recompenses was always more 
 or less a favorite pastime. " Wealth," he wrote to 
 a Western friend in 1877, " is never attained in 
 this country, or perhaps in any other, by the highest 
 pursuit and most permanent form of literary labor. 
 Emerson is now seventy-four years old, and his last 
 volume is the only one which has approached a 
 remunerative sale. Bryant is in his eighty-third 
 year, and he could not buy a modest house with all 
 he ever received in his life from his poems. Wash- 
 [14] 
 
The Pecuniary Rewards of Our Older Authors 
 
 ington Irving was nearly seventy years old before 
 the sale of his works at home met the expenses of 
 his simple life at Sunnyside. I have no reason to 
 complain of the remuneration formerly derived 
 from the works which I know possess slight literary 
 value. But the translation of ' Faust,' to which I 
 gave all my best and freshest leisure during six or 
 seven years, has hardly yielded me as much as a 
 fortnight's lecturing." 
 
 [IS] 
 
Marion Harland 
 In Pompton, New Jersey 
 
BY MARION HARLAND* 
 
 Born in Amelia County, Virginia 
 
 Alone. 
 Judith. 
 
 The Hidden Path. 
 
 True as Steel. 
 
 The Royal Road. 
 
 Dr. Dale. 
 
 Sunnybanlc. 
 
 From My Youth Up. 
 
 Eve's Daughters. 
 
 His Great Self. 
 
 Literary Hearthstones. 
 
 Common Sense in the Household. 
 
 Loitering in Pleasant Paths. 
 
 Some Colonial Homesteads. 
 
 More Colonial Homesteads. 
 
 When Grandmamma was New. 
 
 An Old-Field School-Girl. 
 
 The National Cook-Book. 
 
 When Ghosts Walk. 
 
 * This list of books and the most of those which follow are not offered 
 as complete lists. They will merely serve to suggest some of the more im- 
 portant works by the authors named. 
 
I 
 
 Marion Harland 
 In Pompton, New Jersey 
 
 HE name of Sunnybank, an old home- 
 
 stead in Virginia, which is also the title 
 
 of Marion Harland's eighth novel, has 
 appropriately been given to her country house on 
 Ramapo Lake, in the picturesque Valley of Pompton, 
 in New Jersey. Here, with the Ramapo Moun- 
 tains circling about them, Dr. and Mrs. Terhune 
 for thirty years have lived in summer. Once they 
 spent a winter there, but winters are now generally 
 passed in the city. 
 
 Through Mrs. Terhune's kindly forethought her 
 faithful coachman met the writer of this article at 
 the railway station — and Pompton is blessed with 
 two railroads to New York — and drove him over a 
 mile and a half of macadamized road to Sunnybank. 
 With evident loyalty, he pointed out "our place 
 over there " as we came to the western edge of the 
 lake. Directly opposite, on the south shore, was 
 Sunnybank, a fine growth of native trees surround- 
 ing the house which fronts on the water. The 
 road winds along the shore to a little bridge 
 
 [19] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 which spans a narrow stream at the easterly end of 
 the lake, when it crosses to the south bank and re- 
 turns almost to the other end. 
 
 Finally, as we passed a little brown lodge, a gently 
 sloping roadway went through well-wooded grounds 
 toward the shore of the lake. Then came a turn, 
 and the carriage was at the hospitable door of 
 Sunnybank. On the southwest side of the house a 
 veranda enclosed in glass is fitted up in winter with 
 shelves filled with growing plants. Fronting the 
 lake, the porch is also enclosed in glass. On the 
 occasion of this visit, which was in winter, Marion 
 Harland's grandchildren — the children of her 
 daughters — were playing on the frozen lake with 
 skates and sled. Mrs. Terhune's library, which 
 opens into this sheltered porch, is a cosey room of 
 soft and quiet colors. 
 
 The walls and ceiling are finished in wood, 
 mellow and rich of hue, suggestive reminders of 
 Virginia or North Carolina or Georgia forests. 
 An old spinning-wheel with a bunch of flax was 
 near the fireplace, over which hung a festoon of 
 rosaries of every description arranged in intricate 
 lace-work fashion. The abundant book-shelves, oc- 
 cupying every bit of available wall space, were hung 
 with golden-brown curtains of a soft finished ma- 
 terial which a very profound masculine ignorance 
 cannot further describe. Comfort, simplicity, and 
 [20] 
 
Marion Harland 
 
 an absence of ostentation were the thoughts promptly 
 inspired by this room. Its belongings and appoint- 
 ments were subordinated to the kindly presence of 
 the mistress of Sunnybank, which maintains, as one 
 might expect, the hospitable traditions of its Vir- 
 ginia prototype. 
 
 The published pictures of Marion Harland very 
 generally give the lines of strength which one sees 
 in her face, but they quite as generally fail to repro- 
 duce that womanly softness of countenance which 
 makes her so approachable. Her voice — and a voice 
 tells more than any words it utters — is of pleasing 
 quality, sincere, not low, not high, but of moderate 
 pitch, and informed with that contagious quality of 
 wholesomeness which a very large constituency of 
 readers instinctively associate with its owner. 
 
 "You won't mind my knitting, will you?" she 
 asked, taking up her needles and a ball of crimson 
 wool. " It is near Christmas, and this is a gift for 
 a friend." 
 
 Then her deft fingers rapidly plied the two 
 needles all the while she was conversing with that 
 entire freedom from pre-occupation which makes a 
 man wish there were some masculine equivalent for 
 knitting or sewing. 
 
 " I used to be very reticent about my literary 
 work, even my past work," she said, " but I suppose 
 I have become more sensible. I never talk about 
 [21] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in I'keir Homes 
 
 anything that I am doing, not even to my husband, 
 though I frequently take counsel with him. If he 
 sees me engaged upon a piece of writing, he never 
 asks about it till I speak of it. And I observe the 
 same habit with him. If he is writing a sermon I 
 do not question him. It has been for years a mutual 
 understanding between us. I remember one day at 
 a reception people were continually saying to me, 
 ' What are you doing now ? ' until I was very weary 
 of it. I went up to Mr. Stockton, who had a tired 
 look on his face. ' I suppose, Mr. Stockton,' I said, 
 ' people don't dare to ask you what literary work 
 you are engaged upon now ? ' 
 
 " His face was wistful and weary. ' I have had 
 forty-three persons ask me that since I came into 
 this room,' he answered, ' and one even asked me 
 how much I made a year. I had a notion to say — " 
 What he had a notion to say, of course, he did not 
 say, for Mr. Stockton was too kind and gentle-spir- 
 ited to tell a man capable of asking such a question 
 the unpleasant truth it would be well for him to 
 know." 
 
 Like many another lad born south of Mason and 
 Dixon's line, the writer had made his first acquaint- 
 ance with fiction in the pages of Marion Harland. 
 " Moss Side " was one of the first books he ever 
 read, and this he had read and re-read times without 
 number. It was interesting, therefore, in recount- 
 [22] 
 
Marion Harland 
 
 ing to the author that boyish enthusiasm for the 
 book, to hear her own criticism of herself. 
 
 " I outgrew my earlier work," she said ; " I wrote 
 my first novel at sixteen. That is too young. I 
 should never allow a daughter of mine to do such 
 a thing. It seemed to be liked. Yet I was entirely 
 too young to publish anything. An author should 
 not be judged by her first books, especially if she 
 began at such an age." 
 
 " Wasn't your ' Marriage Through Prudential 
 Motives,' the first story you published, reprinted in 
 England, translated into French, retranslated back 
 into English, and reprinted in America? " 
 
 " Yes. I published it anonymously. The New 
 York Albion reprinted the English version, which 
 had been translated from the French. The Albion 
 contained nothing but English reprints. My sketch 
 had appeared in Godeys Lady's Booh, and natu- 
 rally, when The Albion republished it, Mr. Godey 
 came out and claimed it as his story. He did not 
 know who wrote it. Nobody did. I kept it wholly 
 to myself." 
 
 " That, and the success of ' Alone,' " the writer 
 said, " is almost as remarkable as the success of the 
 heroine of Mrs. Augusta Evans's ' St. Elmo.' I 
 made the acquaintance of that book by first reading 
 the burlesque on it." 
 
 " ' St. Twelmo! ' " laughed my hostess. Reply- 
 [23] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in ^heir Hotnes 
 
 ing to some allusion made to Mrs. Evans's style, 
 she said : "Mrs. Evans is one of my friends. She 
 never uses in conversation any kind of speech but 
 the simplest." 
 
 Speaking of her earlier work, which she had out- 
 grown, Mrs. Terhune remarked : " I don't think 
 it did any harm. I think the sensational literature 
 which abounds now is harmful. I had a letter only 
 a little while ago from Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. 
 She is now advanced in years, but she still pulls a 
 strong bow. She expressed herself with the great- 
 est vigor against this devastating flood of trashy 
 novels." 
 
 As we went up the stairs to Mrs. Terhune's 
 study on the next floor, she said : " Our house is 
 itself a box, with additions put on here and there 
 as we needed them." 
 
 The house, nevertheless, does not present the ap- 
 pearance one might expect from the method of 
 building. It is commodious and harmonious. The 
 study, with a beautiful outlook through two win- 
 dows upon Ramapo Lake and the encircling moun- 
 tains, which are spurs of the Blue Ridge range, had 
 very much the look of being really a literary work- 
 shop. 
 
 " Sit down in that old chair," said Mrs. Ter- 
 hune. " It's older than you will ever be. It 
 belonged to my great-great-grandmother." 
 
 [24] 
 
Marion Harland 
 
 The writer sat down, interested and pleased, in 
 the venerable heirloom, covered with a quaint pat- 
 terned cretonne, while our hostess on the opposite 
 side of her desk, which is placed at right angles to 
 the two windows between which it stands, recounted 
 her tribulations with temperance fanatics. 
 
 " In some of my cooking recipes I recommend 
 liquors, which stirs up a good many people to write 
 to me. Some years ago the editor of a religious 
 paper attacked me as the cause of thousands of 
 drunkards' graves, of widows and fatherless chil- 
 dren. He was considerate enough also to send me 
 a marked copy of the paper containing his editorial. 
 I showed it to Dr. Irenaeus Prime of The Observer, 
 who came to my defence. He wrote a reply to 
 the other editor, in which he said he thought the 
 very best thing you could do with brandy was to 
 burn it, and that the cooking of liquor evaporated 
 most of the alcohol, so that it couldn't be intoxi- 
 cating. 
 
 "My average mail for The North American 
 syndicate is five hundred letters a week. That makes 
 over twenty thousand letters a year. Besides these 
 I have my personal correspondence, which is large. 
 I could not get through with it all but for the help 
 of an exceptionally good secretary. Then I am 
 strong, and work systematically. I write an abstract 
 of my reply to every letter, either on the envelope or 
 [25] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 a piece of paper attached to it. My private corre- 
 spondence I write wholly myself. People write to 
 me about everything. Some of the letters I cannot 
 answer. Some want me to write the story of their 
 lives, and divide the profits with them. Others wish 
 me to write stories the plots of which they offer to 
 furnish on the same terms. They are not infre- 
 quently offended when I decline. One such I told I 
 could not write on all the subjects I had in my own 
 mind if I lived for a hundred years. One projector 
 of an English paper wanted me to contribute for a 
 year without compensation, with the promise that 
 after that I should be paid better than I ever had 
 been paid by any paper." 
 
 On the desk was a collection of paper-weights. 
 " It's a fad of mine," she said. " My friends are 
 continually sending all kinds of paper-weights to 
 me. I collected the rosaries you noticed down- 
 stairs over the fireplace in the East when travelling 
 with my son in 1893-94." 
 
 Her latest novel, " Dr. Dale," was written in 
 collaboration with this son, a New York journalist. 
 
 Out of one of the many bookcases in the room 
 Mrs. Terhune took a green morocco case. " This 
 is the only illustrated copy in existence," she said, 
 taking out of the case a beautifully bound volume 
 of her novel, " His Great Self." " An intimate 
 friend, the present owner of Westover, sent me 
 [26] 
 
Marion Harland 
 
 these illustrations. All the pictures are taken from 
 the original portraits." 
 
 Besides many other photographs it contained a 
 photograph of " King Carter," of Colonel Byrd, 
 and one of beautiful Evelyn Byrd. 
 
 " That picture of Evelyn Byrd on the wall there," 
 she said, pointing to a framed water-color, " was 
 made from the original at Westover. The present 
 owner of the grand old homestead gave it to me." 
 
 Out in the trees between the house and the lake, 
 as we talked, squirrels were racing with that acute 
 vitality which seems to belong peculiarly to them. 
 Mrs. Terhune pointed to them and said : " The 
 place is alive with squirrels. Although Dr. Ter- 
 hune was a great sportsman years ago, he never 
 touches a gun now. Indeed, a gun is never shot 
 off on our place. In the summer it is perfectly 
 choral with birds. We have about fifty acres here 
 and twenty on the west shore of the lake, and the 
 birds seem to know they are safe with us. That is my 
 daughter's country house over there, opposite — Mrs. 
 Christine Herrick. She calls her place ' Outlook.' 
 There is a superb view from it. She is often here, 
 and we have, besides, a very pleasant society among 
 our neighbors. Another daughter, Mrs. Van de 
 Water, lives on the other side of the lake." 
 
 A few minutes before the writer left Sunnybank 
 Dr. Terhune returned, giving a cordial greeting 
 [27] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 and subsequently taking the writer into the car- 
 riage with Mrs. Terhune, who had a call to make 
 on the way to the Erie station. 
 
 A little one-story house was seen by the drive- 
 way. " That's the doctor's den," said she. " He 
 thinks there's no place just like it in the world. 
 It's an Adirondack cabin." 
 
 As the carriage crossed the bridge Mrs. Terhune 
 pointed to the villas scattered along the western 
 slope beyond the lake. " When we came here thirty 
 years ago," she said, " we were the only ' city peo- 
 ple ' here ; all these have followed us." 
 
 " And how did you happen to come ? " 
 
 " Dr. Terhune was a great sportsman," said his 
 wife, " and used to hunt and fish all about this 
 country. Besides, he had a clerical friend who was 
 settled over the old Colonial church here." 
 
 Our author's zealous studies in the field of biogra- 
 phy and American Colonial literature have borne 
 fruit in her series of " Literary Hearthstones " and 
 " Colonial Homesteads." In recognition of her 
 Colonial researches she was the first woman admitted 
 to membership in the Virginia Historical Society; 
 she is also a vice-president of the Society for the 
 Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, and in 1894 
 was appointed a delegate from the American His- 
 torical Society to the Historical Congress held at 
 The Hague. 
 
 [28] 
 
Marion Harland 
 
 Her immense correspondence, through a large 
 newspaper syndicate, keeps her in touch with all 
 classes of American women. Of this branch of her 
 work she speaks with enthusiasm. " It is like keep- 
 ing my ringer upon the pulse of universal woman- 
 hood," she says, feelingly. " The labor is a continual 
 pleasure." 
 
 It is in large measure to this native fund of 
 wholesome and healthy human sentiment that Mar- 
 ion Harland's wellnigh unparalleled early success 
 was due. It was a privilege to see her in the after- 
 noon of life unspoiled by a lifetime of such success 
 as has come to few writers in a generation, and still 
 radiating the potent personality of a good woman. 
 
 i 
 
 [29] 
 
Bertha Runkle 
 In New York City 
 
BY MISS RUNKLE 
 Born in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey 
 The Helmet of Navarre. 
 
II 
 
 Bertha Runkle 
 In New York City 
 
 WHILE conversing with Miss Runkle it 
 is difficult occasionally not to forget that 
 one is speaking with one of the popular 
 authors of the day, whose success with a single 
 novel has been such as to make the contemporary 
 sales of "Pickwick Papers" and "Adam Bede " 
 seem absurdly small. In the first place, the author 
 of " The Helmet of Navarre " is disproportionately 
 young, and in the second place, the flattering defer- 
 ence of her manner is apt to mislead one into a 
 dogmatic statement of opinion ill-according with 
 the proprieties prescribed by renown. 
 
 Indeed, even while the victim of an interview, 
 Miss Runkle solves the continuous problem of 
 causing her interlocutor to forget the authoress in 
 the woman in a manner which, save for anachro- 
 nistic difficulties, might have been recommended for 
 imitation to Mme. de Stael. Not only mentally, 
 but also physically, the chronicler of " Etienne de 
 Mar's " adventures is above the stature of the ma- 
 jority of her sex, which partially, at least, reconciles 
 one to the inconsistencies of feminine description of 
 sword-play and bloodshed. 
 
 [33] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in l?heir Homes 
 
 " There are two kinds of novels which I like," 
 she remarked when, toward the end of a visit, in 
 the fear of a lack of " copy," the conversation had 
 been brought heroically round to an interrogatory 
 basis, " the romantic style, such as I myself write, 
 and the exactly opposite sort, the novels of manners 
 and character, such as Miss Austen's, whose books 
 I read over at least once every year." 
 
 Miss Runkle's home is in an apartment in New 
 York with her mother, Mrs. Cornelius A. Runkle. 
 Consistent with the inconsistencies of authorship, 
 the disciple of Scott and Dumas writes of the 
 adventures of the cavaliers of the picturesque, un- 
 comfortable sixteenth century in a prosaic, mod- 
 ern apartment, with all the latest " conveniences." 
 Books, however, are everywhere in evidence, form- 
 ing a bridge to the most distant lands and centuries, 
 and reminding the visitor that he is in a home where 
 they are not only written, but also read. To those 
 who have had to do with the successful authors of 
 the day, especially English and American, it is a 
 matter for continuous surprise and disappointment 
 how completely in most cases they have preserved 
 themselves from the infection of culture and from 
 the consequent widening of their circumscribed 
 horizon. 
 
 " Americans read books and attend the theatre 
 for the purpose of being amused," said Miss Runkle, 
 [34] 
 
Bertha Runkle 
 
 in the course of an attempt to analyze the baffling 
 secret of success. " Certainly they do not go to the 
 play in order to hear serious questions discussed, or 
 classic literature declaimed, as they still like to do 
 in Germany and France. Whether this taste will 
 ever change is more than any prophet can foretell. 
 One thing, however, appears certain, and that is that 
 it is men who care for the romantic novel and play, 
 while women prefer the analytical and problem sort. 
 Men, I suppose, have, so to speak, troubles enough 
 of their own, and take their recreation in a form that 
 will divert them from serious thoughts." 
 
 " Will you tell me why you chose a time and place 
 so different from your own experience for the scene 
 and period of your story ? " 
 
 " Ah, well, you see I have had no ' experience * 
 worthy the name. I should not have had the pre- 
 sumption to write of my own time, and the men and 
 women about me, because I am too ignorant, and 
 too limited. I have had too little chance to observe. 
 But all the past is at my service. I can enter that 
 field on even terms with any veteran, if I have the 
 seeing eye. And if you live yourself into that past, 
 your story ought to be as vivid, as ' realistic,' as any 
 tale of Fifth Avenue or the slums." 
 
 " Tnen you have a special taste for French his- 
 tory?" 
 
 " For all history. Ever since I could read, I have 
 [351 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in T'heir Homes 
 
 read history with unfailing delight. I have always 
 been allowed to browse in the library where I would, 
 and I know French well enough to have found great 
 pleasure in old memoirs, and half-forgotten tales, 
 and chronicles, and biographies. It seems to me that 
 I know old Paris better than I know new New York. 
 But, in fairness to me, you must remember that the 
 ' Helmet ' is not, and never was meant to be, a ' his- 
 torical novel.' It is simply a story of love, and poli- 
 tics, and adventure, which happened — really hap- 
 pened, so far as I am concerned— in the Paris of 
 Henry of Navarre, and in which, by the accident of 
 circumstance, that very amusing gentleman was con- 
 cerned, to some small extent." 
 
 " And the original idea for the book, Miss Run- 
 Ue — how did you get that? " 
 
 "Well, that came to me in a rather peculiar 
 way, through a dream that I had a number of years 
 ago. I have always had the habit of dreaming ex- 
 tremely vividly, so that often in the morning I can 
 hardly distinguish between reality and what I have 
 dreamed. On this memorable night I thought I 
 was awakened by a brilliant light shining in my 
 room, although I could not make out whence it 
 came. Getting up, I went to the window and 
 looked out to see a wall a few feet away from me 
 with three men at another window. Even in my 
 dream it struck me as strange that I had never 
 [36] 
 
Bertha Runkle 
 
 noticed this wall before, and I determined to in- 
 vestigate the matter in the morning. That was the 
 extent of the dream, but it was so vivid that it 
 made a deep impression on me, and I began won- 
 dering how I could make use of it for a story. The 
 idea then occurred to me of a lad coming up to 
 Paris and looking out of the window as I had done. 
 The lightning I invented, as, had the light been 
 actually in the room, he would of course not have 
 been able to see the faces of the men. From that 
 as a germ the whole of the book developed." 
 " How long were you actually writing it? " 
 " It is impossible to answer that question cate- 
 gorically, as I wrote and rewrote the first four or 
 five chapters several times at intervals before I set- 
 tled down earnestly to finish the book. I had 
 always had the desire to write a novel in the un- 
 certain future, and when the conception of the story 
 came to me, although I couldn't get it into shape, 
 I felt that there was something there, and for that 
 reason I couldn't let it alone, but would take it up 
 every now and then anew. When I actually began 
 continuous work, however, it went rapidly; taking 
 only about four months in all, I think, to complete 
 the story. Then I took my courage in both hands 
 and submitted the pages to The Century Company 
 to see if they would print my book. The possibility 
 of its appearing in the magazine never occurred to 
 [37] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 me, as I had been told that they never published a 
 serial by an unknown author. In a very few days 
 I received a letter asking me to come down to see 
 the editor in charge, who offered to bring the story 
 out first in the magazine. It seems they were anxious 
 just at that time to get hold of a romantic serial, and 
 Mr. Gilder, who was in England, had tried to make 
 arrangements for one over there, but had been dis- 
 appointed at the last moment. So everything hap- 
 pened to favor me, and the first instalment of the 
 story appeared in August, although it had only been 
 accepted in May." 
 
 " I suppose you are at work on a new story, are 
 you not, Miss Runkle? That seems to be the fate 
 of everyone who writes a successful book." 
 
 "Yes, I have begun another novel, but I would 
 rather not talk about it, as I have a superstition that 
 what one talks about never gets accomplished." 
 
 " How did you feel about the book when it was 
 finished? Had you faith in it, or had you lost all 
 confidence that it would succeed, like the majority 
 of authors ? " 
 
 " Well, I should have lost confidence, I think, had 
 I not read part of it to my mother and to one or 
 two friends, who all encouraged me to finish it. 
 When I am writing it seems to me most excellent, 
 but after it is once written I go to the other ex- 
 treme and imagine it is absolute trash. One thing 
 [38 3 
 
Bertha Runkle 
 
 I should certainly not like to undertake is to begin 
 the publication of a serial before it was written com- 
 pletely. Imagine getting half way through, and 
 discovering that the story absolutely refused to work 
 out as planned ! You see one's hero sometimes has 
 a way of thwarting altogether one's original plans 
 concerning him. How do you account for that? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly by the influence of some girl upon 
 him," the writer replied, and my hostess laughed 
 her genuine, whole-souled laugh, that serves to put 
 one into pleasant conceit of one's wit. 
 
 Miss Runkle's mother, by the way, is a well- 
 known figure among the literary women of New 
 York, though she has published comparatively little 
 over her own signature. For many years she held 
 the position of reader for a prominent publishing 
 house, and has edited several volumes of prose. 
 She has also conducted classes in New York, and 
 has delivered lectures on literary subjects. 
 
 " I was born under a lucky star," said the young 
 lady, as my pleasant visit ended, " but the best of 
 my good fortune is that I have my mother for my 
 kindest and severest critic." 
 
 [39] 
 
Agnes Repplier 
 
 In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
 
BY MISS REPPLIEJl 
 
 Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
 
 Books and Men. 
 
 Points of View. 
 
 In the Dozy Hours. 
 
 Essays in Idleness. 
 
 Essays in Miniature. 
 
 Philadelphia, the Place and Its People. 
 
 The Fireside Sphinx. 
 
Ill 
 
 Agnes Repplier 
 In Philadelphia^ Pennsylvania 
 
 " ^"^1 HE has revived the art, wellnigh lost in 
 these days, of the essayist. There is no 
 
 ^--/province of the essayist that she has not 
 touched, and there is nothing which she has touched 
 that she has not adorned. Her wisdom is illumi- 
 nated by her wit, and her wit is controlled by her 
 wisdom." This is the partial characterization of 
 the contributions made by Agnes Repplier to Ameri- 
 can letters, as delivered by Dr. Horace Howard 
 Furness on the 22d of February, 1902, when the 
 University of Pennsylvania honored her with the 
 degree of Doctor of Letters. While the scholarly 
 old gentleman was speaking, the whole of that great 
 gathering remained standing, and the heartiest ap- 
 plause met his closing sentence : " Into thousands 
 of homes her voice has brought learning and eleva- 
 tion, purity and refinement, and her Fireside Sphinx, 
 with well-sheathed claws, will play immortally in 
 the fields of Asphodel with Lesbia's sparrow." 
 
 Slight and somewhat gray, with kindly expres- 
 sion and the most genial, genuine manner, Miss 
 Repplier is the very embodiment of that good sense 
 which she is said most to admire in both men and 
 £ 43 3 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 women, and of that artistic temperament which 
 shows so clearly in every one of her delightful 
 essays, as well as in everything with which she has 
 surrounded herself in her Philadelphia apartments. 
 There, too, is her quaint humor, a constant quantity, 
 coming again to the surface as, looking down into 
 the city streets from her windows, she said : " Phila- 
 delphia is not pretty, and it is badly run, and has 
 a wretched climate, but it does offer one pleasant 
 people and delicious butter. 
 
 " I am not really a Philadelphian, you know," 
 she continued. " The mere chance that brought my 
 father here, and allowed me to see the light here 
 first, does not make me one. Just residence, and 
 only residence, can never make your true Philadel- 
 phian. Of course, I have lived here most of my 
 life, but in the true sense of the word I may be 
 said to have no real home, which is not saying that 
 I would not like to have one, for I should, and 
 very much; but when that home comes I hope it 
 will be in the country, and not all cramped up in 
 a city." 
 
 Whether they seem to her home or not, Miss 
 Repplier's rooms at 1900 Chestnut Street are very 
 attractive. The morning sun, given freer play over 
 the green yard of the old marble mansion across 
 the street, floods them with warmth and cheeriness, 
 bringing out the colors of the hangings and every 
 [44] 
 
Agnes Repplier 
 
 least detail of the pictures that crowd the walls. 
 Many of these are photographs of the works of the 
 old masters, Leonardo da Vinci's for the most part, 
 but the majority are of " the suave and puissant 
 cat. 
 
 On the landing of the stairs the cat-pictures 
 begin, and all about the room they continue; Mme. 
 Ronner's furry pussies and the cosey creations of 
 Miss Bonsall's brush. On the table sits in state a 
 great china Agrippina; across one of the bookcases 
 staggers another, its paws full of struggling kittens; 
 by it lies Steinlen's " Dessins sans Paroles des 
 Chats," and the entire top of a little inlaid writing- 
 desk is covered so thick with diminutive bronze cats 
 of all climes, ages, and sizes that there remains room 
 for not one more. 
 
 But the occupant loves more than cats. There 
 are many pictures of children, recalling that first 
 of her Atlantic essays on " Children, Past and Pres- 
 ent," while the great case of books that stands 
 opposite the desk where Miss Repplier does her 
 writing shows often the names of Shakespeare, 
 Scott, and Keats— and Charles Lamb, of course. 
 
 " I am just about to say good-by to all of this 
 for a time," said Miss Repplier. " In a few days 
 now I sail for Europe. The summer I expect to 
 divide between Touraine and Brittany, with Lom- 
 bardv later, and Rome for the winter. I shall not 
 [45] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in Tketr Homes 
 
 go to England if I can possibly avoid it — though 
 once upon a time I thought I should rather live in 
 London than anywhere else in the world. All told, 
 I hope to be abroad some seventeen months, though 
 I may be back within the year. 
 
 " It is very seldom that I feel I can take a whole 
 winter for a trip like this. You see I cannot often 
 get so far away from my base of supplies — my books. 
 If I could only write all out of my head now, as 
 some lucky people can do, it would be very different. 
 As for me, I can no more learn to do it than I can 
 write fiction, and I assure you that that is quite 
 out of the question. The only book I ever did all 
 on one subject was my ' Sphinx,' and it took me 
 quite seven years to finish that." 
 
 Miss Repplier's plans for work while she is 
 abroad are not extensive. Her weekly "little 
 creeds " for Life are to be continued, and she has 
 yet to finish two of six essays which had been prom- 
 ised to Mr. Alden for Harpers Magazine, but 
 beyond this her only work will be upon two vol- 
 umes of essays which are to be brought out by 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Co. in the fall of 1903. One 
 is to be made up of what Miss Repplier calls " my 
 customary excursions into literature," and the other 
 of essays rather historical than literary, the titles of 
 "The Pilgrim" and "The Headsman," already 
 chosen, being typical of those which are to follow. 
 [46] 
 
Agnes Repplier 
 
 Speaking of her work, and apropos of a remark 
 which made mention of some quotations of which 
 she had made use in one of her essays, Miss Rep- 
 plier said : " Isn't that an awful habit of mine, that 
 quoting? Really, I think it is vicious, and I prom- 
 ise you I am trying very hard to overcome it. The 
 great trouble is that half the time when I start to 
 say something I remember that someone else has 
 said it already, and so much better than I could 
 ever hope to. 
 
 " No, my memory is not so very good. It is 
 merely that I recall clearly the books I read when 
 I was a little girl. My theory is that one always 
 remembers what one likes, and very seldom what 
 one dislikes, and that, like Dr. Johnson, one is apt 
 to live for the last half of life on the memory of 
 books read in the first half." 
 
 Of that childhood of hers and its reading Miss 
 Repplier talks very amusingly. She is very sure she 
 must have been an exception to the rule for genius, 
 as she was so far from precocious that at nine she 
 was still unable to read. " At last," she says, " I 
 learned my letters with infinite tribulation out of a 
 horrible little book called ' Reading Without Tears.' 
 It was a brown book, and had on its cover two 
 stout and unclothed cupids holding the volume open 
 between them and making an ostentatious pretence 
 of enjoyment. It might have been possible for 
 [47] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 cupids who needed no wardrobes and sat comfort- 
 ably on clouds to like such lessons, but for an or- 
 dinary little girl in frock and pinafore they were 
 simply heartbreaking. 
 
 " Had it only been my good fortune to be born 
 twenty years later spelling would have been left out 
 of my early discipline, and I should have found 
 congenial occupation in sticking pins or punching 
 mysterious bits of clay at a kindergarten. But when 
 I was young the world was sadly unenlightened in 
 these matters ; the plain duty of every child was to 
 learn how to read, and the more hopelessly dull I 
 showed myself to be the more imperative became 
 the need of forcing some information into me. For 
 two bitter years I had for my constant companion 
 that hated ' reader ' which began with such isolated 
 statements as ' Anne had a cat ' and ended with a 
 dismal story about a little African boy named 
 Sam." 
 
 From the first, however, it seems that Mrs. Rep- 
 plier was a firm believer in her daughter's future. 
 " You, Agnes, can write," she used to say, and at 
 the earliest moment possible Agnes tried to fulfil 
 those hopes. She wrote first for the daily papers, 
 then for a religious monthly in New York, and 
 then at last sent an essay to The Atlantic. To this 
 day she is grateful to Mr. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 
 who was at that time editor of the magazine, for 
 [48] 
 
Agnes Repplier 
 
 accepting and publishing " Children, Past and Pres- 
 ent," and tells many stories of his encouragement, 
 which did so much, she says, to smooth the first 
 miles of the road of letters. 
 
 " One gets some idea of the sort of man — and 
 friend — which Mr. Aldrich was," she continued, 
 " by remembering that it was he who found and 
 helped to their first real successes Elizabeth Rob- 
 bins, who is now Mrs. Pennell, and Amelie Rives. 
 I recall, by the way, how he once said to me of the 
 ' Brother to Dragons,' ' Miss Rives will never do 
 anything better than this.' She never did anything 
 quite so good." 
 
 There is another story which Miss Repplier tells, 
 somewhat at her own expense, though it also seems 
 to support her belief that she is not a Philadelphian. 
 It seems that one of the first readers of her early 
 essays in The Atlantic was Dr. Furness, Sr., the 
 father of the editor of " The Variorum Shake- 
 speare." Going to Miss Irwin, now President of 
 Radcliffe College, Cambridge, he asked: "Do you 
 happen to know a Boston woman who is contribut- 
 ing to The Atlantic over the signature of 1 Agnes 
 Repplier ' ? " " Bless you," replied Miss Irwin, 
 " she lives at your very door. Once she was a 
 student in my school in Philadelphia, and she lives 
 there to-day." 
 
 [49] 
 
Margaret Deland 
 In Boston, Massachusetts 
 
BY MRS. DELAND 
 
 Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania 
 
 John Ward, Preacher. 
 
 The Old Garden and Other Verses. 
 
 Sidney. 
 
 The Story of a Child. 
 Philip and His Wife. 
 Old Chester Tales. 
 
IV 
 
 Margaret Deland 
 
 In Boston, Massachusetts 
 
 IT is scarcely fifteen years since " John Ward, 
 Preacher," shook some of our theological and 
 domestic traditions to their centre. The power 
 o:>f characterization, the gifts of dialogue and de- 
 scription, and the knowledge of life and of how to 
 tcell a story that would ordinarily have absorbed the 
 c;ritic and the reader were swallowed up in the 
 ttheological dogma the book questioned, and which 
 ai large and hysterical part of the novel-reading pub- 
 Hic insisted upon confounding with the fundamental 
 ttruths of Christianity. 
 
 The attitude of critics and readers, however, did 
 mot prevent " John Ward's " translation into Dutch, 
 IFrench, and German; or, fortunately, did not pre- 
 went Mrs. Deland from holding steadily to her 
 iideals of inspiration. For it is this clear and fear- 
 lless insight, and large, sympathetic tolerance united 
 With simplicity that give distinction to style which 
 imake her one of the most interesting and significant 
 ifigures in the American world of letters. 
 
 The writer's talk with her was happily unleav- 
 [53l 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in 'Their Homes 
 
 ened by the mission of the reporter on the one hand, 
 or the constraint of talking for publication on the 
 other. She was met in her own home, as any 
 stranger might have met her, who felt that a visit 
 to Boston would be incomplete without a personal 
 acquaintance with the author of " John Ward," 
 "Philip and His Wife," "Old Chester Tales," 
 " The Wisdom of Fools," and " Sidney." 
 
 The spotless white steps and brass knocker had 
 a glint of Old Chester in them; and the lofty hall, 
 with its spiral stairway, the fireplace, in which 
 great logs were burning, a glimpse of flowering 
 plants through the glass doors leading from the 
 dining-room, and a delightful impression of space, 
 freshness, and delicate reserves had the charm of 
 something remotely familiar in surroundings seen 
 for the first time. Mrs. Deland's home is as in- 
 dividual as her work or herself and conveys the 
 charm of associations garnered from the homes she 
 has made real in her books, with the suggestion and 
 the stimulus of a broad and artistic culture ex- 
 pressed through color and form, through habits of 
 taste and occupation- — the nameless atmosphere that 
 penetrates and envelops the home of intellectual and 
 sympathetic activity. 
 
 Those who know that Mrs. Deland was born in 
 Pittsburg have had much amusement in the criti- 
 cisms that trace a distinct relation between the 
 [54] 
 
Margaret Deland 
 
 moral genius of her books and her New England 
 origin, and the inheritances of birth and environ- 
 ment, and read a personal record into the varying 
 psychological problems of " John Ward, Preacher," 
 "Philip and His Wife," and "Sidney." Mrs. 
 Deland says her life has been too uneventful to 
 claim public interest, and too happy to make his- 
 tory. On the death of her parents she was taken 
 into the family of her uncle, the Hon. Bakewell 
 Campbell, of Pittsburg, and brought up by her 
 uncle and aunt with a tenderness that supplied 
 what might have come from the father and mother 
 she had never known. Mrs. Campbell took great 
 care that her adopted daughter was provided with 
 the best books. All of Scott was open to her, and 
 very much of Hawthorne ; and when she was a lit- 
 tle girl parts of the Spectator and Tatler were 
 given her to read, but her aunt apparently paid no 
 attention to the " very lurid imaginings " the child 
 began at the age of nine to set down. 
 
 This judicious discouragement of self-conscious- 
 ness and intelligent concern for what she read are 
 the early influences that have fostered Mrs. De- 
 land's sense of the obligations and ideals of creative 
 work and laid the foundations of her unaffected 
 and admirable English. She herself considers it a 
 great mistake to encourage the literary efforts of 
 children, believing that it fills them with self-con- 
 [55] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in ^Lheir Homes 
 
 sciousness, and also that the creative impulse if 
 noticed too much in youth very quickly burns itself 
 out. 
 
 In answer to a question as to the influence col- 
 lege life had had upon her intellectual development, 
 the writer was told that she had never been to col- 
 lege. " When I was seventeen I went to Pelham 
 Priory to boarding-school — a delightful old school 
 kept by English ladies. In those days the girls had 
 no examinations, and they studied or not, as they 
 wanted to. They were instructed in deportment 
 and religion, to respect their elders and betters, to 
 enter and leave the room with dignity, to fear God, 
 and to disregard man as much as possible, for, as 
 the housekeeper remarked to me once, ' The hac- 
 tions of the young ladies in regard to young gentle- 
 men are so hexceedingly silly.' Other things were 
 incidental, and might or might not be acquired, 
 according to the inclination of the pupils. My in- 
 clination, I suppose, was neither for religion nor 
 deportment, and certainly not for the ordinary 
 branches of education. The result is that I am a 
 very ill-educated woman to-day. After this episode 
 I studied at the Cooper Institute for a year, and 
 then taught mechanical and industrial drawing at 
 the New York Normal College." 
 
 It was soon after Houghton, Mifflin & Co. pub- 
 lished her volume of poems that Mrs. Deland began 
 [56] 
 
Margaret Deland 
 
 to write " John Ward." She was nearly two years 
 in writing it. In fact, she rewrote the whole book 
 four times, and the chapter including John Ward's 
 death-bed — which, in its reticence and omissions, 
 reaches a high level of art — over and over again. 
 In "Philip and His Wife," "The Wisdom of 
 Fools," " Sidney," indeed in everything that Mrs. 
 Deland has written, it is not what happens, but 
 how it affects the people to whom it happens, that 
 interests her. The tendencies and problems of life 
 — the tendencies making the problems — are her 
 chief concern. 
 
 The popularity of " Old Chester Tales " has 
 been a surprise to her, and that people should be 
 fond of so irritating a person as Dr. Lavendar 
 something of a puzzle. He, by the way, is com- 
 posite; partly made up of two old uncles of Mrs. 
 Deland's, partly the result of unconscious cerebra- 
 tion, the whole passed through a conscious imagi- 
 native medium. " The Child's Mother," one of the 
 most finished of the " Old Chester Tales," had its 
 inception in the Foundling Hospital for Children 
 in London ; and " The Law and the Gospel " — 
 from " The Wisdom of Fools " — in the author's 
 effort to reform and reinstate a working girl. 
 
 " The Wisdom of Fools " and " Sidney " are the 
 books Mrs. Deland has had the greatest pleasure in 
 writing, and the books that represent to her the 
 [57] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in 'Their Homes 
 
 nearest approach to her ideals of work. When we 
 were talking over the chapter in which Sidney finds 
 God, and love, and heartbreak, and her own soul, 
 she told me that when she read that chapter to 
 Phillips Brooks — she was in the habit of reading 
 him the week's work — he said : " I would rather 
 have had you write that than anything you have 
 ever written — you have got to the bottom of what 
 makes the great worth while of life, of living." 
 Then, after a pause : " Why don't you write a com- 
 monplace story about commonplace people who fall 
 in love in a commonplace way and marry and are 
 happy ever after? " 
 
 Mrs. Deland had never written anything since 
 her compositions at Pelham Priory until in the win- 
 ter of 1885, when it occurred to her one day that 
 she would make some pen-and-ink drawings for her 
 adopted mother. She reflected, however, that it 
 would be nice to have a verse or two of poetry on 
 each page of the little book she contemplated mak- 
 ing; but when she came to draw the flowers she 
 could not seem to find just the verses that she 
 wanted. " And so I remember one morning, when 
 I was going into town on the prosaic errand of 
 marketing, I began to say over in my mind certain 
 things about flowers which I thought I could use. 
 The first thing that I made up were the lines about 
 the Succory, beginning: 
 
 [58] 
 
Margaret Deland 
 
 Oh, not in ladies' gardens, 
 
 My peasant posy, 
 
 Smile thy dear blue eyes, etc. 
 
 " The next was: 
 
 Oh, ruddy lover ; 
 Oh, brave red clover. 
 
 " Fearing that I might forget the lines, I wrote 
 them down on a piece of brown paper which I 
 begged from my butcher. Later in the day I went 
 to the house of a friend to luncheon, and my slip 
 of paper, which I happened to put down on her 
 desk, caught her eye. She read the lines, and asked 
 who wrote them. I admitted that I had written 
 them. She expressed unbelief, and then astonish- 
 ment, and finally took possession of the paper, say- 
 ing, laughingly, that she meant to keep my auto- 
 graph poems. It all seemed a joke to me, and when, 
 therefore, the next morning I received a letter from 
 this friend saying that she had shown the little 
 verses to Dr. Holmes, Mr. Aldrich, Mr. Howells, 
 and Mr. Boyle O'Reilly — who were then all of 
 them living in Boston — and that they had spoken 
 most kindly of them, I could hardly believe my 
 eyes. 
 
 " But the friendly encouragement of these gen- 
 tlemen seemed to be a match set to gunpowder, and 
 [591 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 for the next few months I wrote pretty constantly. 
 This same friend kept copies of all that I wrote, 
 and by and by, without saying anything to me, sent 
 some of them to Mr. Alden of Harper s Magazine. 
 Mr. Alden took the little poem called 1 Succory,' 
 and sent my friend for me a check for $10. I don't 
 think that I shall ever again experience the peculiar 
 emotion which that check caused me. Of course I 
 was perfectly delighted, but I had at the same time 
 a shocked feeling; to receive money for what I had 
 written was horrible. I fancy that every artist feels 
 this more or less; but I observe that we all get 
 over it very quickly." 
 
 The library in which Mrs. Deland does her work 
 is a big, sunny room, with a long window going 
 entirely across the side of the house. Under this 
 window are her bookcases, and on top of her book- 
 cases are all her pots of hyacinths and jonquils. 
 She distinctly disclaims the sort of inspiration upon 
 which the fledgling insists. " It is my habit to sit 
 down at my desk about nine o'clock in the morning, 
 whether I feel like it or not, and work if I can 
 until half-past twelve or one. Sometimes, of course, 
 one has a distinct disinclination for work, but I 
 believe that the habit of industry is to a great ex- 
 tent the creator of inclination. I have tried to act 
 upon this theory, even though very frequently the 
 work which I would do under pressure of habit 
 [60] 
 
Margaret Deland 
 
 would be torn up the next day when inclination 
 was the moving cause of writing." 
 
 Mrs. Deland has never experienced the cruelty 
 of publishers about which we hear so much. " Most 
 kindly, courteous, and liberal friends," she calls 
 them. 
 
 The author of " John Ward " and " Sidney " is 
 of a noble presence that withdraws from rather 
 than invites intrusion upon the precincts of intel- 
 lectual and emotional processes, of a gracious and 
 graceful hospitality, and wholly free from the self- 
 consciousness and egotism so far removed from the 
 reticence they would ape* 
 
 [61] 
 
i 
 
Lucas Malet 
 
 In London, England 
 
BY LUCAS MALET 
 
 Born in EversUy Rectory, England 
 
 Mrs. Lorimer. 
 
 Colonel Enderby's Wife. 
 
 A Counsel of Perfection. 
 
 The Wages of Sin. 
 
 The History of Sir Richard Calmady. 
 
V 
 
 Lucas Malet 
 
 In London, England 
 
 WITH rare regard for an appointment, 
 Mrs. St. Leger Harrison, or, as she is 
 known in the world of letters, Lucas 
 Malet, resisted the blandishments of rural friends 
 and remained in London over Sunday to receive the 
 writer of this sketch at her home on Campden Hill. 
 Mrs. Harrison does not like America, I am in- 
 clined to think, although she is too courteous to 
 say so; but since there are said to be quite a num- 
 ber of Americans in London who share her opinion, 
 it is hard to see that she is to blame. Her unique 
 visit to this country, made for the purpose of gath- 
 ering material for her novel, " The Gateless Bar- 
 rier," was of too short duration to enable her to 
 obtain more than a superficial knowledge of Amer- 
 ica, but as she is endowed with an exceedingly sharp 
 eye and a keen sense of the ridiculous, it may be 
 that her strictures are not altogether without justi- 
 fication. At least, let us not prove ourselves, like 
 the English themselves, incapable of learning from 
 other nations. 
 
 " The main drawback to American society," said 
 [6s] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in iJieir Homes 
 
 my hostess, as we sat in her cosey little drawing- 
 room, discussing afternoon teas and other interna- 
 tional subjects, " is that the young girl is of too 
 much importance. I should like to see your influ- 
 ential men give more tone to society, as they do in 
 England. Young girls, of course, are very pretty 
 and sweet and charming, but it is not to be expected 
 that they should be intellectually interesting. The 
 consequence is that, when you grant them such an 
 important place, men of thought and position come 
 to regard society as beneath their dignity, unworthy 
 of serious consideration. However, as America 
 makes progress, your women are likely to find them- 
 selves forced to play a less important role." 
 
 " You don't seem to have an especially high 
 opinion of your own sex, Mrs. Harrison," I said; 
 " I thought women always stood up for one an- 
 other." 
 
 " Well, the fact of the matter is that women 
 can't teach me anything I don't already know, being 
 a woman myself, whereas men can teach me a great 
 deal." 
 
 To reach Bullingham Mansions, Pitt Street, 
 Campden Hill, Kensington, is by no means a sim- 
 ple matter, just as it is by no means easy to leave 
 after you have once found your way into Mrs. 
 Harrison's hospitable parlors. Pitt Street lies hid- 
 den away at the end of one of those unsolvablc 
 [66] 
 
Lucas Malet 
 
 mazes that make of certain parts of the metropolis 
 a succession of tiny residential settlements, distinct, 
 silent, and delightful, and ready at hand for General 
 Mercier for " reconcentradoing " purposes when the 
 gallant Frenchman shall have carried out his plan 
 of invading England. At the other end of the lit- 
 tle " No thoroughfare " stands the high-shouldered, 
 narrow-chested house in which Mr. Hornung pro- 
 duces his burglar stories, in dangerous proximity, 
 one would think, to the Lord Chief Justice, who 
 resides directly opposite. 
 
 Despite the curious remoteness, however, of Mrs. 
 Harrison's residence, I found that the insidious 
 national custom of five o'clock tea had gained a 
 foothold even here, and that the hand a-tremble 
 and " the burning forehead and parching tongue," 
 the result of previous indulgences, were not re- 
 garded as adequate excuse for abstemiousness. In- 
 deed, although hitherto unremarked, there can be 
 little doubt that the tea-table is the cornerstone of 
 the British Empire; for how can it be otherwise 
 that forty million men, women, and children who 
 collectively poison themselves every day of the year 
 at a given signal, should think alike on minor ques- 
 tions of public policy, such as the Boer war and 
 the fiscal policy of India? 
 
 " I quite forgot we were having an interview," 
 said my hostess at parting, and I then discovered 
 
I 
 
 mm 
 
 Women Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 that I, too, had quite forgotten the nature of the 
 occasion, having succeeded in demolishing the pile 
 of cookies which she had insidiously placed before 
 me in knowledge of the weakness of my sex. 
 
 Mrs. Harrison is tall and large, distinctly Eng- 
 lish in appearance, and reminiscent, I should im- 
 agine, of her father, Charles Kingsley. While 
 apparently not abnormally observant, she manages 
 to follow, as I discovered on a later occasion, simul- 
 taneous occurrences of the most divergent nature. 
 Indeed, I was constantly thinking of the hero in 
 " Carissima " with his preternatural gift for observ- 
 ing the run-down condition of people's shoes, and 
 wondering whether she would notice that mine had 
 been made in Germany. 
 
 " How did you first come to write, Mrs. Harri- 
 son ? " I asked during the disappearance of the 
 cookies and between two more or less lengthy dis- 
 cussions of America, and incidentally also of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 " Well, I started to write because my husband 
 and myself needed money," replied my hostess, with 
 the delightful frankness that is one of England's 
 greatest charms. " My first book was written when 
 I was twenty-seven, and, as it turned out, was suc- 
 cessful; but as this, of course, was not to be fore- 
 seen with certainty, I took a nom de plume to hide 
 behind in case of failure." 
 
 [68] 
 
Lucas Malet 
 
 " How did you chance upon the combination 
 ' Lucas Malet ' ? It has quite an exotic sound." 
 
 " Well, Lucas was the maiden name of my 
 father's mother, and Miss Malet was her aunt, and 
 hence his great-aunt. She was a very clever woman, 
 it seems, and it was from her that we inherited 
 whatever brains we happen to have. However, it 
 was Max Miiller who first put the idea of writing 
 into my head. He married a cousin of mine, and 
 he always used to say that some day I would be a 
 writer." 
 
 " Doesn't the hopelessness of getting up some- 
 thing new frequently come over you, Mrs. Harri- 
 son? It has, of course, already all been said a 
 thousand times before, hasn't it ? " 
 
 " But that isn't the right view of the matter. 
 It is all new at the same time that it is old. It 
 depends upon the interpreter. It isn't necessary to 
 have a new setting; each individual is a novelty, 
 absolutely unlike all other people. But as far as 
 Englishmen are concerned, it is not in England that 
 you must study them. Here they are more or less 
 all alike, and wear the same kind of clothing, and 
 do and say pretty much the same sort of thing 
 under like circumstances. To really know your 
 Englishman you must study him in India or South 
 Africa, away from civilization, face to face with 
 nature and the problems of primitive life. Then it 
 [693 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 is that the magnificent qualities of pluck and en- 
 durance and courage come out that have made 
 England what she is. But tell me, weren't you 
 terribly shocked by the Venezuelan dispute between 
 America and England? Didn't the mere thought 
 of war between our countries strike you as awful 
 in the extreme ? " 
 
 This was rather a disconcerting question, as I 
 had not been in the habit of regarding either the 
 war of 1776 or of 1 8 12 as great disasters, nor Mr. 
 Cleveland's reprimand of a later day as particularly 
 regrettable. Mrs. Harrison, however, fortunately 
 relieved me of the necessity of replying. 
 
 " To us," she continued, " the thought of going 
 to war with America was altogether grotesque, 
 horrid, almost unthinkable. But don't think we 
 were afraid," she hastened to add with a laugh; 
 " we should have gone on in the quiet, unflurried 
 way we always do. We were simply waiting for 
 you to find some cause to unite on, since you had 
 none, so far as we could see. I know a good deal 
 about America, you know, as I have cousins in New 
 York. One of the youngest of them, a college lad, 
 was recently over here on a visit to us; he was a 
 dear boy, but somehow he seemed to have the feel- 
 ing that we wanted to take his nationality away 
 from him, and that it was therefore necessary for 
 him to give constant expression to his Americanism." 
 [70] 
 
Lucas Malet 
 
 " That is only natural, Mrs. Harrison," I said. 
 " You know, in a foreign country one always has 
 a chip on one's shoulder." 
 
 " A chip on one's shoulder — what does that 
 mean ? " she asked, with puzzled look ; so I was 
 forced to explain to her the meaning and origin of 
 this peculiarly American expression, which appar- 
 ently appealed strongly to her literary sense of the 
 picturesque. 
 
 " Until one understands American women," re- 
 marked my hostess, in the course of an interchange 
 of opinion on the delectable sex on both sides of 
 the Atlantic, " one is apt to misunderstand them 
 sadly. This is because things which they do and 
 say, quite without further implication, would inevi- 
 tably mean much more in the case of Englishwomen. 
 American women's flirting doesn't mean so much 
 as Englishwomen's." 
 
 " There is really comparatively very little going 
 on under the surface in New York society, Mrs. 
 Harrison; as I once heard one of the Four Hun- 
 dred state, there is not enough going on to make it 
 interesting. I wonder whether as much can be said 
 of London? " 
 
 " Well, I mustn't betray my countrywomen," 
 was the judicious reply, " but one thing is certain. 
 Englishwomen are much more ready than American 
 women to act from the heart, rather than the head. 
 [ 7i ] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in Their Ho??ies 
 
 But, now, let me ask you a question. Do you think 
 American business men are as scrupulously, sensi- 
 tively honest in their transactions as Englishmen ? " 
 
 This is a question for which I was totally un- 
 prepared, as I had devoted but little time to con- 
 sideration of commercial honesty either in New 
 York or London. In the circumstances, therefore, 
 I was compelled to content myself with a general 
 reply tending to show the universal depravity of 
 human nature, escaping thus with unscathed pa- 
 triotism. Subsequent to my visit to Mrs. Harrison, 
 however, I learned of the English custom of paying 
 " gentlemen " of high standing for introductions to 
 influential business men of their acquaintance, and 
 this, taken in conjunction with the English abuse 
 of the " guinea pig," should serve, I think, as a 
 belated but all-sufficient answer to her question. 
 
 [72] 
 
Frances Hodgson Burnett 
 In London and New Tork 
 
BY MRS. BURNETT 
 
 Born in Manchester, England 
 
 That Lass o' Lowrie's. 
 Hawarth. 
 
 Little Lord Fauntleroy. 
 
 A Fair Barbarian. 
 
 Through One Administration. 
 
 The One I Knew the Best of All. 
 
 Louisiana. 
 
 Sara Crewe. 
 
 A Lady of Quality. 
 
 Little Saint Elizabeth. 
 
 His Grace of Ormonde. 
 
 In Connection with the Willoughby Claim. 
 
 The Making of a Marchioness. 
 
VI 
 
 Frances Hodgson Burnett 
 
 In London and New Tork 
 
 MRS. BURNETT is an unusual mixture 
 of English and American characteristics. 
 At times she is quite English, and then 
 again quite American. 
 
 " I do so love America," she said, enthusiastically, 
 " with her energy and initiative and fearlessness. 
 There is something in the atmosphere there that 
 gets into one's blood and puts new nerve and ardor 
 into one. I could not be happy if I thought I was 
 never going back again. I love the fearlessness of 
 the people." 
 
 This was said, at her home in London, with all 
 the fire of the true daughter of the Republic, who 
 by circumstances was forced to live across the water, 
 but whose heart turned longingly to the home on 
 this side the sea. Even the voice was American. 
 The next moment, however, she was speaking of 
 the green lawns and ancient trees and storied tur- 
 rets of her English country home, some miles from 
 London, with the same sense of pride and satisfac- 
 tion, albeit in the altered tone of one whose heart 
 and affections are bounded by the shores of Albion. 
 [75 1 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in tfkeir Homes 
 
 Mrs. Burnett's experience was precisely the re- 
 verse of Little Lord Fauntleroy's. She was born 
 in the old town of Manchester, and did not go to 
 America — " emigrate " was the proper word in 
 those days when the sea journey was a redoubtable 
 undertaking — until her fourteenth year. 
 
 44 When we went out to Tennessee," she said, 
 speaking of that time, " everyone said good-by to 
 us as if for life, as if taking leave of us forever, 
 convinced they would never see us again. And it 
 looked just as serious to us as it did to them. I 
 was still young enough to have no fixed traits and 
 prejudices, to be able still to assimilate new im- 
 pressions and views of life, to be modified by new 
 surroundings. In many of my views I am thor- 
 oughly American. I hold that no one to-day, in 
 our complex civilization, can be thoroughly and 
 symmetrically developed unless he knows and lives 
 in both countries, England and America. We are 
 nowadays too complicated and many-sided to be 
 satisfied by what either one of these countries alone 
 can offer us ; we need both of them. I have a home 
 in England and one in America, and I live in them 
 by turns. I can't remain, however, in either more 
 than three years without feeling the necessity for a 
 change, the longing for my other ' native land.' I 
 am one of the very few privileged persons who have 
 the right to talk about both America and England 
 [76] 
 
Frances Hodgson Burnett 
 
 as they like, to criticise both of them and point out 
 their faults, for I belong to both of them." 
 
 Mrs. Burnett at the time of this talk was living 
 in Lord Buccleuch's house, in Charles Street, which 
 is one of the quiet, aristocratic residential streets 
 branching off Berkeley Square. No more serious 
 disturbance than that of a hand-organ ever breaks 
 the leisured quiet of this exclusive section of Lon- 
 don town, which offers many a lord and lady shel- 
 ter. The suggestion of ancestors was in the air — 
 in the ancient tapestries, in the seasoned portraits 
 on the walls, and in the weighty bearing of the 
 flunkeys. The liveried individual who opened the 
 door for me was oppressed by the weight of the 
 ducal dignity which still clung to the house, and as 
 he threw open the portal through which his Grace 
 had so often passed he made me feel for the first 
 time in life the paramount necessity of a title — it 
 requires courage to announce one's self to a lackey 
 of that sort as merely " Mister." 
 
 In the music-room, upstairs, Mrs. Burnett was 
 experimenting delightedly with a newly acquired 
 pianola, drowning melody and harmony by the deep, 
 unregulated " tum-tum " of the bass, but content- 
 edly flattering herself that they were making music. 
 
 Mrs. Burnett is a better writer than musician. 
 In stature she is rather below the average of the 
 new generation, and in manner not devoid of pleas- 
 [77] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in 'tket'r Homes 
 
 ing, appealing femininity, despite her reputation as 
 an excellent woman of business. She is one of the 
 few present-day writers of fiction who find it profit- 
 able to dispense with the services of a literary agent, 
 who in most cases is able to obtain higher prices 
 for literary wares than the producers themselves. 
 
 " When Mr. Gilder of The Century was over 
 here last summer," she said, in speaking of her 
 work then in hand, " he came to visit me down in 
 the country, and incidentally I told him the out- 
 line of a story that I had in mind to write. 
 
 " ' Why don't you write that for The Century? ' 
 he asked me when I had finished. I had not 
 thought of that before, but I told him I would see 
 what I could make out of it. So I set to work and 
 have been writing at it ever since. Unfortunately, 
 however, I found that I should not be able to get 
 it completed in time to begin that year in the maga- 
 zine; so, as my name had been announced in the 
 prospectus, I sat down and wrote a novelette for 
 them, which I called ' The Making of a Mar- 
 chioness.' 
 
 " It is strange, isn't it," said Mrs. Burnett, 
 when we had drifted on to the question of the 
 genesis of literary production, " what odd and often- 
 times seemingly foreign ideas will suggest an idea 
 for a story. People often come to you with a sub- 
 ject for a story, or, indeed, with the story complete; 
 [78] 
 
Frances Hodgson Burnett 
 
 but, of course, one can never do anything with a 
 suggestion of that sort. It is only the suggestions 
 that come of themselves and that seize hold of your 
 imagination that are really worth anything. 
 
 "It was in that roundabout way that I got the 
 idea for ' A Lady of Quality,' which I think is my 
 most successful book. I was living in London, in 
 Portland Place, at the time, in one of those old 
 houses, such as they don't build nowadays, with the 
 most wonderful, vast wine-cellars. These cellars 
 were my constant delight, and when I had dinner- 
 parties I used often to take my guests down to show 
 them my catacombs. They belonged to an age 
 when men were supposed to carry their three bot- 
 tles. Well, on one occasion I took some guests 
 down, as usual, to show them the cellars, which 
 consisted of several apartments opening into each 
 other, the walls of each lined with stands for hold- 
 ing the bottles. The last apartment communicated 
 with the upper story by a staircase, which could, of 
 course, be cut off from above. While showing it 
 to them I laughingly observed what a splendid 
 place it would be in which to hide a murdered 
 man. One of my guests replied that I ought to 
 choose that spot as the scene of a story. At the time 
 I said, ' Nonsense,' but somehow the idea took hold 
 of my imagination, until it became a regular obses- 
 sion, giving me no rest until I wrote the story. 
 [79] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in ^their Homes 
 
 " My first idea was to have a man commit the 
 crime, and I cast about in my mind for a motive — 
 debt, jealousy, love? Then it suddenly struck me 
 how much more dramatic it would be to have a 
 young girl do it, to have her murder a man who 
 had a hold on her, and to hide his body in the 
 cellar. In order to conceive of a girl capable of 
 such a deed it was necessary to imagine her brought 
 up in the way described in ' A Lady of Quality,' 
 which, of course, could only occur in a period such 
 as that in which the story takes place. After 
 I had the main idea of the story and the historical 
 setting, the writing of it was very easy and quick 
 work; indeed, it wrote itself, so to speak. I began 
 the book in Washington, but finished it in Portland 
 Place." 
 
 Washington was long the home of Mrs. Bur- 
 nett. Indeed it was from that city that she went, 
 several years ago, to take up a new home in Eng- 
 land. I have referred here mainly to the London 
 house in which she received me. Her true English 
 home, however, is far from the city, near a quaint 
 and ancient village of Kent that recalls the pictures 
 painted there in the long ago by Constable. When 
 she lives there her favorite place for writing is in 
 the rose-garden, remote from the house itself. 
 
 Mrs. Burnett has since made a long stay in 
 America. The winter of 1902- 1903 she passed in 
 [80] 
 
Frances Hodgson Burnett 
 
 New York. Here the writer has had the pleasure 
 of seeing her at one of her Sunday afternoons at 
 home. In one of those modern streets just olf the 
 western confines of Central Park stands this house, 
 with its white stone front and round windows. 
 Within were rooms carpeted with rugs and warmed 
 by cannel coal. But here she was settled for one 
 year only. Back to England she, doubtless, was 
 soon to go. 
 
Kate Douglas W ggin 
 In New York 
 
BY MRS. WIGGIN 
 
 Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
 
 The Birds' Christmas Carol. 
 
 Timothy's Quest. 
 
 A Cathedral Courtship. 
 
 Polly Oliver's Problem. 
 
 Marm Lisa. 
 
 Penelope's Progress. 
 
 Penelope's Experiences in Ireland. 
 
6 
 
VII 
 
 Kate Douglas Wiggin 
 In New York 
 
 KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN, in private 
 life Mrs. George C. Riggs, the author of 
 the " Penelope " rambles in Ireland and 
 Scotland and " The Birds' Christmas Carol," which 
 has been translated for readers of almost every race 
 in the world, lives in New York during the win- 
 ter months. Although in New York the story- 
 teller devotes most of her time to social obligations, 
 to her duties as Vice-President of the Free Kinder- 
 garten Association, and to a host of ambitious young 
 women who are in the city studying to accomplish 
 something besides marriage, there is a room set apart 
 for her desk, where work that has been done in the 
 summer must be completed. 
 
 " I seem to be so dragged about between scat- 
 tered interests — my household duties, my music, my 
 social obligations, my girl students, my friends — 
 that I scarcely ever do much writing here," said 
 Mrs. Wiggin. Then she described the little cor- 
 ner in Hollis, Maine, where, as soon as the winter's 
 frown has passed away, she goes and works. This 
 house she has oddly named " Quillcote-on-Saco," 
 and there, when the weather is fine, Mrs. Wiggin 
 [85] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 has a working nook in the orchard, which she calls 
 her " apple-tree study." " Sweet atmosphere is such 
 a stimulus to study, both mental and moral," she 
 said, in telling of this luxurious abandonment to 
 the inspiration of literary work. One can almost 
 trace the faint, wholesome scent of those apple- 
 blossoms between the lines of her pages. 
 
 The " Penelope " series was completed a few 
 years ago, and since then Mrs. Wiggin has under- 
 taken a work the labor of which she did not realize 
 would be so great. In collaboration with her sis- 
 ter, Miss Nora Archibald Smith, she has compiled 
 two volumes of selected poetry for young people. 
 The first volume is for children from six to ten 
 years of age, and called " The Posy Ring." The 
 second volume, for older children, is called " Golden 
 Numbers," having on the title-page this line : " To 
 add to golden numbers, golden numbers ! " 
 
 " I anticipated with pleasure the reading that 
 such books would entail," said Mrs. Wiggin, " but 
 I never dreamed that I should become so involved 
 in the work that it would take all my time from 
 creative writing. We have had to read nearly 
 every book of poetry ever published, and the editing 
 and classification have led us into no end of labor." 
 
 " What should the child read? " asked the writer 
 of this article. 
 
 " Everything good. Fairy stories, by all means, 
 [86] 
 
Kate Douglas Wiggin 
 
 and poetry. We have endeavored to select all the 
 famous verse that will hold the attention of chil- 
 dren. I have written for each of the seventeen 
 sections in ' Golden Numbers ' an ' Interleaf,' which 
 is a simple, general criticism and suggestion for the 
 child, to appeal to his or her imagination and de- 
 veloping taste," said Mrs. Wiggin, as she brought 
 out the type-written manuscript. Instead of util- 
 izing anthologies of poetry in the work of selection, 
 she explained that, in order to give these volumes 
 of poetry for children an individual stamp, it was 
 necessary to leave the anthologies alone and read 
 the poets themselves. 
 
 With her sister, she spent nearly all one sum- 
 mer reading poetry in the libraries at Oxford and 
 in Edinburgh. What was most needed, Mrs. Wig- 
 gin explained, in compiling these books, was a sense 
 of literary values and a knowledge of what chil- 
 dren want and need. These facts are interesting, 
 bearing upon the actual detail, as they do, of Mrs. 
 Wiggin's literary labors, which are always pursued 
 with deliberate care. Lying on the piano in her 
 drawing-room was a song-book with the title, " Nine 
 Love Songs and a Carol," the music composed by 
 Mrs. Wiggin, the words by different poets. 
 
 " Even small versatility is somewhat dangerous," 
 she commented, " it gives one so many temptations 
 for self-expression." 
 
 [87] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 Although Mrs. Wiggin finds that her season in 
 New York is so full of things to be done that she 
 hardly has any time for " things to be told," the 
 author acknowledged that she had begun a drama- 
 tization of " The Birds' Christmas Carol." The 
 basis of the play had been submitted by someone 
 else, and then accepted by Mrs. Wiggin. The 
 play is a comedy-drama in three acts, differing only 
 from the book in that incidents are added. 
 
 " I want the play to be sweet, wholesome, and 
 merry, and I find that there are many things per- 
 missible in a book that would be too pathetic for 
 the stage," said the authoress. 
 
 Primarily, Kate Douglas Wiggin is painstaking, 
 patient, and industrious in her work. In the sum- 
 mer she will write all day when the " apple-tree 
 study " is under blue skies ; with a table spread 
 under the trees, and with sometimes just a pad, 
 pencil, and easy-chair, where, under the spell of the 
 myriad insensible whisperings of a drowsy summer's 
 day, the writer can do a great deal of work. One 
 can hardly dignify this open-air study by calling it 
 a den. Yet, from this sweet atmosphere, " mental 
 and moral," she produces those out-of-door books 
 that are so much in vogue, a type in literature re- 
 quiring a deep sentiment for beauty and a play of 
 wit that takes the place of sunshine. " The Diary 
 of a Goose Girl " was written chiefly in the " apple- 
 [88] 
 
Kate Douglas IViggin 
 
 tree study." It is the tale of a pretty American 
 girl who ran away from her lover in England and 
 played at being a goose girl. The hens and ducks 
 and geese have individual characters, as human as 
 heroes and heroines. 
 
 Three proofs of every line in print is what Mrs. 
 Wiggin requires from her publishers before she is 
 satisfied to send the book out upon the world, and 
 many a time is the manuscript corrected before it 
 goes to the printer. 
 
 Modestly enough, Mrs. Wiggin has described 
 her " Penelope " books as being " old ground trod- 
 den in a new way," and whatever she does will 
 always have feminine distinction. There is an un- 
 finished novel, resting somewhere by the way — for 
 sufficient originality in manner, so its foster-mother 
 asserts. 
 
 " Somehow or other I cannot get a man to stand 
 on two legs long enough to do anything, to walk 
 through enough pages of a book to make him pre- 
 sentable; and what is a novel without a man of 
 flesh and blood ? " said Mrs. Wiggin, ingenuously. 
 
 [89] 
 
Mary jfohnston 
 
 In Birmingham , Alabama 
 
BY MISS JOHNSTON 
 
 Born in Buchanan, Virginia 
 
 Prisoners of Hope. 
 
 To Have and To Hold. 
 
 Audrey. 
 
VIII 
 
 Mary Johnston 
 
 In Birmingham, Alabama 
 O the great majority of those who have 
 
 read the opening sentences of Mary John- 
 
 ston's " Audrey " there remains only a 
 general impression of satisfaction, tinged with ad- 
 miration for the artist who has painted such a vivid 
 picture in words. Few realize that in this particu- 
 lar case it might almost be said that the picture 
 produced the artist: 
 
 " The valley lay like a ribbon thrown into the 
 midst of the encompassing hills. The grass which 
 grew there was soft and fine and abundant, the 
 trees which sprang from its dark, rich mould were 
 tall and great of girth. A bright stream flashed 
 through it, and the sunshine lay warm upon the 
 grass and changed the tassels of the maize into 
 golden plumes. Above the valley, east, and north, 
 and south, rose the hills, clad in living green, man- 
 tled with the purpling grape, wreathed morn and 
 eve with trailing mist. To the westward were the 
 mountains, and they dwelt apart in a blue haze. 
 Only in the morning, if the mist were not there, 
 
 [93] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in T^heir Homes 
 
 the sunrise struck upon their long summits, and in 
 the evening they stood out, high and black and fear- 
 ful, against the splendid sky. The child who played 
 beside the cabin door often watched them as the 
 valley filled with shadows, and thought of them as 
 a great wall between her and some land of the 
 fairies which must needs lie beyond that barrier, 
 beneath the splendor and the evening star. The 
 Indians called them the Endless Mountains, and 
 the child never doubted that they ran across the 
 world and touched the floor of Heaven." 
 
 Amid such surroundings, in a valley sheltered by 
 the encompassing hills, Mary Johnston spent her 
 childhood and early youth. She was born thirty- 
 two years ago at Buchanan, a little village in Bote- 
 tourt County, Va., in the shadow of that Blue 
 Ridge which Governor Spotswood and his Knights 
 of the Golden Horseshoe found it to be such a 
 pleasure to cross. This little town, settled about a 
 century ago, was once a picturesque and decidedly 
 pleasant place, and in ante-bellum days had some 
 slight trade and importance. During the war it 
 was burned in part, the home of Miss Johnston's 
 father being one of those destroyed. In the child- 
 hood of the novelist the nearest railroad was three 
 miles away, and a stage-coach and canal-boats con- 
 nected it with the outside world. To-day there 
 are two railroads, a " boom " has passed over the 
 [94] 
 
Mary Johnston 
 
 town, many of the old residents have died or moved 
 away, and many of the old houses show signs of 
 dilapidation. 
 
 But if the old people have gone, the memory of 
 their reverence for the glorious past of Virginia has 
 remained to lend warmth and reality to the color- 
 ing of those pictures which were first seen in out- 
 line by the young girl who spent so much of her 
 time day-dreaming under the old trees which have 
 been cut down, or browsing in the libraries of houses 
 which are now dilapidated. And the mountains, 
 which remained for Audrey when the cabin was a 
 waste and the clearing a tangle of shrubs and un- 
 derbrush, have remained also for the creator of 
 Audrey. 
 
 Sixteen years of Miss Johnston's life were spent 
 at Buchanan, years from which the routine of 
 neither public nor private school filched a single 
 hour, for her health was frail, and her education 
 was conducted at home, with due regard to physical 
 limitations. Her grandmother, a Scotchwoman of 
 rare intelligence and beauty of character, was her 
 first teacher, and afterward an aunt. Later, gov- 
 ernesses were employed, and when her father and 
 mother moved to Alabama the future author was 
 sent to a finishing school in Atlanta; but within 
 three months her health broke down, and she was 
 obliged to be taken to her home at Birmingham. 
 [95] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 Here, a year later, Miss Johnston's mother died, 
 and the young girl of sixteen, the eldest of several 
 brothers and sisters, was called upon to direct the 
 affairs of the household. Her father, Major John 
 W. Johnston, a lawyer and an ex-member of the 
 Virginia Legislature, was at that time an exceed- 
 ingly busy man, largely interested in several South- 
 ern railroads and identified with a number of the 
 initial enterprises of the city in which he had made 
 his home. 
 
 Birmingham is not a beautiful town, and to the 
 ordinary young girl the direction of a comparatively 
 large household would not be inspiring. But Miss 
 Johnston was not an ordinary young girl, and it is 
 not too much to say that a great deal of her inspi- 
 ration and not a little of her breadth of view have 
 been acquired as the result of years spent in quietly 
 doing " the thing that's nearest." Certainly she has 
 been satisfied with the consequent love of the mem- 
 bers of her immediate family — more satisfied, one 
 may feel justified in saying, than with the fame 
 which has come with the publication of her novels. 
 
 The home, at 2213 Seventh Avenue, Birming- 
 ham, has little to distinguish it from the city home 
 of any other Southern family in easy circumstances. 
 It is a fairly large house, built for comfort rather 
 than for beauty, and furnished for comfort and for 
 dignified refinement rather than style or fashion. 
 [96] 
 
Mary Johnston 
 
 Back of the large parlors, with the hospitable open 
 fireplaces of the South, is the library, where Miss 
 Johnston did part of her writing until a short time 
 ago, when another room was set apart for this pur- 
 pose. Few of the books on the shelves are modern, 
 and an examination of their titles supplies a pos- 
 sible explanation of the genesis of the distinguishing 
 features of the novelist's work. The literary fa- 
 vorites are Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, the 
 essayists of the eighteenth century, the balladists of 
 Scotland, Shelley, Keats, and Browning. 
 
 Miss Johnston's writing is done at no particular 
 hour and in no particular place, although a very 
 great deal of it has been accomplished in the open 
 air. " Prisoners of Hope," which was begun when 
 the author was living at the San Remo in this city, 
 was largely written in a secluded nook in Central 
 Park. Much of " To Have and To Hold " was 
 written at a small mountain-resort in Virginia, al- 
 though the book was begun in Birmingham. The 
 first draft was made with lead-pencil, and when this 
 had been thoroughly revised, the corrected copy was 
 reproduced in type-writing. 
 
 To a course of reading which has left her mind 
 impregnated with the spirit and speech of the times 
 of which she writes must be added an imagination 
 so fertile and vivid as to be almost a sixth sense. 
 To the possession of this faculty more than to any- 
 [97] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 thing else must be ascribed the popularity of this 
 writer's work. 
 
 Once, shortly after "Prisoners of Hope" had 
 been published, she was driving with her father and 
 a friend on a woodland road not far from Hot 
 Springs. On either side the forest land closed in 
 so as almost to touch the axles of the carriage. 
 After looking deep into the woods on either side 
 for a few moments, she suddenly said : " I can 
 enjoy such a drive as this now, but only a short 
 time ago when I passed along such a trail I could 
 see Landless and Patricia wandering through the 
 forest, until the sight became really painful." To 
 the many hours spent in watching the ocean in all 
 its varying moods during several summers spent on 
 an island off the eastern shore of Virginia may be 
 credited those graphic pictures of voyage and ship- 
 wreck which were a feature of " To Have and To 
 Hold." 
 
 The clew to " Audrey," which was written al- 
 most entirely on the porch of a summer cottage in 
 the grounds of a hotel at Warm Springs, Va., was 
 found in one of Wordsworth's "Poems of the 
 Imagination," that which contains the familiar 
 lines : 
 
 Three years she grew in sun and shower ; 
 Then Nature said : "A lovelier flower 
 On earth was never sown ; 
 
 [08] 
 
Mary Johnston 
 
 This child I to myself will take ; 
 She shall be mine, and I will make 
 A lady of my own. 
 
 It has frequently been asked how it is possible 
 for a young woman so realistically to describe fight- 
 ing, siege, and sudden death. Putting aside the 
 results of reading, Miss Johnston might possibly 
 answer with a smile that this is an inherited fac- 
 ulty. Her father, who served in the Confederate 
 Army from the opening to the close of the Civil 
 War, rising to be major of artillery, is neither a 
 fire-eater nor an extreme partisan. Although he 
 bears the marks of many wounds, it is difficult to 
 induce him to talk of his own share in the struggle. 
 But once started in praise of the tactical ability or 
 the personal bravery of the leaders on either side, 
 his words form themselves into brilliant pictures 
 which are at one and the same time tributes to his 
 thorough knowledge of military strategy and to his 
 ability vividly to describe what he has seen. 
 
 [99] 
 
/ 
 
John Oliver Hobbes 
 In London^ England 
 
BY MRS. CRAIGIE 
 
 Born in Boston, Massachusetts 
 
 Some Emotions and a Moral. 
 The Sinner's Comedy. 
 A Study in Temptations. 
 
 The Gods, Some Mortals, and Lord Wickershan. 
 A School for Saints. 
 Love and the Soul Hunters. 
 
IX 
 
 John Oliver Hobbes 
 
 In London, England 
 OHN OLIVER HOBBES (Mrs. Craigie) 
 
 is an American by birth, but for a number of 
 
 •J years has resided in England, where the scenes 
 of most of her stories are laid. At present she lives 
 with her father in Lancaster Gate, which belongs 
 to the fashionable quarter of South Kensington 
 comprising Cromwell Road and Queen's Gate. 
 Lancaster Gate itself is one of those typical Lon- 
 don residential quarters in which nothing less gen- 
 teel than a hansom cab is supposed to be seen, and 
 in which it would be perfectly safe for children to 
 play in the centre of the street, did the scions of 
 the families within its boundary ever condescend 
 to such plebeian pastime. 
 
 The house in which Mrs. Craigie lives is a solid, 
 old-fashioned, four-storied mansion, which belongs 
 to any and every period of architecture. Entering 
 into a broad hallway, the visitor passes up the gen- 
 erous stairway, which occupies the central position 
 belonging to the " well " in more modern edifices, 
 to the spacious drawing-room on the second floor. 
 In some intangible way — perhaps owing to the 
 mere pose of the furniture — this apartment suggests 
 
 [ 103 1 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 America, and prepares one for the American intona- 
 tion and manner of the hostess. Among numerous 
 portraits on the walls hangs one of the authoress 
 herself, in youthful, never-aging maidenhood, paint- 
 ed at about the time when her first book, " Some 
 Emotions and a Moral," appeared. In person 
 Mrs. Craigie furnishes fresh proof that large size 
 and imposing presence are not necessary to intel- 
 lectual boldness and unconventionality. 
 
 When one goes to see Mrs. Craigie he should 
 take a stenographer with him. In the course of 
 conversation numerous remarks will fall from her 
 lips that would become very convenient in one's 
 own " original " work. Perhaps Browning, the 
 grave, befrocked individual who opens the door for 
 one at No. 56 Lancaster Gate, W., in London, 
 regards his official position merely as a cloak for 
 the gaining of ready-made repartee for the book 
 which he is writing behind the screen. 
 
 Mrs. Craigie is John Oliver Hobbes — with a 
 difference. Exactly wherein this difference lies is 
 hard to determine, and perhaps indiscreet for a 
 mere man to undertake to make clear. One should 
 feel perturbation at the thought of meeting the au- 
 thor of " Some Emotions and a Moral." Most 
 men and few women would probably understand it. 
 This is probably merely a symptom of masculine 
 reluctance to admit individual feminine superiority. 
 [ 104] 
 
John Oliver Hobbes 
 
 In the writer's case trepidation, however, proved to 
 be without justification, as Mrs. Craigie showed 
 herself absolutely free from the general blight of 
 clever people, but with a desire to make the stupid- 
 ity of others serve merely as a unit of measure for 
 subjective brilliancy. She indicated a generous wish 
 to laugh at the right time at the jokes of others. 
 
 " We will have up some tea," said Mrs. Craigie, 
 after the first formalities. In England, whenever 
 your hostess is at a loss what to do with you, she 
 orders up tea; it is an unmistakable betrayal of 
 smilingly endured martyrdom. To resort to that at 
 the start of a visit seems a very bad omen; better, 
 however, a tea beginning than a tea ending. When 
 handicapped by a knowledge that she is talking for 
 publication Mrs. Craigie is a scintillating conversa- 
 tionalist, but her paradoxes and incongruities are 
 apt to remain only as sensations when one comes 
 to perpetuate them in black and white. 
 
 " I don't often receive interviewers," she said, 
 " as one can say and has said in one's books every- 
 thing it is necessary to say much better than by 
 word of mouth. Still, my experience with jour- 
 nalists has always been of the most pleasant nature. 
 I have never been misquoted or had my hospitality 
 misused." Mrs. Craigie trusts the discretion of 
 her interlocutor, or at least she pretends to do so, 
 which is just as flattering. Moreover, she under- 
 [105] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in ^fheir Homes 
 
 stands our countrymen, and does not make the com- 
 mon European mistake of grouping us all in one 
 indiscriminate sensational category. 
 
 " Every man is three men," remarks one of the 
 cynical women characters in " The Wisdom of the 
 Wise," Mrs. Craigie's recent theatrical production ; 
 " the man as he is before he becomes engaged, the 
 man after he is engaged, and the man after he is 
 married." Similarly, I think, it might be remarked 
 of a woman author that she is three women; the 
 woman the interviewer sees and the two other 
 women whom he does not see. The two other 
 women in Mrs. Craigie's case are very interesting. 
 Mrs. Craigie is rather small, a brunette, distinctly 
 pretty, with fine, clever eyes, and with the art of 
 dressing well and fitting into her surroundings. 
 Some persons may consider this a small matter, but 
 it is not. 
 
 " English people do not want to hear the truth," 
 she said, in a discussion that started with the 
 drama; "neither about the Boer War, nor about 
 life, nor about anything else ; it disturbs their diges- 
 tion. They like to pick up the morning paper and 
 read that everything is going along finely and that 
 England is still on top and the first nation in the 
 world. ! Just as I knew it would be,' exclaims the 
 worthy taxpayer; 'didn't I predict that everything 
 would come out all right in the end ! ' And the 
 [106] 
 
'John Oliver Hobbes 
 
 digestion of his breakfast is not interfered with. 
 Similarly the evening paper must not interfere with 
 the digestion of that great institution, the English 
 dinner. And it is the same way with the drama. 
 The public does not like to see anything that makes 
 them think, anything in which moral questions are 
 treated in a way that shows how suffering and mis- 
 fortune result from wrongdoing. Oh, dear, no; 
 that is uncomfortable! " 
 
 " That cuts out a lot of good motives, doesn't 
 it?" 
 
 " It cuts out everything; it cuts the ground from 
 under one's feet. And the actors! I may have 
 never so fine an idea to-morrow for a play, but I 
 have to stop and say to myself that Mr. So-and-So 
 will never consent to say what I have put into his 
 mouth. ' Your play is very fine,' he would object, 
 ' but it would never do for me to say what you 
 have written for me; I must always be good and 
 noble, the public expect it of me.' * Yes, but that's 
 not the way to make money.' ' Ah, but that doesn't 
 matter. I must remain good and noble.' And so 
 he remains good and noble, and — poor. Of course 
 that is not true of such actors as young Mr. Irving, 
 but it is true of the majority. 
 
 " But to return to the truth. Thackeray told 
 the truth, and the result was that in the end hardly 
 anybody went to his funeral. He drew the Eng- 
 [ 107 1 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 lish people as they were at that time and as they 
 are to-day, and they have never forgiven him. 
 Everybody buys his books and quotes him, but no 
 one applauds him. Some friends of mine happened 
 once to be in a hotel in Paris when Thackeray 
 arrived. 'Thackeray has come! Thackeray has 
 come ! ' was the word passed around, and everybody 
 ran to the head waiter and requested him not to 
 seat them near that awful Mr. Thackeray — for 
 fear he might put them into one of his books ! " 
 
 In the English edition of the reference book 
 " Who's Who " there stands in many cases after 
 the name of an author a single, detached word, as 
 " crabbing " or " logarithms," without the slightest 
 apparent connection with the subject of the sketch. 
 As a matter of fact, this detached part of speech is 
 intended to denote the author's favorite pastime. 
 Without having consulted "Who's Who" for the 
 favorite recreation of Mrs. Criagie, I would never- 
 theless wager that it would prove to be " reading 
 biographies," as in conversation she makes frequent 
 reference to some peculiarity of Balzac or Flaubert 
 or Tennyson that has escaped the superficial eye of 
 the paragrapher. 
 
 " You may express what opinion you like about 
 me," she said in connection with the statement that 
 Balzac spent his life bursting with indignation 
 against invisible journalistic vilifiers; "you may say 
 [108] 
 
John Oliver Hobbes 
 
 that I am conceited, as you say of another author, 
 if you think that I am. I have no objection. 
 When I read an adverse criticism of my work, I 
 say to myself : ' That man hasn't written that with- 
 out some reason; he hasn't worked himself up into 
 fury just for the enjoyment of being in one; there 
 must be something in my book that has irritated 
 him.' And so I try to find out what it is, and 
 whether his disapproval is justified. I don't say, 
 however, that I often take his advice; it is foolish 
 to take criticisms to heart and let them interfere 
 with one's personality. If, for instance, I find such 
 a competent critic as Mr. Courteney condemning 
 me for exactly the same things that Mr. Gosse 
 praises me, I simply determine that the next time I 
 will endeavor to please both." 
 
 [ 109] 
 
Amelia E. Barr 
 In Cornwall-on- the- Hudson, New York 
 
BY MRS. BARR 
 
 Born in Ulverston, England 
 
 Jan Vedder's Wife. 
 A Daughter of Fife. 
 A Bow of Orange Ribbon. 
 Friend Olivia. 
 Bemicia. 
 
 The Last of the McAlisters. 
 A Rose of a Hundred Leaves. 
 Feet of Clay. 
 Prisoners of Conscience. 
 
Mrs. Barr in a Corner of Her Home. 
 
X 
 
 Amelia E. Barr 
 In Cornwall-on-the- Hudson, New York 
 
 AN ideal road, long sought, has been dis- 
 covered. It winds with many a turn, 
 under the June sun or the June shade, 
 over bridges, past inviting glens, with the moun- 
 tains beside and above one, a present joy and an 
 incentive. The valley is like an outlived past, more 
 and more pleasant in the retrospect as it is left far- 
 ther behind and below; all its asperities softened, 
 and its discomforts, with the many pettinesses that 
 were a part of it, forgotten. 
 
 The road leads to a cottage — and, doubtless, be- 
 yond — but at present whatever lies beyond is in 
 the nature of an anti-climax. Surrounded by trees, 
 the cherry much in evidence, the cottage stands at 
 an elevation of 1,700 feet above the level of the 
 river. To describe it — but whoever yet described 
 a house? So much wood or stone, so much archi- 
 tecture, so much paint or painlessness, and the tale 
 is told. If I write that this house has gables and 
 upon one corner a hexagonal tower, surmounted by 
 a conical roof; that the prevailing color impression 
 is red or red-brown ; that a broad and all-surround- 
 [113] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in fhetr Homes 
 
 ing piazza rises from a sea of verdure that breaks 
 about its foundations, or that the view from that 
 piazza explores space for sixty miles as the crow 
 flies (if crows fly so far from their homes), what 
 is anyone profited? 
 
 But if I add that a literary craftswoman whose 
 name is a household word lives in the cottage, 
 drinks inspiration from the view, and has her work- 
 shop in the tower? Ah, that makes a difference. 
 Now the house has a soul. There is a secret about 
 that tower-room at Cherry Croft; its owner has a 
 theory, or, at least, a feeling, that the place where 
 a writer works should be small and very exclusive. 
 It must become saturated with one's own person- 
 ality, " permeated with his own bacteria," till such 
 an atmosphere of thought and individuality is cre- 
 ated that work becomes pastime. A general edict 
 of exclusion has been proclaimed, so that no dis- 
 turbing presence may cross the threshold. 
 
 In that carefully guarded room " The Maid of 
 Maiden Lane " was written, and " The Lion's 
 Whelp," and many another of the long list of books 
 that have followed " A Bow of Orange Ribbon." 
 It is something to be a celebrity. The boy who 
 pointed out the house to me said, without a shadow 
 of disrespect, " There's where Amelia Barr lives." 
 It reminded me of the way in which we speak of 
 Presidents and crowned heads. 
 
 [ii4l 
 
Amelia E. Barr 
 
 Face to face with Mrs. Barr one is most im- 
 pressed, I think, with the invincible vitality that 
 refuses to recognize the passage of years that have 
 gone to the making of many books. When she 
 enters a room it is as though a burst of sunshine 
 accompanied her. A spontaneous optimism ani- 
 mates every word and gesture— a "heartiness" 
 that cannot be counterfeited. Her interest in life 
 is as strong and her expression of it as vivacious as 
 though the trials and conflicts of a lifetime were 
 all unknown, and her capacity for work has been 
 equal to the demands of the all-impelling sense of 
 duty that is the keynote of her character. 
 
 The love of literature seems to have been in- 
 herent in Mrs. Barr's nature. From infancy she 
 has been a devourer of books, her range of reading, 
 even in her teens, covering the field from Shelley 
 to Saint Chrysostom. " I acquired," she said, " a 
 love for pure and sonorous English, so that a poorly 
 written book repelled me." When in Austin, Tex., 
 during some of the happy years of married life, 
 Mrs. Barr was described as " always going about 
 with a baby under one arm and a book under the 
 other." The necessity for occupation which, after 
 her widowhood, drove her into the ranks of literary 
 workers found her well equipped for the vocation 
 in which she has been so successful. 
 
 At first employment came in the way of editorial 
 [115] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in ^their Homes 
 
 work for various newspapers and magazines, till, 
 as she laughingly declared, " I believe I have writ- 
 ten for nearly every paper in the country." Noth- 
 ing came amiss; no commission was refused. Stories 
 and editorials, poems and advertisements were all 
 undertaken with the same conscientious determina- 
 tion. " I found ten years of such training of in- 
 calculable benefit," was her later verdict. "The 
 variety of the work I was driven to undertake en- 
 larged and improved my vocabulary as nothing else 
 could have done ; but I am glad to be free from it." 
 
 Mrs. Barr's capacity for work is far above the 
 average. Thirty-eight books have been the result 
 of sixteen years of almost incessant labor : " And 
 everyone as good as I could make it," she added. 
 From five to eight consecutive hours of literary 
 labor daily, without holidays, would exhaust the 
 strength of most women or men, but to Mrs. Barr 
 they have been but the natural exercise of unusual 
 physical powers. Her life has gone not only freely, 
 but joyously into her work. 
 
 " Of all my characters," she said, " I think that 
 Cromwell has taken the greatest hold of me." 
 Then she added, with a smile, that she hoped that 
 her ancestors, who fought beside Charles L, would 
 forgive her. "All of my characters are real to 
 me," she admitted. " They begin to live and have 
 a personality of their own. I have started to write 
 [116] 
 
Amelia E. Barr 
 
 a villain, and afterward fell in love with him and 
 made him my hero." 
 
 " I had intended to treat Washington in some- 
 thing the way that I did Cromwell," Mrs. Barr 
 continued, " but as I studied the period of the 
 Revolution more closely I found him a sun without 
 satellites. He is fascinating, however." The book 
 she had in hand was to come between " A Bow 
 of Orange Ribbon" and "The Maid of Maiden 
 Lane," completing that trilogy. It takes in the 
 period of the American war, and has proved to be 
 one of the most interesting of the author's works. 
 And still other plans for books were taking shape 
 in that fertile intelligence, and other characters 
 were looming in the distance. Among them, tow- 
 ing like Cromwell and Washington, the great 
 nebulous bulk of John Knox appeared, a phantom 
 yet, but by and by to take on flesh and blood. 
 
 Mrs. Barr's work is now almost entirely done 
 through the medium of an amanuensis, though for- 
 merly she was her own type-writer. She takes no 
 holidays, fretting only when the permitted five 
 hours of daily labor seem insufficient. When win- 
 ter comes and the hill-side is bleak and inhospitable, 
 Cherry Croft is closed — a place for the snowdrifts 
 to envelop — and the owner flits with her literary 
 and other neighbors to the more congenial shelter 
 of the city. 
 
 [117] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in Itheir Homes 
 
 In common with many earnest thinkers Mrs. 
 Barr believes in a reincarnation of the soul; not 
 the Buddhistical article of belief, however, but a 
 Christian expectation of a succeeding life of greater 
 scope and wider opportunity. This conception fits 
 well with the tireless activity of a mind that can- 
 not contemplate pleasure in idleness. " I have 
 learned," she said, " that the greatest joy life can 
 offer is the fulfilment of duty." Then, after dis- 
 cussing the strange aptitudes and unaccountable 
 traits with which a child seems to be endowed, 
 peculiarities that appear to link it with some pre- 
 vious existence, she exclaimed: "If ever I come 
 back here I want to come as a man. You are not 
 hampered in a thousand ways as we are." 
 
 As I left her standing at the door, dressed in 
 white, her strong, expressive face very gracious in 
 the afternoon light, I could not find it in my heart 
 to second a wish that would spoil so good a woman. 
 The neighborhood of Cherry Croft numbers sev- 
 eral men whose names are known to the reading 
 public. The cottage next above Mrs. Barr's house 
 is that of Julian Hawthorne, while at the foot of 
 the hill Dr. Lyman Abbott spends his summers. 
 It is a rare, gracious spot, where Nature has been 
 lavish with her favors. The sweeping foliage that 
 clothes the slopes of the Boterberg (that N. P. 
 Willis named Storm King) half conceals numerous 
 [n8] 
 
Amelia E. Barr 
 
 glens and ravines that cherish the maddest, most 
 enticing brooks in the world, and the air is as pure 
 and invigorating as though there had never been 
 such a thing as a chimney or a town in the world. 
 
 It is a rare place to work and it has harbored 
 some rare workers. Foremost, at least in point of 
 time, among the men of pencraft who have made 
 this region their home was the versatile and popu- 
 lar Willis. The road which we now reluctantly 
 descend from Cherry Croft has not escaped his 
 all-describing pen, but it has been modified and, for 
 comfort, vastly improved since the days when " Out- 
 doors at Idlewild " was penned : 
 
 " The ascent of this range is by no means the 
 gracious acclivity it looks to be from below. It is 
 a labyrinth of knolls and hollows, over which one 
 travels like an ant through a basket of eggs, coming 
 continually upon small mountain farms islanded 
 among irreclaimable rocks and so hidden behind 
 and among them as to seem contrived by hermits 
 for inextricable privacy. Oh, what eyries for such 
 human eagles as wish to live alone, and yet have 
 the world within pouncing reach." 
 
 [»9] 
 
Louise Chandler Moult on 
 In Boston^ Massachusetts 
 
BY MRS. MOULTON 
 
 Born in Pomfret, Connecticut 
 
 Bedtime Stories. 
 
 Some Women's Hearts. 
 
 Swallow-Flights and Other Poems. 
 
 New Bedtime Stories. 
 
 Random Rambles. 
 
 Firelight Stories. 
 
 Ourselves and Our Neighbors. 
 
 In the Garden of Dreams. 
 
 Arthur O' Shaughnessy : His Life and His Work 
 
 In Childhood's Country. 
 
 Lazy Tours in Spain and Elsewhere. 
 
 At the Wind's Will. 
 
XI 
 
 Louise Chandler Moult on 
 In Boston, Massachusetts 
 
 THE nearest approach to the literary salon, 
 as it flourishes in Paris and London, is 
 probably found in the occasional gather- 
 ings that take place in the home of Mrs. Louise 
 Chandler Moulton. This charming woman of the 
 world, poet, and critic of books, has by the force 
 of her personality and ability made herself the 
 natural centre of the bookmen and bookwomen of 
 Boston. Whoever may have accomplished any 
 worthy thing in the realm of letters finds a hearty 
 welcome into her circle of acquaintances, there to 
 mingle with men of larger figure in the world and 
 to acquire the inspiration that such intercourse is 
 bound to produce. 
 
 Mrs. Moulton does not dwell in the fashionable 
 quarter of the town. It was expected to be such 
 years ago, but the destiny of residential districts, in 
 Boston at any rate, is proverbially uncertain. The 
 plans of many a rich and aristocratic family were 
 rudely shattered by the meteoric rise and growth 
 of the splendid Back Bay district. Of all this you 
 may read in " The Rise of Silas Lapham." So 
 the South End, the exclusive name of the immense 
 [ 123 ] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 region of dwellings stretching from the business 
 heart of Boston to Roxbury, lost its caste, but not 
 entirely its grand air, for there are still to be found 
 on its cross streets and squares many houses whose 
 beauty and dignity put to shame some of the bizarre 
 and tasteless creations of the newer Beacon Street. 
 
 It is in Rutland Square, a short, connecting 
 space between Tremont Street and Columbus Ave- 
 nue, that Mrs. Moulton's house is situated. Rut- 
 land Square is not very much of a square, truth to 
 tell, but as it is a trifle wider than the regulation 
 street, and boasts a thin strip of grass-grown ground 
 with a row of slender trees in the middle, it is, by 
 Boston usage, fairly entitled to the name. 
 
 It is supremely quiet. To turn from the roar 
 and movement of Tremont Street into its calm is 
 like suddenly sailing into a land-locked bay after 
 a tumultuous sea. At its farther end rises the 
 graceful Gothic spire of the Union Congregational 
 Church, beautifully defined against the sky and par- 
 ticularly lovely with the dull red of sunset behind 
 it. In summer it is a pleasant place, much affected 
 by nurse-girls and their charges. In winter, with- 
 out its relieving ribbon of green, it is very like 
 other city streets, rather monotonous and unin- 
 teresting. 
 
 The house, whose doorway bears the figures 28, 
 is the one noted residence in Rutland Square. It 
 [ 124 ] 
 
Louise Chandler Moulton 
 
 is of brick, plain, tall, and broad, with a great 
 sweeping bow of the fashion of forty years ago. 
 To reach the door one must climb a steep flight of 
 a dozen or more steps, guarded on either side by a 
 curiously curled iron railing. The hall's plain nar- 
 rowness tells of the bygone style of house-building, 
 when rooms were everything and outer space noth- 
 ing. The drawing-room itself emphasizes this, for 
 it is long, high, and altogether spacious and digni- 
 fied. A library opening from the rear increases the 
 apparent length of the apartment, so that it is a 
 veritable salon in its physical as well as acquired 
 attributes. The furnishings are of simple elegance 
 in color and design, and the whole scheme of deco- 
 ration quiet and not ultra-modern. 
 
 In this attractive room are more treasures than 
 one would dream of at first glance. The fine 
 paintings that are scattered here, there, and every- 
 where are all veritable works of art, presented to 
 Mrs. Moulton by their painters. The etchings are 
 autograph copies from some of the best masters in 
 Europe. Almost every article of decoration, it 
 would seem, has a history. The books that have 
 overflowed from the dim recesses of the library are 
 mostly presentation copies in beautiful bindings, 
 with many a well-turned phrase on their fly-leaves 
 written by authors we all know and love. 
 
 There could be no better guide through all this 
 
 [125] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 treasure-house of suggestive material than Mrs. 
 Moulton herself. Without question she knows 
 more English people of note than does any other 
 living American. As she spreads out before the 
 delighted caller her remarkable collection of presen- 
 tation photographs, she intersperses the exhibit with 
 brilliant off-hand descriptions of their originals — 
 the sort of word-painting that bookmen are eager 
 to hear in connection with their literary idols. It 
 is the real Swinburne she brings to the mind's eye, 
 with his extraordinary personal appearance and his 
 weird manners; the real William Watson, pro- 
 foundly in earnest and varying in moods; the real 
 George Egerton, with her intensity and devotion to 
 the higher rights of womankind; the real Thomas 
 Hardy and George Meredith and Anthony Hope, 
 and the whole band of British authors, big and 
 little, whom she marshals in review and dissects 
 with unerring perception and the keenest of wit. 
 Anecdotes of all these personages flow from her 
 tongue with a prodigality that makes one long for 
 the art of shorthand to preserve them and turn 
 them into marketable print. 
 
 Twenty years among the literati of England is 
 a valuable experience, and one that ought not to 
 be lost to the world. " But," says Mrs. Moulton, 
 when this subject is broached, " I have really so 
 very little at command in the way of notes and 
 [126] 
 
Louise Chandler Moulton 
 
 memoranda that, despite many appeals to me to 
 write a volume of my literary reminiscences, I feel 
 that I am scarcely competent to do so." 
 
 Mrs. Moulton's own particular " den," where 
 she does the most of her writing, is on the floor 
 above. Here the prevailing impression is that of 
 books, not arranged in stately order, as in the rich 
 cases of the dignified library, but lying in more in- 
 timate freedom and giving every evidence of close 
 companionship. A dainty desk is conspicuous, cov- 
 ered with all sorts of pretty appliances and orna- 
 ments. It is a literary workshop of ease and com- 
 fort, with no suggestion that the Muses ever act 
 as slave-drivers over the charming occupant. 
 
 Having been a literary woman only for the sheer 
 love of her profession, Mrs. Moulton's habits of 
 writing are naturally erratic and casual. " How 
 I work ? " she repeats, in answer to the query. 
 " How I don't work expresses it a great deal bet- 
 ter. I am the laziest author alive." And this with 
 a quizzical smile and a merry twinkle of the eye, 
 as if she did not care to be taken too seriously, but 
 was willing to put herself on public record as one 
 ruled by love and not by fear in such matters. 
 
 Truth to tell, however, her recent record of 
 books almost within a year — one the volume of 
 dainty juvenile verse called " In Childhood's Coun- 
 try," the other the large and delightful collection 
 [ 127] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 of sketches of travel with the significant title of 
 " Lazy Tours " — would scarcely bear out her claims 
 to idleness. Then, too, she was preparing a new 
 volume of poems to be issued soon afterward. She 
 has thrust upon her a great deal of unsought-for 
 work in reading and criticising the ebullitions of 
 ambitious young poets, which is willingly and kindly 
 done when the request is in reason and does not 
 take the form of one demand that was made upon 
 her, that she read a hundred sonnets and pick out 
 about a score in the exact order of their merit. 
 
 Mrs. Moulton's social duties might be very much 
 more exacting than she allows them to be, for she 
 is in demand everywhere. She is as brilliant a 
 guest as she is charming a hostess, a thorough 
 woman of the world, with the saving grace of sin- 
 cerity and kindliness. Her wit is tactful, her dis- 
 cussion of men and things keen, but full of courtesy. 
 She has a generous appreciation of her brothers and 
 sisters in literature not always found in a woman 
 who has reached eminence. And best of all is her 
 willingness to see in new men any trace of genius 
 or power. 
 
 [128] 
 
Mrs. Humphry JVard 
 In London , England 
 
BY MRS. WARD 
 
 Born in Hobart, Tasmania 
 Milly and Oily. 
 
 Amiel's Journal [Translator of]. 
 
 Miss Bretherton. 
 
 Robert Elsmere. 
 
 The History of David Grieve. 
 
 Marcella. 
 
 Sir George Tressady. 
 Helbeck of Bannisdale. 
 Eleanor. 
 
J5 
 
XII 
 
 Mrs. Humphry W ard 
 
 In London^ England 
 
 UT not your faith in princes or in — au- 
 
 thoresses. Perhaps, in justice to other more 
 
 im- reliable members of the craft, this statement 
 should be limited, but since comparisons are always 
 invidious, let it stand in the above general form, 
 and he who runs may read. 
 
 Much to the writer's satisfaction the author of 
 u Robert Elsmere " consented to receive him — or 
 ratheir she wrote in reply to a request for an inter- 
 view that she would be happy to see him for a 
 few rmoments after a reading from her own works 
 that s;he contemplated giving within a few days at 
 the Passmore Settlement, in London, and that she 
 wouldl also show him over the building. A compli- 
 mentary ticket for the reading was enclosed, and 
 then the following day, evidently forgetting this 
 fact, s,he sent another ticket. Now, those who have 
 acquired experience in English readings are usually 
 wary of this form of so-called amusement, having 
 learned that the English race was intended by 
 Providence to furnish the audiences, not the enter- 
 tainers of humanity; but with an object to attain, 
 
 [131] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 one is willing to submit to much. The Passmore 
 Settlement is a most praiseworthy charitable insti- 
 tution, where friendless girls receive valuable as- 
 sistance and advice from the Marcellas of society 
 — moreover, the girls are said' to speak well of the 
 settlement. But, then, they are not required to 
 attend the entertainments organized for their finan- 
 cial benefit. Unfortunately the writer was not a 
 friendless young girl, so for two hours he listened 
 to the reading of scenes from " Eleanor " and 
 " David Grieve " and " Sir George Tressady." 
 
 "And now," said the authoress, addressing us 
 when she had at last laid " Eleanor " and " David " 
 wearily to rest after an hour and a quarter, " shall 
 I read a short scene from ' Marcella,' or would you 
 prefer the closing chapter from ' Sir George Tres- 
 sady,' the account of the mine explosion and the 
 death of Sir George? The selection from 'Mar- 
 cella ' will last only a few minutes, whereas the 
 other will require three-quarters of an hour. Per- 
 haps that will be too long for you? " 
 
 " ' Sir George Tressady ! ' ' Sir George Tres- 
 sady!'" cried that infatuated audience, so "Mar- 
 cella " was laid on the table, and for nearly an hour 
 we followed the writhings of Sir George as he 
 moaned and groaned between swoons, dictated a 
 letter to his absent spouse, and anxiously felt his 
 nether limbs to see if they were growing cold. He 
 [ 1323 
 
Mrs. Humphry Ward 
 
 was as hard to kill as a serpent's tail. But all 
 things come to an end, and at last even Sir George 
 was dead, and everyone crowded forward to shake 
 the hand of his torturer and to assure her how 
 much they had enjoyed the afternoon. 
 
 Now, I had watched that audience closely, and 
 I believe the untruth was unintentional; there are 
 people who do not know when they are enjoying 
 themselves, and these were evidently of that class. 
 They had followed closely the reading from begin- 
 ning to end, and at times had even laughed or 
 looked indignant at the proper place, but not once 
 had their faces betrayed that absorbing interest, 
 that absolute forgetfulness of self, that is the true 
 tribute of genius. How differently must the audi- 
 ences of Dickens and Thackeray have listened! 
 Unwittingly Mrs. Ward had supplied the best of 
 her own ability. To be sure she is not an accom- 
 plished reader, as measured by American standards, 
 and to that extent her efforts were sure to fail of 
 their effect; but, after all due allowance had been 
 made, the conviction remained that we were listen- 
 ing to a woman of talent and observation and in- 
 dustry. Involuntarily my imagination substituted 
 the figure of George Eliot for the one at the read- 
 er's desk, and the convincing words of Maggie 
 Tulliver's death seemed to ring in my ears, and the 
 blood throbbed through my veins, and my fingers 
 [ 133 1 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 tightened around the arm of the chair as the raft 
 drifted to its tragic end. What a difference! 
 
 Mrs. Ward is a woman of impressive appearance. 
 Of only medium height as measured by the stand- 
 ard of the non-athletic generation to which she be- 
 longs, she is nevertheless not to be passed over 
 lightly, owing to her clear-cut, strong features and 
 keen glance. " A woman who knows her own 
 mind," I told myself as I looked at her firm, solid 
 figure and listened to the metallic ring of her voice ; 
 " she would never withdraw from a position once 
 taken up." 
 
 Alas for man's liability to error! At the end of 
 the reading, after all the female literary satellites 
 and all the eager, hopeful curates present had made 
 their devoirs and had awkwardly gone, I approached 
 the authoress in order to explain more fully my ob- 
 ject in troubling her and to suggest that, in view 
 of her fatigue, we should postpone our conversation 
 to a more fitting time. 
 
 " Oh, but I never consent to be interviewed ! " 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 " I do not desire to interview you, Mrs. Ward," 
 I said ; " I should simply like to have the honor of 
 a few minutes' conversation with you and your 
 authorization to publish an account of the same 
 after having submitted it for your approval." 
 
 She looked doubtful, and said: "Why, I had 
 [134] 
 
Mrs. Humphry IVard 
 
 hoped that you would be able to get enough for 
 your purpose from the reading to-day and from my 
 remarks about the time and place of writing 1 Elea- 
 nor.' Won't that suffice? " 
 
 " Hardly, unless you insist," I replied. " I should 
 like to have an ordinary, every-day talk with you 
 about literature in general and your own works in 
 particular, some time when you are not so tired ; it 
 would be unjust to trouble you now after the strain 
 you have been under. Don't you think that ar- 
 rangement would be better ? " 
 
 " Well," she said, evidently still in fear of some 
 calamity, " I wouldn't perhaps mind making a few 
 remarks about ' Eleanor ' to the American public, 
 which has been so extremely kind to me. Suppose 
 you come to see me Wednesday at two o'clock. 
 Will that suit you ? " 
 
 " Perfectly," I said, enjoying the delightful sen- 
 sation of knowing myself to be regarded as a source 
 of trouble ; " I shall be charmed to take advantage 
 of your kind permission." 
 
 Thereupon Mrs. Ward and I parted, she to re- 
 turn, presumably, to the production of more Elea- 
 nors and Davids, and I to await the arrival of 
 Wednesday and the hour of two o'clock. Three 
 days passed, and Wednesday came. Midday struck 
 from the neighboring tower, and the fitful London 
 sun broke through the mists and fell pale and 
 [135] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in 'Their Homes 
 
 frightened upon the astonished city. I accepted 
 the omen as a friendly sign from the god of chance, 
 and made me ready to start out on the search for 
 25 Grosvenor Place, S. W. 
 
 At that moment there was a knock at the door 
 of my room, and the maid entered. " A telegram 
 for you, sir, just come," said she. I opened it, in 
 a recollection that for three days I had been sub- 
 consciously expecting this message. " Mrs. Hum- 
 phry Ward," I read, " is sorry she cannot receive 
 you this afternoon." 
 
 ti36] 
 
Mrs, Sherwood 
 In New York and Delhi 
 
BY MRS. SHERWOOD 
 
 Born in Keene, New Hampshira 
 
 A Sarcasm of Destiny. 
 A Transplanted Rose. 
 Manners and Social Usages. 
 Royal Girls and Royal Courts. 
 Sweet Brier. 
 Roxobel. 
 
 An Epistle to Posterity. 
 Here, There, and Everywhere. 
 
XIII 
 
 Mrs. Sherwood 
 In New York and in Delhi 
 
 THE New York home of Mrs. John Sher- 
 wood, who is perhaps better known in 
 literature as M. E. W. Sherwood, for a 
 few years past has been the Hotel Majestic, that 
 stately structure which rises above the trees that 
 mark the western limits of Central Park at Seventy- 
 second Street. In the social life of this family 
 hostelry she is a dominant figure. Usually she may 
 be found in its parlors after dinner, the centre of 
 the throng and the brightest conversationalist seen 
 there. Sometimes she entertains a large company 
 with readings from her own writings or with lect- 
 ures concerning her travels abroad and the notable 
 persons in all ranks of life whom she has known. 
 Not infrequently she presides at other hotel gath- 
 erings where entertainments are given by distin- 
 guished strangers. In summer she may go to 
 Seabright or Highland Falls on the Hudson, to 
 Newport or Saratoga. At the latter place she will 
 most likely be found at Yaddo, the guest of her 
 devoted friend, Mrs. Spencer Trask. 
 
 Mrs. Sherwood's country home for many years 
 was Delhi, Delaware County, N. Y., where, re- 
 [ 139 1 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 mote from the village, stands a stately mansion of 
 an older generation surrounded by wooded lands, 
 and bearing at one time the name of Sherwood 
 Forest, but known in later years as Woodland 
 House. The visitor to Delhi seeking the place 
 must make a pilgrimage of a mile and a half down 
 the Delaware River, which there is only a slender 
 stream, hiding itself away under elms and wil- 
 lows, and distant only twenty miles on its way 
 from its source to the sea. The property is now 
 owned by Mrs. Sherwood's son, Samuel Sherwood. 
 
 Here one finds a Colonial mansion, built of wood, 
 stretching its wings on either side of a picturesque 
 facade. He will be astonished at the finished 
 ornamentation around the front door and the elab- 
 orate detail of the eaves. The beauty of the situa- 
 tion, lying as the house does amidst gardens, and 
 the trees of a fine old park at the foot of a moun- 
 tain which boasts a forest primeval, will also im- 
 press him. 
 
 This charming site first attracted a lawyer of 
 twenty odd years, when he made an adventurous 
 journey in search of a home in 1804. He was 
 drawn thither through unbroken forest-paths by 
 oxen. He had the skill and courage to conquer 
 the wilderness and to build a house which none of 
 his descendants has been able to equal. How he 
 did it, with his slender means, has ever remained 
 [ 140 ] 
 
Mrs. Sherwood 
 
 a mystery, and how he conquered or achieved such 
 an architectural success, and so much becoming and 
 educated detail, will always remain a mystery. Pie 
 afterward moved to New York, where he became 
 one of the famous lawyers of his day, and completed 
 a long, industrious, and successful life of eighty- 
 five years, dying early in 1863. Here at Delhi he 
 had his summer home all those years. 
 
 Mr. Sherwood left this estate of seven hundred 
 acres of forest, field, orchard, and garden to his 
 grandson, then a mere boy, who had been named 
 after him. These two have been its only owners. 
 It was here that Mrs. John Sherwood came in her 
 early married life to spend her summers. Here 
 she has ever since done much literary work. It is 
 an ideal summer home, silent, secluded, and health- 
 ful. In years during the minority of her son she 
 was its hostess. Many a distinguished visitor has 
 enjoyed the fine old trees, the noble prospect over 
 hill and dale, and the delicious air. Since Mr. 
 Samuel Sherwood succeeded to his inheritance she 
 has often been his guest, and has written much in 
 the parlor, where the furniture is of a kind that 
 might once have been owned by Washington. 
 
 The house contains old claw-footed mahogany 
 tables, a piano of the gold and mahogany of the 
 Napoleonic era, made in London in 1826, old clocks 
 and chairs, and china rare and pretty. But the 
 [141] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in liheir Homes 
 
 beauty lies in the really artistic wood-carving of the 
 pilasters and mantelpieces, which are of the Ionic 
 order, and as carefully executed as if an architect 
 of to-day had presided over their finishing. Nobody 
 knows who did this work, at a time when a jack- 
 knife was perhaps the main implement applied to 
 wood in Delaware County after the axe had felled 
 the tree. Nearly a century has passed, and still 
 the faithful old chimney draws well, the back-log 
 glows in the ample fireplace, giving most hospitable 
 welcome. The beams are strong and intact, and 
 Woodland House looks as if it might last another 
 hundred years. 
 
 The present owner, having a taste for landscape- 
 gardening, has much improved the park and grounds 
 by judicious planting of hedges and the exercise of 
 his fancy for gardening. He respects with proper 
 reverence the fine old place and never modernizes 
 its beautiful outlines. It has inspired a sort of 
 hero-worship in all the descendants of Samuel Sher- 
 wood. One of Mrs. Sherwood's best essays, under 
 the title of " The Unknown Picturesque," described 
 it in Appletons Journal and brought her a letter 
 from Washington Irving. Here was written a 
 novel which has had much success, " A Transplanted 
 Rose," and her first novel, which she says had no 
 success at all, called " A Sarcasm of Destiny " ; but, 
 as if true to its title, the latter led to literary 
 [ 142 ] 
 
Mrs. Sherwood 
 
 popularity at the South, which has stood her in stead 
 with later work. 
 
 During an industrious literary life Mrs. Sher- 
 wood has contributed some three hundred short 
 stories to various magazines, more than that num- 
 ber of essays, besides various poems and an endless 
 correspondence from Europe, much of which found 
 a home in " An Epistle to Posterity." Perhaps her 
 best work in late years has been done in The Satur- 
 day Review of Books, in the form of literary essays, 
 reminiscences of authors, and an occasional book 
 criticism, many of which papers were written at 
 Woodland House at a window looking into the 
 tree-tops, with no interruption but that of innu- 
 merable squirrels, some pouter pigeons, a thousand 
 birds, and a stately peacock who walked up and 
 down, as if he were at H addon Hall. Delaware 
 County is rich in birds— golden robins, Baltimore 
 orioles, scarlet tanagas, the exquisite scarlet border 
 woodpeckers, thrushes which sing at dawn, and the 
 bluebird, looking as if he had brought with him a 
 piece of the sky. 
 
 Amid the waterfalls and mountain solitudes in 
 this bit of Switzerland in America, amid the finest 
 of primeval forests, with elms, maples, and locusts 
 of gigantic growth, and with a few very noble 
 pines, Woodland House is a place apart, with 
 brooks to make music through its glebe ere they 
 [ 143 1 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 empty their bright waters into the Delaware, which 
 goes on gathering up treasures until it expands into 
 the great tributary which carries navies on its bosom 
 out to sea. 
 
 When one writes of Mrs. Sherwood's home in 
 New York the description, more naturally, should 
 turn to the Windsor Hotel, rather than to the 
 Majestic. And this recalls the great calamity of 
 March 17th, three years ago, which swept that 
 hotel off the earth. The loss of life, although large, 
 was not so great as that in the Brooklyn Theatre 
 fire of many years before, but it was severe enough 
 to cause anguish to many hearts. 
 
 Although the Windsor was a splendid and a fash- 
 ionable hostelry, known especially to the better class 
 of English travellers as a favorite house for a tem- 
 porary stop, it was essentially a home. Year after 
 year its commodious apartments sheltered the same 
 families, and people who went for a week stayed 
 for years. It had a quiet elegance, and there was 
 a home feeling within its walls. Three beautiful 
 parlors in front gave everybody a view of the gay 
 panorama of Fifth Avenue. Its octagon parlor was 
 a quiet place for music and reading. The grand 
 hall, opening up to a roof by an open shaft, gave 
 excellent ventilation, and the grand dining-room, 
 the largest single arch in New York, was unsur- 
 passed for coolness, light, and good breathing effects. 
 [ 144] 
 
Mrs. Sherwood 
 
 People who had been cremated nightly in other 
 hotels went to the Windsor and breathed more 
 freely and deeply. This dining-room, lighted by 
 eight large windows, let in the winter's sun most 
 healthfully; but, strange to say, it was the coolest 
 room in summer in New York. Here for years, 
 under a series of accomplished hosts, went on an 
 unbroken record of good eating and careful serving. 
 Indeed, so famous was the hotel for having almost 
 impossible luxuries that it was boasted that during 
 the blizzard of March 12, 1888, fresh strawberries 
 were served every day! When asked where he got 
 them, the steward replied: "In the roof-garden." 
 
 " I lived all over it," said Mrs. Sherwood, in re- 
 calling the hotel, " in the nine years which I made 
 it my home; but I got to like best an apartment 
 on the sixth floor, into which the sun poured all 
 through the dreary winter, when it shone every- 
 where. I used to rise at five to see Venus as the 
 morning star, and after another nap would again 
 draw my curtains to see the sun rise in a bit of 
 scene painting of opal and ruby which would have 
 made the fortune of any theatre in town. On 
 cloudy mornings, when a sea fog made the aerial 
 perspective worthless for taking an observation, the 
 sun would seem to hang like a red ball near my 
 window, so near to me that, had I been less in 
 awe of his Majesty, I would have extended my 
 [145] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in liheir Homes 
 
 hand to him. Then, after enjoying his levee, I 
 would go back, draw my curtains, and take an- 
 other nap. 
 
 " The views from these upper windows of the 
 Windsor were lovely, stretching over countless 
 spires to Weehawken on the one side and to Long 
 Island on the other. So warm and sheltered were 
 these apartments that one could raise flowers in the 
 windows, and no fire was necessary. They were 
 very much in demand by rheumatics and invalids, 
 and one lady, who had a valuable collection of 
 paintings and rare books, took one of them for the 
 fine light — alas! Filled thus as the sixth story was 
 with a very sympathetic crowd of people, who en- 
 joyed the immunity from noise and the presence of 
 the sun, no one thought of the danger of fire, al- 
 though it was often brought to our attention by 
 Mr. Wetherbee, that master of organization, whose 
 energetic rule had done much to bring the Windsor 
 to perfection. He was always afraid of fire, and had 
 no hesitancy in saying, when he left the Windsor 
 for the Manhattan : ' I am glad to leave this tinder- 
 box, this fire-trap.' 
 
 " I never borrow trouble anywhere. I always 
 let it come the whole way, quite certain that it will 
 arrive when it is necessary. So that I do not re- 
 member ever being afraid of fire in all these years. 
 During the last winter in the Windsor, when I 
 [146] 
 
Mrs. Sherwood 
 
 had a very severe fit of illness, I occasionally looked 
 out at my iron fire-escape, just outside my window, 
 and then laid a warm dressing-gown and slippers 
 where I might don them speedily. I cannot now 
 understand my temerity, my foolishness. I hid 
 away the unsightly rope hung there for my safety, 
 and the subject of fire was the one thing which 
 troubled me least. 
 
 " As for being frightened, as one ought to have 
 been, nobody was. The Windsor protected many 
 thousands for nearly thirty years, and then burned 
 down in thirty minutes. We who were miracu- 
 lously saved watched the holocaust with wonder 
 that we had been so lapped in Elysium. Perhaps 
 the ceaseless pit-a-pat of the watchmen at night 
 kept us quiet. The house had been put under ex- 
 cellent surveillance. Indeed, one of the surviving 
 watchmen told me that ' the fire could not have 
 occurred in the night,' and perhaps the confusion 
 of St. Patrick's Day, the open windows, the absence 
 of the men whose duty it was to watch fire, helped 
 to the final catastrophe. 
 
 " I started by appointment at 2.30 o'clock to go 
 down to call on Miss Helen McKinley, on the 
 lowest floor on the Fifth Avenue side of the Wind- 
 sor, on that fatal day. Something induced me to 
 linger and take a final look at that apartment which 
 I was never to see again. It looked very cheerful, 
 [147] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in 'their Homes 
 
 with a great pot of tulips blossoming in the window 
 and throwing out a flaunting flag of encouragement 
 to the reluctant spring. Its red and white draper- 
 ies and its Roman blankets were imprisoning the 
 sunbeams, and around the walls hung the portraits 
 of my family and friends. Friendly photographs 
 found a leaning against the wall. My favorite 
 books were on my bookshelves, and my heavily laden 
 and disorderly writing-table showed the life of the 
 busy woman. My needlework lay on a chair, and 
 my half-read novel on the table. Bric-a-brac from 
 all over the world was spread about, and under the 
 Roman and Spanish blankets were chests contain- 
 ing the accumulations of a lifetime, in letters, sou- 
 venirs, manuscripts, journals, and all that a woman 
 can wear. I had made this agreeable corner my 
 winter home. I had been forced into invalid habits, 
 and I had made it so cheerful and pretty that I 
 could scarcely bear to leave it; and as I look back 
 upon that momentary lingering I cannot but feel 
 that it was intended as a farewell by those mys- 
 terious spirits whom we call our guardian angels, 
 who, however, forced me to move on to safety. 
 
 " I think I had not been downstairs three times 
 during the winter. I certainly had never made a 
 call at that time. As I crossed the vast parallelo- 
 gram which separated me from the elevator I per- 
 ceived a strong odor of kerosene, and as Warren 
 [148 j 
 
Mrs. Sherwood 
 
 Guion, our Casabianca, as he was about to prove 
 himself an hour later, opened the door for me, I 
 said : ' Have you broken a kerosene lamp ? ' ' No, 
 madam,' said he, 1 there is no such thing in the 
 Windsor Hotel.' 
 
 " When I alighted from the elevator on the low- 
 est floor he told me it was 2.30 o'clock. Perhaps 
 I had chatted about twenty minutes with the ladies 
 in the McKinley parlor before we saw an agitation 
 in the ranks of the Sixty-ninth Regiment, which 
 was deploying at the head of the procession. Then 
 a puff of smoke came down from the seventh story. 
 ' Ah,' said I, ' a little fire in an upper room.' I 
 had often seen such put out. I felt quite lethargic 
 and unlike moving until some ropes came down past 
 the window, and finally a woman, who fell prone 
 from her rope. Then I opened the door into the 
 hall which led to the Forty-sixth Street door, and 
 two firemen seized me, lifted me across a burning 
 bit of matting, and deposited me in Forty-sixth 
 Street. The one glance which I gave backward 
 showed me the flames in the elevator shaft. 
 
 " Hurried across that crowded street, already 
 full of engines, people, and ambulances, I looked 
 up at the burning house. Tremendous flames and 
 smoke were bursting from the seventh story, and a 
 few were creeping up from the ground floor on the 
 farthest corner of the Madison Avenue side. Down 
 1 149] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 the fire-escapes women were crawling, and others 
 were painfully gesticulating at the sixth-story win- 
 dows. 
 
 " Those magnificent fellows, the New York fire- 
 men, were already putting up ladders to rescue the 
 latter. Such courage had they, such unselfish devo- 
 tion to duty, such inspirations! The blood of 
 heroes and martyrs seemed to be surging in their 
 veins. Greater than the courage of a soldier in 
 battle is their courage. Greater than a wild Ind- 
 ian's in their indifference to pain. Superb is their 
 resource and invention. What steady pulses, strong 
 beating hearts, and good breath must they have as 
 they take a woman from a sixth-story burning 
 room, throw her over the shoulder as if she were 
 a bag of meal, and bring her down one of these 
 little scaling-ladders. They seem to tread on air 
 and to be indifferent to the law of gravitation. 
 When they have a life to save the angels lend them 
 their wings. Alas! I saw sadder sights, as women 
 threw themselves from these windows, were picked 
 up by ambulances and carried off to hospitals. 
 
 " In the barber's shop where I had taken refuge 
 were some poor hysterical mothers who had come 
 up from downtown and whose children were in the 
 Windsor. I never heard whether they met again. 
 One by one an old acquaintance of the Windsor 
 who had come down a fire-escape in dressing-gown 
 [150] 
 
Mrs. Sherwood 
 
 would wander in, hurt, wounded, and yet com- 
 posed and sensible. It was rather the habit for the 
 Windsor House ladies to lie down after luncheon 
 for a short sleep before going to afternoon church 
 or for a drive. They were an industrious and 
 energetic set, devoted to shopping, and doubtless got 
 very tired. To this habit many of them owed loss 
 of life, as well as loss of all their rings. Had they 
 paused a moment to pick up a cloak they perhaps 
 would have been burned to death. 
 
 " I do not know how many little children were 
 lost, but I know, thank God! of three who were 
 saved. Our excellent and thoughtful Warren 
 Guion, who died at his post, going back for some 
 ladies upstairs after the policemen had tried to get 
 him out of his elevator, had previously saved my 
 three little grandchildren by telling them that I 
 was not in my room. He had no idea of fire, but 
 he did what he did for these children from kind- 
 ness. They went out on the balcony to see the 
 procession, and a cool, strong nurse led them 
 through burning rooms to their safety. 
 
 " I found shelter for the afternoon and night in 
 the hospitable house of Mrs. Seligman, 2 East 
 Forty-sixth Street, directly opposite the burning 
 Windsor, which I saw blaze all night. I hope I 
 may never be in such need of a shelter as I was on 
 March 17th; but if I am, I hope that any place 
 [ 151 ] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 may look as safe to me as did Mrs. Seligman's 
 laundry, a great, spacious, comfortable city house, 
 stretching back indefinitely. I suppose some other 
 people may have as good a basement, but I do not 
 know it. Here at seven o'clock my sons found 
 me, safe, unburned, unscarred, and at the end of 
 an awful afternoon. The first puff of smoke was 
 visible from the Windsor to me at 3 p.m. At 3.30 
 the walls had fallen! 
 
 " It would be like writing a history about our 
 civilization to describe the many famous people I 
 have seen at the Windsor, from Patti holding the 
 hand of Nicolini to President McKinley and Ad- 
 miral Schley. Famous people in art, in science, in 
 social life, and in literature passed before us. It 
 was a liberal education to live there and see them 
 go by. There seemed to be always a majority of 
 the better element, of gentlemen and of ladies. It 
 was well fitted, with its fine banqueting-hall, for 
 great fetes, which went on constantly." 
 
 [152] 
 
Blanche W\ Wis Howard 
 In Munich, Bavaria 
 
BY MISS HOWARD 
 
 Born in Maine ; died in Munich in l8gg 
 
 One Summer. 
 Aulnay Towers. 
 Aunt Serena. 
 Guenn. 
 
 The Open Door. 
 One Year Abroad. 
 
XIV 
 
 Blanche Willis Howard 
 
 In Munich, Bavaria 
 
 FOR nearly a score of years Blanche Willis 
 Howard not only held a secure position in 
 American literature, but enjoyed that very 
 rare privilege of pleasing both the critics and the 
 public. Yet, to accomplish this, she did not con- 
 spire with the press agent or the interviewer; she 
 was neither the Queen's favorite novelist nor the 
 prophet of a new Utopia. In fact she lived, dur- 
 ing the greater part of the time, quite remotely in 
 Europe, and her books appeared from time to time 
 with no flourish of trumpets, without so much as 
 a photograph of the author. In spite of which she 
 was perhaps, with the single exception of Mr. 
 Henry James, the only American novelist who 
 found a long exile and a firm hold upon the Amer- 
 ican public at all compatible. In her death, a few 
 years ago, the reading public knew that it had met 
 with a distinct loss. 
 
 Notwithstanding the dearth of newspaper para- 
 graphs about her, most American readers knew the 
 author of " One Summer " as Madame von Teuffel, 
 and realized that, while she was a loyal New Eng- 
 land woman, her home for many years was in Ger- 
 Li55l 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in 'Their Homes 
 
 many. In order to swell the slender store of facts 
 the writer visited Munich and interrupted Madame 
 von Teuffel's work long enough to chat with her, 
 delightfully, of many things. 
 
 One no sooner enters Munich, curiously beauti- 
 ful old city that it is, than one recognizes the same 
 subtle flavor that has lent so great a charm to 
 Blanche Willis Howard's later works, particularly 
 her single short stories and her " Seven on the High- 
 way." The truthfulness of these sharply etched 
 pictures is indisputable, once one has felt that pe- 
 culiar blending of mediaeval angularity and modern 
 expansiveness, characteristic of Bavarian Munich. 
 And it has a wonderful stimulus, this sunny, Old 
 World atmosphere, with, on the one hand, its aca- 
 demic repose, on the other its close and sympathetic 
 connection with the nerve circles of modern life, 
 and, permeating and coloring all like the time-stain 
 on some old tapestry or carving, that Catholicism 
 which holds the ingenuous Bavarians as firmly to- 
 day as it did hundreds of years ago. It is an 
 atmosphere which compels sympathy, and would 
 tinge any work produced within its borders. 
 
 Munich, however, was only one of many homes 
 of the writer of " Seven on the Highway," and her 
 outlook here, upon one of the most quiet parts of 
 the city, with Ludwig I.'s towering obelisk close 
 at hand, the art galleries and the university not 
 [156] 
 
Blanche Willis Howard 
 
 far distant, she exchanged periodically for Paris, 
 London, or Guernsey — the latter a favorite spot — 
 or the Orient. Madame von Teuffel's literary 
 penates were singularly adaptable. " Given a 
 theme, a certain amount of seclusion, my swan- 
 pen, and my type-writer, and I can do my work — 
 such as it is — almost anywhere," was her confes- 
 sion of her own very simple requirements. Her 
 temporary home-life in Munich, which was simple 
 and charming, was spent in the company of her 
 sons and in an atmosphere vibrant with her own 
 magnetic personality. There existed, by the way, 
 an unusually beautiful relationship between Ma- 
 dame von Teuffel and her sons, whose devotion to 
 her was remarkable. The best things that the city 
 had to give were, in fullest measure, at her disposal. 
 The most valued lectures of the university were 
 open to her — for in Germany women must still 
 enter a university by the side door and content 
 themselves with Madame von Teuffel's wise reflec- 
 tion that, with so much within, it was foolish to 
 quibble over the manner of one's admission. 
 
 Socially, Munich offers the charm of a circle that 
 includes artists and litterateurs of many nationali- 
 ties, and which recognizes as its moving spirit the 
 poet and critic, Paul Heyse, who was an old and 
 intimate friend of Madame von Teuffel's. Apropos 
 of this side of her life, it ought to be said that 
 [157] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 Madame von Teuffel was quite the delightful and 
 brilliant conversationalist which one would expect 
 her to be. The humor which is so much a part of 
 her writing was characteristic of her in all circum- 
 stances. With all this, she was persistently indus- 
 trious, and her days — long, delightful German days 
 they were, which always seemed to contain twice 
 as many hours as American ones — were almost in- 
 variably spent in writing for that American public 
 which late in life she never saw nor heard. 
 
 As we walked through that beautiful park which 
 Munich has called her English Garden, I learned 
 of Madame von Teuffel's passion for all varieties 
 of outdoor life. While she delighted above all in 
 the sea and its pleasures, there were also compensa- 
 tions for life in a town, chief among which was 
 the wheel. While she was the most enthusiastic of 
 bicyclists, she reserved some of her energies for 
 riding and walking, and by no means scorned in- 
 door athletics. Swimming she practised constantly, 
 and in this sport maintained a prestige which few 
 women could rival. To be able to swim easily two 
 miles at a stretch is no ordinary accomplishment 
 for a woman, and it was evident Madame von 
 Teuffel prided herself far more upon this feat than 
 upon her literary successes. 
 
 One realized in her that one had indeed found an 
 exception to the American temper and the Ameri- 
 [158] 
 
Blanche Willis Howard 
 
 can literary method when one learned that the 
 author of " Guenn " did not choose her surround- 
 ings with regard to their availability as "copy." 
 At home we may consider it altogether legitimate, 
 and even commendable, to ruin our clothes and our 
 tempers in the search for the untold story and the 
 unpainted scene. Once having stumbled upon a 
 " type," to dissect him until he affords the outline 
 of a sketch or story — this we may consider a neces- 
 sary and not wholly disagreeable side of the artist's 
 mission. To Madame von Teuffel, however, that 
 deliberate probing after the dramatic and pictu- 
 resque which a Richard Harding Davis or a Ste- 
 phen Crane would readily permit himself was 
 repugnant. She adopted, rather, the more natural 
 attitude of letting her stories seek her, and remod- 
 elling them, artist fashion, as they came. 
 
 " I go about among the German peasants and 
 working people and fishermen on the Baltic, and 
 the mountaineers in the Tyrol," she admitted. 
 " But with no ulterior motive, and certainly not 
 with a note-book in my hand. Sooner or later they 
 are apt to tell me their stories, I suppose because 
 they feel my human sympathy and interest. I like 
 them, and they perceive it. But I do not pursue 
 or lie in wait for them, and I do not catechise 
 them." 
 
 Which was quite consistent with Madame von 
 [ iS9] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in 'Their Homes 
 
 Teuffel's further point of view that the Germans, 
 or, for that matter, the Americans, were of interest 
 to the writer or philosopher, first and last, as hu- 
 man beings; and that to study them merely with 
 reference to their external differences from other 
 nationalities would be superficial and unprofitable. 
 
 Of books and their makers Madame von Teuffel 
 said many a good and pertinent thing. One noted 
 in her that fine catholicity of taste which is so rare 
 that one distrusts it at first appearance. This is 
 but the mask of tolerance, one assures one s self, 
 and prepares for the flourish of Ibsenism, or the 
 fanfare of Tolstoi, or the paean of ultra-modernism 
 which is sure to sound when the little prelude shall 
 be over and the curtain rung up. For most of us 
 are the prophets of some one little literary god, 
 and fall into the way of expecting in others the 
 same armed-to-the-teeth fanaticism. But conversa- 
 tion with this very keen student of men and of 
 books failed to reveal any such shrieking partisan- 
 ship. A constant reader of the philosophers and 
 scientists, and a devoted student of Goethe, she by 
 no means lacked sympathy with the " minor " 
 writers, and kept constantly in touch with the lit- 
 erary output of all modern languages. Meredith 
 she considered the greatest of contemporary Eng- 
 lish novelists. Kipling and Hardy were especial 
 favorites. But, while delighting in Kipling's superb 
 [160] 
 
Blanche IV Mis Howard 
 
 vitality, she admitted also a love of artistic setting, 
 of style per se, which led her to admire Pater, and 
 to single out especially that brilliant essayist, Alice 
 Meynell. For our own Miss Repplier Madame 
 von Teuffel professed a particularly keen sympathy. 
 
 In all the so-called modern problems — sociologi- 
 cal, educational, and other — Madame von Teuffel 
 took much more than a passing interest. Nor did 
 her sympathies stop at the border of the " woman 
 question," though here she preferred to be reticent. 
 Indeed, in this respect she would be likely to agree 
 with Miss Repplier, that " there are few things 
 more wearisome in a fairly fatiguing life than the 
 monotonous repetition of a phrase which catches 
 and holds the public fancy by virtue of its total 
 lack of significance." " It is hardly reasonable to 
 suppose," Madame von Teuffel said, " that, in view 
 of the fact that I have myself worked since I was 
 eighteen years old, I should lack sympathy with 
 the welfare or progress of women." Nevertheless, 
 to her, as to many rational persons, the practice of 
 separating the work of men and women, of erect- 
 ing " women's buildings," indefinitely multiplying 
 " women's clubs," and of forming women's polit- 
 ical parties, was particularly distasteful. For the 
 present she has before her eyes the cheering spec- 
 tacle of a very considerable group of women who 
 had so far defied the supposed thraldom of the 
 [ 161 ] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in 'their Homes 
 
 tyrannous sex as to take, intellectually, socially, and 
 artistically, a high place. Munich is crowded with 
 women students, every one of whom has had a 
 sharp victory over tradition in order to gain the 
 intellectual power which she guards as tenaciously 
 as the German man, and applies as cleverly as the 
 American woman. 
 
 Madame von Teuffel had a nest, full of literary 
 nurslings, all of which she intended to let fly to 
 America in good time. Novels, magazine stories, 
 a newspaper correspondence which includes a bi- 
 monthly department, of unusual strength and piq- 
 uancy, in Collier s W eekly — all formed part of a 
 really stupendous amount of work which found its 
 way through the rollers of that busy type-writer in 
 the course of a year. Yet, admirably as this clever 
 writer gauged the temper of her public, and un- 
 failingly successful as her work had been, she had, 
 inevitably, only the remotest sort of connection 
 with the audience which was so loyal to her. The 
 roar of the Atlantic was quite loud enough to dull 
 the echo of public opinion long before it reached 
 quiet Germany, and appreciation must have come 
 to her quite distilled, in the form of letters or, more 
 or less belated, through the press. It was a curious 
 and infrequent situation, but Madame von Teuffel 
 did not seek to avoid it by becoming a link in any 
 complacent, mutually adulatory chain of literary 
 [162] 
 
Blanche Willis Howard 
 
 folk. Of " log-rolling " in principle and practice 
 she was altogether distrustful, and found at all 
 times much the greatest stimulus in an atmosphere 
 not freighted with the prejudices and ready-made 
 opinions of many " literary centres." 
 
 The impression which one carried away from 
 Blanche Willis Howard's German home was that 
 of absolute poise and tranquillity. One felt that 
 she had gained that enviable isolation, that restful 
 stepping aside from the current of things, for the 
 lack of which so many of her fellow-writers must 
 beat their breasts in despair. For the paramount 
 advantage of German life is that it allows one, as 
 we express it, to " hear one's self think " — and 
 what noise-deafened American writer would not be 
 grateful to listen, now and then, to the smooth 
 whirr of his own mental machinery? And were 
 there any likelihood that the vigor, the particularly 
 trenchant qualities of Madame von Teuffel's work, 
 would result from another such self-imposed exile, 
 one is tempted to think that we could spare a 
 handful of writers, now and then, for the sake of 
 the experiment. 
 
 [163] 
 
Harriet Prescott Spofford 
 
 In Deer Island, Massachusetts 
 
BY MRS. SPOFFORD 
 
 Born in Calais, Maine 
 
 Sir Rohan's Ghost. 
 The Amber Gods. 
 New England Legends. 
 The Marquis of Carabas. 
 Hester Stanley. 
 
 Art Decoration Applied to Furniture. 
 A Master Spirit. 
 
 In Titian's Garden and Other Poems. 
 
XV 
 
 Harriet Prescott Spofford 
 In Deer Island, Massachusetts 
 
 WHOEVER has traversed the beautiful 
 highway from quaint Newburyport, 
 where the glories of a former day of 
 sea-wealth are not yet fully extinct, on toward 
 Amesbury, now renowned for the glistening per- 
 fection of its famous carriages, must have paused 
 a moment in sheer delight at the marvellous pictu- 
 resqueness of Deer Island, which rises from the 
 Merrimac River in rocky grandeur at one of its 
 ends and slopes to the water in green and sedgy 
 peace at the other. " The home for a poet " is the 
 first thought awakened by its superb situation, its 
 generous size, its evident age, its embowerment in 
 vines and trees, and its architectural beauty of that 
 era which men are now bringing back to the world. 
 It is the home of a poet, and of a true and lovely 
 woman besides, for here during twenty-five years 
 has lived Harriet Prescott Spofford. At least, it 
 has been her summer abode, and in all those quali- 
 ties that are best loved and dearest it is her real 
 home. Here are the household gods, here the ten- 
 derest memories, here the care and labor to make 
 [167] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 the place a paradise, and here, doubtless, the chief 
 inspiration for many of the glowing works of its 
 mistress. 
 
 Years ago Deer Island was bisected by a turn- 
 pike road, and here toll was taken on account of 
 man and beast. Great six-horse teams went labor- 
 ing into town with timber and country produce 
 and back again with West India goods and New- 
 buryport rum for the country storekeeper. The 
 southern shore of the island is connected with the 
 mainland by the famous " chain bridge," the first 
 of its kind in America. This structure has been 
 rebuilt to some extent, but it is essentially the same 
 curious affair as of old, rather awe-inspiring to the 
 stranger who passes it for the first time. Elec- 
 tricity, that devourer of all likely roads, has claimed 
 this one, and the grinding jangle of its cars has 
 come as the one modern tone in an idyllic spot. 
 But they afford you a pleasantly apprehensive sen- 
 sation, for as your car touches the planking of the 
 bridge you see the floor ahead undulate like the 
 back of the conventional sea-serpent. This insta- 
 bility, some sixty feet above a swiftly moving river, 
 is not good for weak nerves. However, the reflec- 
 tion that it is characteristic of chain bridges in 
 general is sufficiently reassuring. 
 
 When the car has left you in the very middle 
 of the island, and has gone rumbling on over the 
 [i68] 
 
Harriet Prescott Spofford 
 
 more modern bridge that crosses toward Amesbury, 
 you stand for a minute in the road and catch your 
 breath at the absolute beauty of the place. On this 
 lofty plateau the eye sweeps around from the green 
 salt meadows near Newburyport to the splendid 
 forests across to the west, and thence to the Salis- 
 bury shore, where the lordly Merrimac bends 
 sharply around and is lost to view. There is a 
 soft rush of tide at the foot of the crags, a rustle 
 of the wind in mighty pines, a warm glow of sun- 
 light, and a dancing glitter of wavelets on every 
 side. And then comes the peaceful old house, 
 standing quiet guard over all this opulence of nat- 
 ure. It needs only the crash of the breakers, dis- 
 tant not many miles to the eastward, to complete 
 the sum-total of natural elements that have their 
 counterpart in Mrs. Spofford's wonderful prose, 
 with its wealth of color, its lofty spirituality, its 
 tender grace, and its surging passion. I think that 
 in the hunger for the new in literature the splendor 
 of its word-painting may have faded from the pub- 
 lic mind somewhat, but it needs only a re-reading 
 of " Sir Rohan's Ghost," " The South Breaker," 
 and " Midsummer and May " to convince one of 
 its pre-eminence. 
 
 But the quaintest of little rustic gates set in the 
 hedge invites us to pass into the more intimate 
 domain of the Spoffords, and, lifting a mass of 
 [169] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in 'Their Homes 
 
 vines that overarch it, we stoop — and conquer. 
 Once inside the sheltering shrubs and trees we are 
 beyond any suggestion of the hurly-burly world. 
 Even the funny old stern-wheel steamer that plies 
 between Haverhill and Black Rock moves placidly 
 up the stream with long, lazy wheezes, as if loath 
 to make itself a discordant element in the neigh- 
 borhood. 
 
 Now the ancient house is seen to be of noble 
 and artistic proportions, hip-roofed and dormer- 
 windowed in the good old style, and flanked by a 
 generous veranda, over which the climbing trum- 
 pet flowers (my visit was made in mid-winter) 
 throw their scarlet masses in picturesque profusion. 
 When he acquired the property Mr. Spofford 
 turned the building half around, so that it no 
 longer faces the street, but looks out upon the 
 woods across the river — a tract that the owner of 
 Deer Island had the rare foresight to purchase, so 
 that the axe of the utilitarian could never strip 
 the prospect of its beauty. 
 
 Imagine a little grassy plain, dotted with flowers 
 and bushes, reaching to the sheer edge of a bold 
 and rocky precipice. Picture a sort of Italian 
 balustrade along this edge, and a great number of 
 evergreens — firs, spruces, and hemlocks — shading 
 it; seats everywhere and of every description tucked 
 away between rocks and trees, and most of them 
 [ 170] 
 
Harriet Prescott Spofford 
 
 overlooking the swirling water far below; then, 
 more to the northward, several groups of as mag- 
 nificent pines as you will find in any primeval 
 forest. Far out on the point they stand, a poet's 
 sentinels. From under them the eye is drawn to 
 the heights on the left bank, where the " Castle," 
 a somewhat romantic structure, and once the home 
 of Sir Edward Thornton, dominates its immediate 
 surroundings. Around to the northwest the tower 
 of the once famous " Hawkswood " rises over the 
 trees. Small wonder that all travellers have praised 
 the beauty of this scene, that Whittier loved it, 
 that Bayard Taylor called it " unexcelled." 
 
 Within the house are more delights, most attrac- 
 tive of which perhaps are the great hall and the 
 fine old staircase that branches into two flights 
 after a little and leads to an upper hall, taking in 
 the full length of the mansion. The " home room " 
 is on the left of the hall in the westerly end X)f the 
 house. It is a parlor, salon, and sitting-room, all 
 in one, and certainly it is large enough for the 
 triple purpose, its length being the entire width 
 of the dwelling. Windows of proportionate size 
 give it a very airy effect and furnish frames for 
 charming glimpses of forest and water. Cheeri- 
 ness is the keynote of the room. The furniture is 
 simple and attractive, and not so new as to suggest 
 lack of adaptability to the human frame. There is 
 [i7i] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 no particular " scheme " of decoration, nor the ex- 
 ploitation of any fad. 
 
 Excellent pictures of all sorts are on the walls — 
 two of them gems, a fruit piece by Maltesi and a 
 religious painting of " Christ at the Judgment," 
 attributed to Bassano. This picture was bequeathed 
 to Mr. Spofford by President Pierce. If genuine, 
 it is of great value — but there's the rub. How- 
 ever, no one will venture to say that it is not. A 
 splendid fireplace, edged with polished serpentine, 
 gives the right touch of dignity. Just off from the 
 large room is a small but well-stocked library, and 
 still behind that the quaintest, coziest den imagi- 
 nable, whose most salient piece of furniture seems 
 to be an old-fashioned writing-chair, with a huge 
 table for its right arm. Here was Mr. Spofford's 
 working-place in days gone by, and here his friends 
 used to come and smoke the pipe of peace and hap- 
 piness. It is a place of memories and dreams, but 
 for that matter so is the whole domain, with its 
 indescribable air of something remote and of an- 
 other world. 
 
 Mrs. Spofford, when the writer saw her, was 
 slowly recovering from a long and serious illness — 
 the first of her life — and she saw very few people. 
 She did not like to deny any visitor the pleasure 
 he might get from an interview with her. " But 
 one must get well if one can, you know," she said, 
 [ 172] 
 
Harriet Prescott Spofford 
 
 with a smile. Those for whom the prohibition was 
 removed saw a slender, graceful woman, with sil- 
 very hair and a gentle face, whose lines of just 
 discernible sadness were relieved by eloquent and 
 beautiful eyes, in which lay the light of faith and 
 humanity. Of her own work she talked little; 
 rather would she hear and join in praises of the 
 loveliness of her island home or discuss the doings 
 of the modern world. She was surprisingly in 
 touch with the problems of to-day, and her thought 
 is of value. 
 
 A peep into Mrs. Spofford's dining-room should 
 not be omitted, for it is an exceedingly old-fashioned 
 place, with a rare antique sideboard, historic china, 
 and other furnishings of value to the eye of the 
 connoisseur. A very curious ornament is a won- 
 derfully artistic ship's bell, found floating on the 
 ocean long ago by a Newburyport sea-captain. It 
 is now mounted on the mantel, and its mellow tones 
 are employed to summon the family to table. Here 
 you will find that the delightful other-day custom 
 of offering cake and wine to the visitor is still in 
 vogue, and, as you gracefully accept the now almost 
 obsolete hospitality, pages of Miss Wilkins's charm- 
 ing books flit across your mind. Surely there must 
 be lavender in the linen-chests upstairs, and jam 
 and jellies in immaculate rows in the cellar store- 
 room. 
 
 [ 173] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 The larger part of the island lies across the road, 
 and it is almost as beautiful as the house-plot. 
 First come the trim vegetable gardens, and beyond a 
 very respectable hay-field. On the right shore is a 
 magnificent pine-grove, with its smooth floor of 
 brown needles, large enough for the picnics of whole 
 regiments of Sunday-school children. Around to 
 the left a pretty summer-house is nestled on a com- 
 manding point, and near it is a little wharf where 
 the boats of the domain are fastened. On both 
 sides of the road the usual " No trespassing " signs 
 are conspicuous by their absence, but there is a 
 rather formidable dog chained up in the yard be- 
 hind the house. Left to his own devices o' nights, 
 he is probably entirely sufficient to check any chance 
 marauders who might lack respect for poets. 
 
 The long afternoon slipped speedily away in this 
 pleasant pilgrimage, and the low-lying sun was 
 burnishing the river with saffron and pink. It was 
 a fitting time to bid good-by to Deer Island and to 
 the woman who is a part of its poetry and charm. 
 As it has been for twenty years, so you leave it now. 
 
 [i74l 
 
Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney 
 
 In Milton Lower Mills, Massachusetts 
 
BY MRS. WHITNEY 
 
 Born in Boston, Massachusetts 
 
 Friendly Letters to Young Girls. 
 Faith Gartney's Girlhood. 
 The Gayworthys. 
 
 A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. 
 
 We Girls. 
 
 Real Folks. 
 
 A Golden Gossip. 
 
 White Memories. 
 
XVI 
 
 Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney 
 
 In Milton Lower Mills, Massachusetts 
 
 ROM Boston State House to Milton Lower 
 
 Mills is just six miles, and in the old times, 
 
 when Governor Belcher was the ruler of 
 the Massachusetts Commonwealth, a line of mile- 
 stones marked the distances to the Governor's Mil- 
 ton House. State officials and clergymen have 
 been fond of this old New England town. One 
 part of it, indeed, was at one time called Zion's 
 Hill, because in close neighborhood half a score of 
 clergymen had their permanent or their summer 
 homes, and in the group were included S. K. 
 Lothrop, Joseph Angier, Edward Everett Hale, 
 Chandler Robbins, and John Weiss. Among civil 
 dignitaries living in Milton perhaps the most distin- 
 guished was Governor Thomas Hutchinson, whose 
 house was surrounded by grounds whose fame has 
 extended to the present day, for everyone in Mil- 
 ton, at least, understands what it means when 
 reference is made to "The Governor's Garden." 
 After Hutchinson's forced departure for England, 
 James Warren, President of the Provincial Con- 
 gress, occupied the house, and Milton was well 
 known to other leading patriots. Close by the Mil- 
 
 [ 177] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 ton station is the old Vose House, where in 1774 
 were adopted the famous Suffolk Resolves, which 
 were reported by General Joseph Warren. It is an 
 unpretending Colonial mansion, which one might 
 hardly notice but for the tablet stating its historic 
 importance. In front of it are three large elms. 
 
 Only a few doors beyond the historic Vose House 
 is the residence of Mrs. Whitney. For many years 
 she lived in a larger house farther from the centre 
 of the village, known as Elm Corner, and here all 
 her important books were written, except the first, 
 "Mother Goose for Grown Folks." But, after 
 her son decided to occupy the old Whitney home- 
 stead (built by his grandfather) near the station, 
 Mrs. Whitney gave up Elm Corner to her daugh- 
 ter, Mrs. T. A. Field, and her family, while she 
 built a smaller house for herself on the land near 
 her son's home. This house of Mrs. Whitney's is 
 a pretty cottage of wood, painted light brown, with 
 many windows. The visitor feels its individuality 
 and homelikeness from the moment of entering the 
 small, square hall. On the left of the entrance is 
 a light and airy drawing-room, with a large centre- 
 table laden with books and photographs, a well- 
 filled bookcase, carefully selected pictures, and 
 easy-chairs and handsome pieces of old-fashioned 
 furniture brought from Elm Corner. Over the 
 mantelpiece hangs a fine portrait of Mrs. Whitney's 
 [178] 
 
Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney 
 
 father, Colonel Enoch Train, one of the most sub- 
 stantial of old-time Boston merchants, whose enter- 
 prise established the first line of packets between 
 Boston and Liverpool, and of whom his nephew, 
 George Francis Train, has just written entertain- 
 ingly in his autobiography, " My Life in Many 
 States and in Foreign Lands." 
 
 The present Warren Line is a direct successor of 
 the line established by Colonel Train. Pleasant 
 though this room is, it is not Mrs. Whitney's work- 
 room. Passing through the hall (where hang oil- 
 portraits of Mrs. Whitney's father and mother) 
 and up the stairway to the floor above, one reaches 
 the little study. Here at a small square writing- 
 table Mrs. Whitney spends many hours daily. 
 There is a quaint old-fashioned desk in one corner 
 devoted to correspondence. There is a deep-toned 
 oil-painting of the Crucifixion over the mantel — 
 possibly the work of an old master — and here, as in 
 the room below, are many books. The study has 
 only one window, but as this has a wide easterly 
 outlook it adds more to the charm of the room than 
 would three windows with a more contracted view. 
 There are plants in the window, and though Mrs. 
 Whitney, when writing, sits with her back to the 
 light, I imagine that the curtains are seldom drawn, 
 and that she must often turn from her seat to gaze 
 at the beautiful prospect. 
 
 [ 179 ] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in tfheii Homes 
 
 Milton has two fine natural features — a con- 
 stantly rolling surface and a beautiful winding 
 river. The rolling surface culminates in the Blue 
 Hills, the highest land in Eastern Massachusetts, 
 and the meandering Neponset River is a constant 
 delight to poet and artist. The road from the sta- 
 tion up Milton Hill is almost like a bluff above the 
 river, and from the back windows of the house one 
 can look far beyond the river and the marshes to 
 the lower part of Boston Harbor. From some 
 houses — and Mrs. Whitney's is one of them — one 
 can get a glimpse of the old bridge and of some of 
 the mills at the falls, for the Neponset River has 
 a practical as well as a poetic aspect. 
 
 In spite of the allurement of the view, Mrs. 
 Whitney is very persistent in her methods of work, 
 and always keeps steadily at the thing she has in 
 hand, whether story or essay. Anyone familiar with 
 her writings must realize that she puts herself into 
 them very thoroughly. She believes that conscien- 
 tious literary work demands the best that is in the 
 writer, and that social life should be secondary, ex- 
 cept in those cases where an author has unusual 
 physical strength. 
 
 Although Mrs. Whitney herself is now some 
 years past seventy-five, it is not flattery to say that 
 she looks much younger. Her blue eye is bright, 
 her hair is not wholly gray, and her figure, though 
 [180] 
 
Mrs. A. D. «r. IVhitney 
 
 slight, does not lack vigor. In her widow's black, 
 with small and becoming cap, she has a graceful 
 dignity of manner, which, added to a certain ner- 
 vous force, charms all who meet her. 
 
 Though Milton is so near Boston she has no part 
 in the social or literary life of the large city. This 
 is her own choice, for she believes that her work 
 demands all the time and strength that she has after 
 satisfying the claims of the children and grandchil- 
 dren to whom she is so devoted. Boston, however, 
 was Mrs. Whitney's early home, and the house is 
 still standing in Mount Vernon Street, at the old 
 West End, where she spent her girlhood. George 
 Francis Train, by the way, passed part of his youth 
 in the same house, for, though not her brother, as 
 some biographers will have it, he is Mrs. Whitney's 
 own cousin. Of her father Citizen Train gives in- 
 teresting glimpses in his autobiography. 
 
 Mrs. Whitney for several years was a pupil at 
 the famous school of George B. Emerson, and in 
 concluding her school-days she had a year at Miss 
 Dwight's boarding-school at Northampton. She 
 was only nineteen when, in 1843, she married Mr. 
 Seth Whitney, of Milton, and went to live in the 
 old town, which has been her home ever since. The 
 family moved to Elm Corner in i860, but before 
 that Mrs. Whitney's four children had been born 
 in the house at the corner of Randolph and Clinton 
 [181] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 Avenue. In 1859 Mrs. Whitney had published 
 that witty, poetic satire, " Mother Goose for Grown 
 Folks," and in 1857 that thoughtful poem, " Foot- 
 steps on the Seas " ; but until she went to Elm Cor- 
 ner her literary work had been ephemeral, appear- 
 ing chiefly in the religious press. The first thing of 
 hers ever published was a contribution to The 
 Religious Magazine, edited by Dr. (afterward 
 Bishop) Huntington. After the success of " Moth- 
 er Goose," her publishers urged her to write a story, 
 and this was the occasion of " The Boys of Che- 
 quasset," based on what she observed of the zest 
 with which her own son studied ornithology. But 
 after the appearance of " Faith Gartney's Girl- 
 hood," in 1863, there was no doubt of her vocation, 
 and since that time she has given the world one 
 volume after another at intervals of a year or two, 
 until the whole list now includes about twenty-five 
 tales. "The Gayworthys " came out in 1865, and 
 was published also in England. Mrs. Whitney's 
 subsequent books have been published and well re- 
 ceived there. 
 
 English critics have, indeed, been very cordial 
 toward Mrs. Whitney, and more than one has 
 lamented that she has chosen to limit her scope to 
 anything smaller than a great novel. One English 
 critic speaks of the " flashes of genius that illumine 
 wide expanses of thought," and all are impressed 
 [182] 
 
Mrs. A. D. T". Whitney 
 
 by her power of painting minute spiritual aspects. 
 But, after all, Mrs. Whitney's audience is indiffer- 
 ently young or old ; nothing that she writes is over 
 the heads of young readers (excepting, perhaps, 
 "Hitherto"), yet her characters have a strength 
 and her stories a subtlety that make them appeal 
 warmly to the inveterate novel reader. In other 
 words, she is a student of human nature, and she 
 makes her fiction a vehicle for teaching some of the 
 higher truths. That the characters in her novels 
 are thoroughly natural is shown by the interest with 
 which we greet them as they reappear in some other 
 book besides the one for which they were originally 
 designed. 
 
 Marmaduke Wharne, Miss Craydocke, Rosa- 
 mond Holabird, Hazel Ledworth, Leslie Gold- 
 thwaite, and the rest come in time to seem like old 
 friends. Those who were fond of her stories twenty 
 years ago can reread them now with pleasure, and 
 some of her earliest stories have still a large sale. 
 " Faith Gartney " and " Leslie Goldthwaite " have 
 an especially wide circle of admirers, and even in 
 these later years, a generation since they were writ- 
 ten, Mrs. Whitney receives letters from time to 
 time telling of this or that baby girl who has been 
 named for the heroines of these books. 
 
 Many of Mrs. Whitney's minor characters linger 
 long in the memory. There is Mrs. Inchcape, who 
 [183] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 goes about with a canton crape duster in her hand, 
 saying, " My home is my life," and Mrs. Gair, 
 who attached so much importance to the uncertain 
 and sporadic society that she had scrambled into 
 relation with. From characterizations like these it 
 is easy to see that Mrs. Whitney sets a proper value 
 on the narrow-minded housewife and on the aspir- 
 ing snob. In " We Girls " she is especially severe 
 toward the false standards of those American girls 
 who are always drawing intangible social lines. 
 
 Mrs. Whitney is too liberal-minded to ignore 
 what good there may be in the modern so-called 
 woman movement. Yet she still believes that the 
 higher development of woman is best served when 
 it runs along the quieter domestic and intellectual 
 lines. She expresses herself strongly in conversation 
 regarding the bustle and confusion of modern life, 
 and is not certain of the value of the multifarious 
 club life so popular with women now. In her little 
 volume of advice for girls she has expressed herself 
 very clearly on some of these points. The excite- 
 ment of city life could never be agreeable to one 
 of her temperament, and she seldom goes to Boston, 
 she says, except to pass through it on her way to 
 the quiet New Hampshire farm where she spends 
 part of each summer with her daughter and grand- 
 children. 
 
 Milton, with its decided individuality, is the pro- 
 [184] 
 
Mrs. A. D. <f. Whitney 
 
 totype of towns which form the scenes of many of 
 Mrs. Whitney's stories. The village people, the 
 workers in the mill, the richer people, with large 
 estates, all are there. When we visit Milton, even 
 a superficial glance at it shows us that Mrs. Whit- 
 ney has made good use of her five years of residence 
 there. Near to Boston though it is, Milton has 
 reserved its village-like characteristics unusually 
 long. Electric cars, however, bring it very near the 
 city; the park commissioners are planning boule- 
 vards that will bring a larger throng of excursion- 
 ists; yet it is likely to be a long time before the old 
 town loses its air of rural calm. Besides Mrs. 
 Whitney, William Ordway Partridge, the sculptor- 
 poet, and Thomas Bailey Aldrich are among the 
 literary and artistic people who have lived part of 
 the year in Milton. 
 
 [185] 
 
Margaret E. Sangster 
 In Brooklyn, New York 
 
BY MRS. SANGSTER 
 
 Born in New Rochtlle, New York 
 
 On the Road Home. 
 Easter Bells. 
 
 Poems of the Household. 
 Home Fairies and Heart Flowers. 
 Hours with Girls. 
 May Stanhope and Her Friends. 
 Little Knights and Ladies. 
 
XVII 
 
 Margaret E. Sangster 
 
 In Brooklyn^ New York 
 
 THE story goes that when one has gath- 
 ered a four-leaved clover, if he will remain 
 upon the lucky spot and look about him, 
 others of this small herald of good fortune will 
 soon be found. This was recalled when the writer, 
 some years ago, discovered that Mrs. Margaret 
 Elizabeth Sangster, who then lived on Greene Ave- 
 nue, in Brooklyn, was surrounded by a peculiarly 
 literary atmosphere. Mrs. Sangster lived in the 
 Bedford district, although her home at present is 
 in Glen Ridge, N. J. Upon the opposite side of the 
 same street with her in Brooklyn lived Will Carle- 
 ton. Just across the way Mrs. Terhune (Marion 
 Harland) at one time had her home in winter. 
 Upon the square below lived the late Julian Ralph. 
 Mrs. Caroline Creevey, the author of " Flowers of 
 Field, Hill, and Swamp," and Mr. Henry Chad- 
 wick, who is extensively connected with Brooklyn 
 journalism, were also neighbors of Mrs. Sangster. 
 Moreover, Olive Thorne Miller, Mrs. Kate Upson 
 Clark, Mrs. Margaret Hamilton Welsh, Mrs. 
 Mary Bolles Branch and her daughter, Anna 
 [189] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 Branch, dwelt in this same neighborhood. It would 
 seem as if the clover story has found manifold 
 exemplification. 
 
 Mrs. Sangster was born in New Rochelle, N. Y., 
 but had lived in Brooklyn since her early girlhood. 
 She attended Professor Paul Abodie's school, and 
 it is an interesting fact that Miss Booth, who was 
 editor of Harper s Bazar previous to Mrs. Sang- 
 ster's assuming that post, which she occupied until 
 quite recent years, was also a pupil of this same 
 school. 
 
 Mrs. Sangster has been writing all her life. She 
 began to read when three years old. In fact, as she 
 herself says, it seems as if she were " born reading." 
 She was sixteen years old when she wrote her first 
 story — wrote it without the knowledge of her peo- 
 ple. Her choice of retreat, singularly enough, was 
 often the stairs, where she would write for hours. 
 When finally she had finished the little story — it 
 was the story of a child — she sent it to the Presby- 
 terian Board of Publication in Philadelphia. After 
 a time there came a letter accepting her story and 
 containing a check for $40. A short time after 
 came a small express package with the story bound. 
 With this, the first money which she ever earned, 
 Mrs. Sangster bought " silverware," some of which 
 she has yet. 
 
 It was not until after her marriage that Mrs. 
 [ 190] 
 
Margaret E. Sangster 
 
 Sangster made a profession of writing. She has 
 now been writing for quite thirty years, and dur- 
 ing this time has experienced none of that lack of 
 success of which we so frequently hear in the field 
 of authorship. In journalism, reviewing, and manu- 
 script reading, as editor, author, and, above all, as 
 poet — in all of these she has been successful. She 
 is better known and loved by her " verses," as she 
 terms them, than for any other work that goes to 
 make up her literary personality. 
 
 The very name she bears gives evidence of what 
 fate had in store for her. Will Carleton says of 
 it: " There has always been a regret for me regard- 
 ing the name of Margaret Sangster. Had ' Sang- 
 ster ' been ' Songster,' then would the name in every 
 way characterize its fair possessor." It is a curious 
 fact that Helen Keller, when introduced to Mrs. 
 Sangster, repeated this same thought. " The name 
 ought to be ' Songster,' " she said, showing that the 
 music, as well as the message, had reached even 
 this one, who " sees and hears with her soul." 
 
 In the Brooklyn home of this verse-writer one 
 looked in vain for the cue to it all. We know 
 how proverbial is lack of interest in the home and 
 home cares of the literary woman as we find her in 
 the story-book; but let it be said, first and fore- 
 most, that Mrs. Sangster is a model housewife. 
 The sense of order and industry peculiar to the 
 [ 191 ] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in 'Their Homes 
 
 ideal home reigns supreme with her. She does not 
 say that a woman, busy in her chosen field of labor, 
 does not neglect her home, but she says she need 
 not do so. As she observes in her introduction to 
 " On the Road Home," " east or west, home is 
 best" ; it should stand to the front in every woman's 
 life. She is, she says, prouder of her " pie-crust " 
 than of her " poetry." 
 
 One need only go once into her home to appre- 
 ciate the ever-prevailing air of peace and restful 
 silence that prevails there, the kind of silence which 
 gives audience to the voice of the soul, the heart, 
 and the mind — the three agents whose union is an 
 absolute necessity to all success in the eyes of this 
 woman, who is a real " queen " in this her own 
 domain. To no one so much as to him who has 
 seen Mrs. Sangster in her home does a real knowl- 
 edge of her personality belong. All that is wom- 
 anly in her unusual and delightful personality is 
 at once evident at her fireside. Home-maker, poet, 
 editor, all combine to make the hostess what she 
 is, and as she rises to greet you in her low, gentle 
 voice,' you do not know which it is that appeals 
 to you most, the writer of the helpful messages 
 which you have read for years, or the woman 
 that looks through the blue-gray eyes. Her hair, 
 which is gray now, is rolled back from off her face 
 in a way peculiar to herself, and has made her pict- 
 [ 192] 
 
Margaret E. Sangster 
 
 ure easy to identify. Her hands are gentle of touch 
 and small and firm — very firm — which shows, as 
 does also the determination in the face, the Scotch 
 origin of their possessor. She listens with atten- 
 tion and studies with interest the faces of those to 
 whom she talks. She is straightforward and sin- 
 cere in conversation. The honesty with which she 
 faces questions, either moral, intellectual, or social, 
 is singularly marked. Her affiliation with the 
 League for Social Service gives evidence of her in- 
 terest in the reforms of the day. The object of the 
 league is to educate public opinion and the popular 
 conscience, from the enlightening and quickening of 
 which must come every needed reform, whether 
 moral, political, industrial, or social. 
 
 When questioned about her verses, her method in 
 writing them, and as to their being suggested by 
 fact or fancy, Mrs. Sangster smilingly said that they 
 just " came floating to her." She is not particular 
 when she writes whether silence exists or not, or 
 whether anything other than the " muse " be whis- 
 pering to her. That is sufficient to drown all else. 
 It is a peculiar fact that so thoroughly has she 
 trained herself, it is impossible for her to be inter- 
 rupted. Should one come to her in the midst of 
 her writing, she lays down her " thought " as she 
 does her pen and resumes It at the end of the in- 
 terruption. This she believes to be a matter of 
 [ 193] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 training. She is never annoyed by conversation 
 about her. She holds that by the power of con- 
 centration one should be protected from the en- 
 croachments of outward disturbances. 
 
 These two things, she says, " concentration and 
 health "—these two— are the requisite elements in 
 the woman who chooses journalism as a profession. 
 Given that a woman or man has imagination and 
 the " germ of the writing gift "—one cannot be a 
 successful writer without this, a writer being born, 
 not made — and add to this concentration and 
 health, and there is nothing to stand in the way of 
 success in this field. There are periods when Mrs. 
 Sangster lets verse-writing entirely alone. Then, 
 perhaps, some morning she will awaken with the 
 gentle, persistent voice of the muse in her ear and 
 begin to write, and perhaps will not stop for a 
 week or more. She seldom changes a word, shaping 
 and planning entirely before writing. 
 
 " Our Own," the best known of Mrs. Sangster's 
 poems, was written one morning at the breakfast- 
 table while she awaited the arrival of the family. 
 This she published anonymously. It became a par- 
 ticular favorite, and a friend filled a book with 
 clippings showing how it had been copied. After 
 the conclusion of an address in one of our Western 
 towns, not long since, Mrs. Sangster repeated "Our 
 Own," ending with: 
 
 [ 194] 
 
Margaret E. Sangster 
 
 And we vex our own 
 
 With look and tone, 
 
 We might never bring back again. 
 
 And while repeating it she noticed that two people 
 in the audience — a man and a woman — clasped 
 hands. After the meeting was over they sought 
 her, and said: "The little poem you have just re- 
 peated we cut out upon our wedding-day and have 
 kept it and taken it everywhere with us in our mar- 
 ried life. We did not know that you were its 
 author." It was afterward revealed that the gen- 
 tleman was Locke Richardson, the Shakespearean 
 reader. "Are the Children at Home? " was writ- 
 ten while Mrs. Sangster was in the South, and is 
 another popular poem. It was accepted by The 
 Atlantic Monthly, whose editor, W. D. Howells, 
 at that time unknown to her, has since become a 
 valued friend. 
 
 " The Help that Comes Too Late " was written 
 in consequence of the struggle against fate of a 
 friend whose health finally gave way as the result 
 of discouragement. After his death a friend, com- 
 ing to Mrs. Sangster, said : " Had I realized his 
 need, I might have helped him." Mrs. Sangster 
 said, " Do not tell his wife," for she felt that by 
 timely aid this life might have been saved, and 
 that help proffered now would be more than the 
 stricken one could bear. And the pity and the 
 [i95] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 sympathy and the regret of it all she embodied in 
 the little poem which has touched the hearts of all 
 who have read it. " Sins of Omission," beginning, 
 
 It isn't the thing you do, dear, 
 It's the thing you leave undone, 
 
 is another favorite, particularly with her younger 
 admirers. It was written without any particular 
 object, " just to fill up space," and bids fair to do 
 so, as it has been extensively copied and is frequently 
 quoted. 
 
 Perhaps in nothing does Mrs. Sangster so readily 
 reveal " heart power " as in her " Mother's Poem." 
 " A Twilight Memory " refers to her own mother, 
 whom she describes as being very like J. M. Barne's 
 Margaret Ogilvie, so much so that he would be 
 especially valued by her for that story, had he writ- 
 ten none of the others which have brought him so 
 just a renown. 
 
 In Mrs. Sangster's library works of the standard 
 authors are to be found. She has no care for special 
 editions, but makes a particular " fad " of books of 
 biography. These, she says, have always been of 
 especial interest to her. Lives of men well known, 
 ill known, or entirely unknown are all alike to her 
 of absorbing interest. She does not care in the least 
 for books of travel. Robert Browning is her favor- 
 [ 196 1 
 
Margaret E. Sangster 
 
 ite poet. Christina Rossetti claims from her the 
 first place so far as women poets are concerned. 
 
 Of the modern and more recent authors, J. M. 
 Barrie, Ian Maclaren, and S. R. Crockett afford 
 her great pleasure. Rudyard Kipling she considers 
 to be the finest writer of short stories living. She 
 thinks his poetry is marvellous, and admires its 
 virility and strength. No author has given her 
 pleasure to the extent of Mrs. Oliphant; she has 
 read everything she has ever written. Augustine 
 Birrell she thinks to be the best essayist of the day. 
 She admires Frederic Harrison. 
 
 One of the interesting features of Mrs. Sangster's 
 library is an old-fashioned clock rising from the 
 floor almost to the ceiling. It is two hundred years 
 old. In the drawing-room, just off the library, 
 there stands a mahogany desk of exquisite workman- 
 ship, which falls just fifty years behind the clock in 
 age. While Mrs. Sangster loves her library and 
 the many books therein — but they are all over the 
 house for that matter — she does the most of her 
 writing in her own room, where she has her desk 
 and the books which are her nearest friends. She 
 has the poet's love for flowers, and mignonette is her 
 favorite. She has great love for the mountains and 
 a peculiar dislike for the sea-shore ; the effect of the 
 ocean upon her is such that she cannot be happy 
 within the sound of its murmur. And because the 
 [ 197] 
 
JV omen Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 noise of the approaching trolley-cars suggest to her 
 the noise of the ocean she finds the summer months 
 particularly trying. He who enjoys the privilege 
 of entering the home of Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster 
 may congratulate himself upon having met one of 
 the most womanly women in the field of literature 
 to-day. 
 
 [198] 
 
Ruth McEnery Stuart 
 
 In New York City 
 
BY MRS. STUART 
 
 Born in Avoyelles Parisi, Louisiana 
 
 A Golden Wedding and Other Tales. 
 
 Carlotta's Intended. 
 
 The Story of Babette. 
 
 Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets. 
 
 In Simpkinsville. 
 
 Moriah's Mourning. 
 
 Sonny. 
 
 Holly and Pizen. 
 
XVIII 
 
 Ruth McEnery Stuart 
 In New York City 
 
 W 
 
 HEN you enter Mrs. Stuart's home, 
 on West Fifty-sixth Street, New York, 
 you are struck with the contrast be- 
 
 tween the drawing-room where she receives her 
 friends and the library where she writes. The for- 
 mer reproduces, by means of quaint old furniture, 
 something of the environment of that aristocratic 
 life which was known in the ante-bellum South, 
 while the latter contains only useful things, and 
 shows how she has become part of a great, bustling, 
 modern city. 
 
 It is often remarked that Southern writers lose 
 the " atmosphere " of their stories when they come 
 North. The fear of such a calamity is said to keep 
 Joel Chandler Harris in the South, where he can 
 breathe every day the air by which " Uncle Remus " 
 lives. But Mrs. Stuart has kept her " atmosphere," 
 because she has brought it with her and has caged 
 it permanently in her Northern home. It is all 
 but impossible to realize, when one is seated in her 
 drawing-room, that she lives high up in an apart- 
 ment house in the heart of New York. This large, 
 
 [201 ] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 square room, filled with beautiful old mahogany 
 furniture and polished brasses, that look as if they 
 had been there a century, must surely be in some 
 old Southern city — Richmond or Charleston per- 
 haps, or New Orleans. You feel certain that if 
 you went to the window you would look through 
 bowed green Venetian blinds out on a luxuriant 
 garden filled with roses and japonicas, oleanders 
 and hibiscus, and warm, delicious sunshine. 
 
 The illusion is not dispelled, but confirmed, when 
 the mistress of this room comes in — she seems so 
 much a part of it all, with its old-time elegance, 
 grace, dignity, and charm. She is truly Southern 
 in appearance, with abundant wavy dark hair and 
 dark eyes. Her gentle, hospitable ways are also 
 " to the manner born." 
 
 She does not know why, but most people think 
 she is from Virginia. Reading her work one would 
 soon find out she is from New Orleans, perhaps the 
 most characteristic of Southern cities, and the scene 
 of many of her stories. The furniture of the whole 
 apartment, except that of the library, was brought 
 from her home in Louisiana, and, as one would 
 have fancied, has been handed down from one gen- 
 eration to another for very many years. In her bed- 
 room is a tremendous four-poster, exquisitely carved, 
 and a great wardrobe that she probably called anj 
 " armoire " in New Orleans, its carved pillars sup- 
 
 [ 202 ] 
 
Ruth McEnery Stuart 
 
 porting the massive top. In the drawing-room are 
 several old pier and card-tables, a handsome old 
 secretary, and a high-backed curved-arm sofa that 
 would have graced even Madame Recamier if she 
 had reclined upon it. Everywhere, on the walls 
 and tables and mantels, are photographs, engrav- 
 ings, and pictures of other kinds. One or two of 
 these are the original drawings for some of the 
 illustrations for her stories. Mrs. Stuart's hobby is 
 her brasses. She has quite a fine, though small, 
 collection of curious hammered copper vases, urns, 
 and ewers, and old brass scuttles and candlesticks, 
 which are rare and perfect specimens of this art. 
 
 Opening off this room is the little study, or 
 library, where she does all her writing. The 
 simple oak bookcases, the revolving desk-chair, and 
 especially the very modern and utilitarian big roll- 
 top desk and type-writer, bring one back to the fact 
 that Mrs. Stuart is something else than a Southern 
 woman. She is a writer whose stories of Southern 
 life are every day more enjoyed and appreciated 
 throughout the English-speaking world. Her ne- 
 groes have always the genuine negro humor, which 
 is generally unconscious, while her " po' white 
 trash " are equally amusing and pathetic in their 
 plentiful lack of humor. Her characters are real, 
 and she touches the hearts of her readers because 
 she writes from her own heart. She says she loves 
 [203] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in The/r Homes 
 
 these poor people, and has never cared to write of 
 the higher classes because simple folk appeal to her 
 more, with their kind and artless good-nature. Her 
 sympathy is as strong as her sense of humor. What 
 could be more pathetic and at the same time more 
 ludicrous than poor, cross-eyed Steve's " Second 
 Wooing of Salina Sue," or the monologues of 
 Sonny's father? 
 
 Mrs. Stuart is a very busy woman always. The 
 amount of work she accomplishes would break down 
 many a strong man. She rises early and writes for 
 an hour or so before breakfast, and after that meal 
 writes steadily till luncheon. After luncheon she 
 writes but little, if at all, as she generally goes out 
 for exercise in the afternoon. At night she hardly 
 ever writes, because if she does she finds it hard to 
 sleep afterward. It sometimes happens that her 
 mind is so full of the story she is writing that she 
 cannot sleep until she works a little more before 
 retiring, no matter how tired she may be. She 
 could not write so much, for physical weariness, 
 if she did not have the tremendous assistance of 
 that prosaic machine, the type-writer, which has suc- 
 ceeded to the dominion of the swan quill and the 
 gold pen. 
 
 Besides writing, Mrs. Stuart sometimes gives 
 public readings from her stories and monologues. 
 She is very successful in these, as she imitates the 
 [204] 
 
Ruth McEnery Stuart 
 
 darky dialect as perfectly with her tongue as with 
 her pen. She goes only to those cities where she 
 has been particularly invited, and where she knows 
 she will have sympathetic audiences. She had just 
 returned, when the writer saw her, from a rather 
 extended trip of this kind, and was thoroughly tired 
 out from the mental and physical strain. She was 
 in town only for a few days, and would then go 
 out into the country to some quiet place where she 
 could rest for a few weeks and get fresh air and 
 ride the wheel for exercise. She is very fond of 
 the bicycle, and was longing for the opportunity of 
 riding through country roads in the early spring 
 days. 
 
 The reason she could write so sympathetically of 
 the great love of Sonny's parents for their only 
 child is because she herself is wrapped up in her 
 son, an only child. She is both father and mother 
 to him. He is worthy of her devotion, and repays 
 it with the gentle consciousness of a Southern gen- 
 tleman. He is a fine-looking, athletic young fellow, 
 who has walked off with five prizes for which he 
 competed in an athletic tournament. 
 
 Mrs. Stuart, as one would naturally expect, 
 keeps only negro servants about her. She says that 
 she could not have white ones because the negro is 
 the only kind she is used to, and the only kind she 
 could ever understand or manage. " I have no 
 [205] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 doubt that white servants may be better and cleaner, 
 and need less looking after," she says, " but I can't 
 get accustomed to them. I need the negro.'' 
 
 The truth is, the negro servant gives to her far 
 Northern home some of the familiar aspects of the 
 old Southern scenes. She thus stays nearer to the 
 South and its peculiar life, which are the sources 
 of her inspiration. She feels as if New York were 
 always to be her home, and she likes this city very 
 much, but she cannot forget, nor does she want to 
 forget for a moment, her strong love for her old 
 home in that quaint city, New Orleans. In speak- 
 ing of this feeling, she said : 
 
 " Whenever I hear a soft Southern voice in the 
 cars or on the streets of New York it makes me 
 homesick at once. It always makes me think of 
 the old darky a friend of mine met one day in 
 New York on the street. This friend, who is also 
 a writer, and had just come from the South, was 
 looking for the Astor Library, and could not find 
 the right street. At last, seeing an old negro, she 
 asked him if the library was not on the next 
 block. He stopped and looked at her for a moment, 
 and then said, slowly: 'No, ma'am, I dunno ef 
 it's on de next block or no. I dunno say w'ere 
 dat house is,' and then, as she turned to go, he 
 called out after her: 'Lady, jes' lemme hear you 
 say dem words once mo', please, ma'am, 'caze youse 
 [206] 
 
Ruth McEnery Stuart 
 
 de fus' pusson I seen in dis city dat talks jes' like 
 I does.' 
 
 " My friend," Mrs. Stuart went on to say, " did 
 not relish this criticism of her Southern accent, as 
 she fancied she had got quite beyond such provin- 
 cialism; but I told her that it was the finest com- 
 pliment that could have been paid for her well- 
 modulated speech, which still rang so true to the 
 South that even the old darky recognized it." 
 
 And to hear Mrs. Stuart tell the story, giving the 
 negro's words their rich Southern flavor, one can 
 understand the sweetness of voices which charmed 
 Thackeray and Matthew Arnold. 
 
 Writing stories is the greatest pleasure of Mrs. 
 Stuart's life. She says there is no keener joy than 
 to find a good story developing under her brain and 
 hands. She hopes the time will never come when 
 she would feel satisfied with her work after it is 
 published, for then she knows there would be no 
 hope for doing any better work. She is like Rabbi 
 Ben Ezra in the hope that " The best is yet to be." 
 
 She has written a great many short stories, which 
 have been published in the magazines. She prefers 
 to be known chiefly as a writer of droll tales of 
 our Southern peasantry. There are many other 
 delineators of Southern life, but none of them, not 
 even Joel Chandler Harris, understands the negroes 
 as well as Mrs. Stuart. She knows and is able to 
 [207] 
 
W men Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 portray all their superstitions and ways of thought, 
 as well as their manner of life, and she only can 
 be compared to the author of " Uncle Remus." 
 She is, indeed, his legitimate successor, with the 
 addition of a keener sense of humor and a deeper 
 pathos. 
 
 [208] 
 
Mary E. TVilkins 
 In Randolph, Massachusetts 
 
BY MISS WILKINS 
 
 Born in Randolph, Massachusetts 
 
 A Humble Romance and Other Stories. 
 
 A New England Nun. 
 
 Young Lucretia. 
 
 Jane Field. 
 
 Pembroke. 
 
 Madelon. 
 
 Giles Cory, Yeoman. 
 
 Jerome, a Poor Man. 
 
 Comfort Pease and Her Gold Ring. 
 
 In Colonial Days. 
 
 The Jamesons. 
 
 Understudies. 
 
XIX 
 
 Mary E. IVilkins 
 In Randolph, Massachusetts 
 
 NOT so very long ago Mary E. Wilkins 
 was exploited in the newspapers in a way 
 that must have caused her a good deal 
 of annoyance. She was about to be married to Dr. 
 Freeman, of Metuchen, N. J., but, as her friends 
 are well aware, she has a horror of notoriety. She 
 desires to be allowed to pursue her work. Many 
 reports about the circumstances attending her mar- 
 riage were without foundation and ridiculous, but 
 Miss Wilkins had the good sense and the dignity 
 to pay no attention to them. 
 
 Ever since she made her first success she has been 
 sought out by interviewers, but she quietly and 
 firmly refused to talk for publication. All she has 
 to say she says with her own pen and over her own 
 signature. Of her work and her success she takes 
 a common-sense view; she is ambitious and very 
 happy in the rewards that have come to her in the 
 way of friends and money. Meanwhile she has 
 sufficient humor to endure the annoyances that have 
 accompanied them. "Isn't it splendid," she said 
 to a friend shortly after she began to prosper, " to 
 think that I can have all the money I need, and 
 [211] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in 'Their Homes 
 
 more, too? Why, I can go into a shop and order 
 just the kind of a hat I want without thinking any- 
 thing about it." 
 
 At this time Miss Wilkins, though her talent 
 was unquestioned, had some curious limitations as 
 a writer. A young New England writer, who be- 
 gan at about the same time she did and who also 
 achieved an ephemeral popularity, said to her one 
 day: " Oh, Mary, I think that I could get along 
 ever so much better in my work if I only knew how 
 to punctuate. How do you manage about that?" 
 Miss Wilkins replied: "Well, I just begin a sen- 
 tence and I go on till I come to a stop. Then I 
 make a period and I begin all over again." 
 
 During the first few years of her success Miss 
 Wilkins submitted to being lionized, and a most 
 trying ordeal it must have been for her. It would 
 be hard to imagine anyone less suited for such an 
 experience. In late years she has gone about com- 
 paratively little, and during her visit to England 
 three years ago, instead of allowing herself to be 
 exploited by many English admirers, she chose to 
 get about as the ordinary tourist does while trav- 
 elling abroad. 
 
 It is not of Metuchen that this sketch shall 
 speak, but of Randolph, Mass., for it was at Ran- 
 dolph that fame was won for Mary E. Wilkins. 
 That pretty and pleasant village, something less 
 [ 212 ] 
 
Mary E. Wilkins 
 
 than a score of miles from Boston, contains the 
 home of the most delicate and appreciative deline- 
 ator of rural New England characters who has 
 written within a generation. In the placidity of a 
 little town she wove her stories, and from the clear 
 air and sightly outlook over a part of picturesque 
 Norfolk County she drew inspiration and the 
 strength to work. Here and there, perhaps, she 
 obtained a type to transfer to her pages, but not 
 often, for the people her genius creates are no longer 
 to be found even in the sleepy village to which she 
 owes allegiance. 
 
 As one steps from the train into what he has 
 translated the brakeman's shout to be Randolph he 
 receives first impressions that are anything but 
 promising. A well-spring of pure literature seems 
 inconceivably far away. A bleak shoe-shop or two 
 loom up from the dusty flatness. The road is ill- 
 kempt and the straggling houses are cheap and 
 hideous. But out to the east graceful spires pierce 
 the sunny sky, and waving elm branches suggest 
 better things. The real Randolph is over there, 
 away from the noise and smoke of railroad traffic, 
 and only faintly troubled by the whistle of loco- 
 motives. 
 
 After a short walk the literary pilgrim reaches 
 the heart of the village. It is of the familiar coun- 
 try type, being one long street, stretching itself out 
 [213 ] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 for over a mile, and lined with trees and gravel 
 walks. Here are plenty of the good old square, 
 flat-roofed houses of sixty years ago, some with 
 grass-plots in front and some directly on the street. 
 Many are adorned with pillars, speaking of former 
 prosperity; all breathe an air of contentment and 
 peace. To one just from the pent-up bricks of 
 Boston this long double row of quaint dwellings is 
 a gracious sight indeed. The few would-be mod- 
 ern shops that disfigure every village are in evidence, 
 of course, but to atone for them there is a fine old 
 square guarded by a town-hall of the rustic Doric 
 style of architecture and a sprinkling of churches of 
 the Sir Christopher Wren type of steeple. 
 
 Miss Wilkins was not herself a householder in 
 Randolph. Having no family connections there, 
 she for some time had rooms at the old mansion 
 of John Wales, whose ancestors once owned most 
 of the town. The house is perhaps half a mile 
 from the region of stores. It is solidly square and 
 comfortably large, as befits a farmhouse of a hun- 
 dred years' standing. Its white paint and green 
 blinds tell of thrift, and its quaint flower-garden in 
 front, with its neat encircling fence and gate, be- 
 tokens someone's artistic sense. There is a big barn 
 in the rear, and back of that lie the smooth and 
 fertile acres of the Wales farm. 
 
 To the northwest are the fine undulations of the 
 [214] 
 
Mary E. Wilkins 
 
 Milton Hills, those blue sentinels that seem to 
 guard every part of Norfolk County. Swinging 
 around to the south the smoke of Brockton's score 
 of shoe factories fills the October air with haze. 
 At the season when this visit was made everything 
 was brown and gold, with occasional flashes of the 
 dull scarlet from some stout maple whose vitality 
 the frosts of autumn had not yet wholly subdued. 
 The Wales house is almost the last in the thickly 
 settled portion on its side of the road. Across the 
 way are clustering dwellings of no particular style, 
 and behind them on a hillock a huge iron water- 
 tower, that certainly does not adorn the landscape. 
 Truth to tell, the more picturesque part of Ran- 
 dolph is down at the opposite end of the single 
 street, " down t' the Baptist," as the odd expression 
 is, giving the name of the dominant church to the 
 special locality. 
 
 Once inside the Wales homestead one saw at a 
 glance the influence of books. Miss Wilkins assured 
 her visitor that she had no home, but a home at- 
 mosphere pervaded the roomy parlor, and she who 
 received you in it seemed a part of her surround- 
 ings. Of course it was difficult for a stranger to 
 differentiate between her belongings and those of 
 the family, but the new books and the photographs 
 of literary lights on the antique mahogany table 
 must have been hers, while the excellent pictures 
 [215 1 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in 'Their Homes 
 
 scattered about the walls hinted at her suggestion, 
 if nothing more. Here was the modern spirit of 
 literature in a dwelling a century old. 
 
 The author of " Jerome " was a most cordial 
 hostess. The stranger within her gates was made 
 to feel that he had wandered to a friendly place. 
 If he were a book man, so much the better; if not, 
 she would have taken any subject he might offer 
 and handle it deftly and with entertaining com- 
 ment. Upon this visit the talk ranged from ancient 
 New England customs to the Boston visit of An- 
 thony Hope, whom Miss Wilkins found a very 
 agreeable gentleman of the best English type. Her 
 sense of humor is keen and active, and it is scarcely 
 necessary to say that there is no trace of the tradi- 
 tional blue stocking in her make-up. She chats of 
 books and authors with delicate and penetrating 
 comprehension, but there is one writer whom she 
 does not like to discuss, of whose success she will 
 not speak, and that writer is Mary Wilkins. 
 
 Her literary workshop? She had none at Ran- 
 dolph, at least no special place that could be so 
 called, for she wrote wherever the mood seized her, 
 in any room and on any table — or even on a pad 
 held on her knees. So the whole house was more 
 or less sacred to her muse. There was at that time 
 no extended work of fiction under way at Randolph, 
 but Miss Wilkins felt that she must soon begin one. 
 [216] 
 
Mary E. IVilkins 
 
 After a year, in which both " Madelon " and 
 " Jerome " had been written, she had been giving 
 herself a bit of rest. But the habit of work, she 
 said, was strong upon her, and idleness was not 
 for long. 
 
 Society in Randolph is a rather negative quality, 
 and Miss Wilkins found her social recreation in 
 numerous trips to Boston, where she has many warm 
 friends. She was to be seen at the theatres occa- 
 sionally when some particularly good thing was 
 holding the boards. She disliked to be lionized, but 
 at times this process was not to be escaped. 
 
 Randolph boasts of a Woman's Literary Club, 
 the second to Sorosis in point of age in the country, 
 but Miss Wilkins was not a member, nor did she 
 take active interest in any of the minor organiza- 
 tions of the village; she could not do it, she said, 
 and still give her best time and thought to her 
 chosen work. That the world of letters is better 
 for this must be clear to him who can understand 
 and appreciate the exquisite care with which all 
 her stories have been penned. 
 
 [217] 
 
Julia W ard Howe 
 In Boston and Newport 
 
BY MRS. HOWE 
 
 Born in New Tori City 
 
 The Battle Hymn of the Republic. 
 
 Passion Flowers. 
 
 The World's Own. 
 
 From the Oak to the Olive. 
 
 A Memoir of Samue'i G. Howe. 
 
 Later Lyrics. 
 
 A Memoir of Margaret Fuller. 
 Is Polite Society Polite ? 
 Reminiscences. 
 
XX 
 
 yulia Ward Howe 
 In Boston and Newport 
 
 MRS. HOWE in late years has had two 
 homes, one in Boston and one in New- 
 port. Both have been centres of hos- 
 pitality and social reunion. In Boston Mrs. Howe 
 has long been a conspicuous literary and social 
 celebrity. She used to tell a good story against 
 herself of a Far Westerner, who, in coming to Bos- 
 ton, said he wanted " to see Bunker Hill Monu- 
 ment, the State House, the insane asylum, and 
 Julia Ward Howe." Of course he probably meant 
 that he wished to see the blind, deaf, and dumb 
 asylum where Dr. Howe had gained his celebrity 
 as a philanthropist. The great and good work he 
 was doing had assisted to make his gifted wife a 
 noted character. She was quite well worth seeing, 
 even in those early days, before her remarkable tal- 
 ents had given her an enviable place as poet, 
 thinker, and public speaker. 
 
 Mr. Ward, her father, must have been a far- 
 seeing man, much in advance of his age in the 
 matter of higher education for women. He took 
 into his house the learned Dr. Cogswell to teach 
 his daughters the whole curriculum of a Harvard 
 [221 ] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in ^heir Rvnes 
 
 student, a thing then most unknown, and Silvio 
 Pellico, the Italian exile, author of " Mia Prijioni," 
 taught them Italian. The natural gifts of the 
 oldest pupil, Julia, always commanded Mr. Cogs- 
 well's admiration. He was never tired of talking 
 to her down to the day of his death. Newspapers 
 in those days were full of the young American, Dr. 
 Howe, who, like Lord Byron, had gone to fight for 
 the Greeks against the Turks. He had come home 
 almost as famous in America as Lord Byron was in 
 England. It was unanimously decided by New 
 York society that no one was good enough fcr him 
 but the fair and learned Julia Ward, of Bond 
 Street. I was once permitted to see an old jiurnal 
 kept by one of the Misses Hamilton, which gave, 
 in these words, the current gossip of the day: 
 
 " Walked down Broadway with all the fashion 
 and met the pretty blue-stocking, Miss Julia Ward, 
 with her admirer, Dr. Howe, just home from 
 Europe. She had on a blue-satin cloak and a white- 
 muslin dress. I looked to see if she had on blue 
 stockings, but I think not. I suspect that her stock- 
 ings were pink, and she wore low slippers, as 
 Grandmamma does. They say she dreams ir. Ital- 
 ian and quotes French verses. She sang very pret- 
 tily at a party last evening, and accompanied herself 
 on the piano. I noticed how white her hands were. 
 Still, though attractive, the muse is not handsome." 
 [ 222 ] 
 
Julia Ward Howe 
 
 This truly feminine bit of journalism would 
 accord with Mrs. Howe's description of herself 
 when she said she had left her sisters " to do all 
 the beauty for her." When Dr. Howe took his 
 New York bride to Boston it was rumored that 
 she found the famous Athens of America rather 
 dull and barren. Indeed, the old gossips used to 
 tell a story to the effect that when the doctor, tak- 
 ing his wife to walk one evening, pointed out the 
 Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary to her, she an- 
 swered : " Indeed ! I did not know that there was 
 a charitable eye or ear in Boston." 
 
 She objected to living at the asylum where the 
 doctor was beginning his life-work of making sen- 
 sible people out of idiots. She declared that she 
 was afraid of idiots and could not stand daily in- 
 tercourse with them. Dr. Howe soon gave her a 
 home for herself, where, at South Boston, she 
 began those salons which continued for long years 
 afterward. The Boston of that day was all in- 
 tellect. Prescott and Motley were just beginning 
 their life-work, Longfellow his, and Charles Sum- 
 ner his. In the churches, James Freeman Clarke, 
 Theodore Parker, Dr. Bartol, and John Weiss 
 were preaching. Washington Allston was paint- 
 ing away at " Belshazzar's Feast," and the " Auto- 
 crat of the Breakfast Table " had not even begun 
 to be funny, except in a very small way. Mr. Tick- 
 [223] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 nor was thinking over Spanish literature. Every- 
 one was reading Dana's " Two Years Before the 
 Mast." Margaret Fuller was holding her conver- 
 sations in a plain little parlor. Fannie Ellsler was 
 dancing from the top stone of Bunker Hill Monu- 
 ment. Ralph Waldo Emerson was making orphic 
 utterances and beginning to be a lecturer. Wendell 
 Phillips was making those abolition speeches which 
 were destined to aid in revolutionizing the United 
 States. 
 
 Mrs. Howe's first literary reputation was made 
 on her return from Europe by the publication of a 
 volume of verse, which contained, among other 
 beautiful things, some lines to a Roman nightingale. 
 But she was already known as a wit and conversa- 
 tionalist. She, of all women I have ever known, 
 has most completely reduced conversation to a fine 
 art. With her culture and beautiful elocution she 
 has always mixed with it so much humor and hu- 
 manity that her talk has never been above the heads 
 of the humblest listeners. 
 
 Her humor is delicious. She has a keen sense 
 of the ridiculous and avoids " orphic sayings." On 
 one occasion a lady in Newport, trying to get a 
 fine sentiment out of her, said to her, one moonlight 
 evening on her vine-hung veranda: "Mrs. Howe, 
 do say something lovely about my piazza." Where- 
 upon everyone listened for the reply. That deli- 
 [224 ] 
 
Julia Ward Howe 
 
 cately cultivated voice then responded, " I think it 
 is a bully piaz "—which bit of slang was very much 
 appreciated by those sensitive souls who feel the 
 cold perspiration break out all over them when 
 they fear that somebody is to "make a speech." 
 Her repartees are still famous. On going to 
 Charles Sumner to secure help for a runaway negro 
 she met with refusal. " I no longer care for the 
 individual," said he, " I am only interested in the 
 race." To which Mrs. Howe responded : " I am 
 glad that God Almighty has not got quite so far as 
 that yet." 
 
 Differing essentially with President Eliot of Har- 
 vard on the woman question, she made pungent re- 
 torts to the learned and impressive scholar. Dr. 
 Holmes, having a cold, once insisted on going to a 
 public meeting where Mrs. Howe was to speak, 
 and on his wife's remonstrating with him as to the 
 imprudence of venturing forth, he said : " Oh, I 
 must go to hear Mrs. Howe lay out Charles Eliot 
 cold." This band of wits and old friends said 
 sharp things in those days without irritating each 
 other, and it was great fun to listen to them. Mrs. 
 Howe was one of the first abolitionists and one of 
 the very first to found women's clubs, to speak in 
 public, and to argue for female suffrage and higher 
 education. 
 
 Meantime her home was filling up with beautiful 
 [225 ] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in "their Homes 
 
 daughters, who have made for themselves distin- 
 guished names. Dr. and Mrs. Howe are the only 
 very celebrated couple I have ever known who have 
 been so fortunate in their children as to leave on them 
 an impress of what was noblest in themselves. Julia 
 Romana, the oldest daughter, born in Rome, was 
 the most exquisite of women, and the most unselfish. 
 She married a young Greek, Anaguix, one of Dr. 
 Howe's rescued children, with whom she taught the 
 blind, deaf, and dumb from choice, and on their 
 marriage these two handsome young people found 
 no wedding journey so attractive as to travel with 
 these poor, bereaved people. She so well taught a 
 deaf and dumb man German that she enabled him 
 to travel through Germany alone. She would read 
 Shakespeare to Laura Bridgman on her sensitive 
 hand by means of her own perfect fingers. She 
 died young, at her post, leaving a sort of fame like 
 that of St. Rosalie, who left the world at Palermo- 
 Beloved of all the youth of Palermo, 
 St. Rosalie, retired to God. 
 
 I had the honor and pleasure of once visiting the 
 blind with Mrs. Howe and lunching with her. 
 Afterward she allowed me to see her "children," 
 as she called three hundred blind people to whom 
 she was giving back their lost sense. She opened 
 a world to them, and perhaps it was a better world 
 [226] 
 
Julia IVard Howe 
 
 than the one they would have seen had God re- 
 moved the cloud which covered their visual orbs. 
 Florence, the next daughter, famous for her musical 
 gifts, married Mr. Hall, and followed her mother 
 as author and public speaker. She is more like her 
 mother in appearance than any of the others. The 
 third daughter, Laura, married Mr. Richards, of 
 Maine, and became the author of many stories and 
 children's books. This lady was renowned for 
 beauty. 
 
 Maud Howe made for herself a name in literature 
 when very young by writing " A Newport Aqua- 
 relle," in which she gave a somewhat quizzical 
 picture of her famous relative, Ward McAllister. 
 She married John Eliot, an artist, in Rome. Mrs. 
 Eliot has given lectures and has written for the 
 London and Chicago papers. The first time that 
 I was permitted to see Mrs. Howe " at home " was 
 as the guest of this youngest daughter. 
 
 Mr. Marion Crawford was also their guest, and 
 had the manuscript of " Mr. Isaacs " in his desk. 
 They were all so bright and witty, and the com- 
 pany, embracing all that was fashionable and at- 
 tractive in Boston, made the afternoon tea and 
 little dinner most memorable to me. Mrs. Howe 
 had the misfortune to break her leg while I was 
 with her. Then I had the pleasure of seeing how 
 she was adored by the Boston women of her par- 
 [227] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 ticular clientele, whose flowers came in perpetual 
 tributes. 
 
 Mrs. Howe has always lived much in the eye of 
 the world — a scholar and a thinker. She has also 
 been fond of society, a great diner-out, and a leader 
 of the literary coterie of Boston, which included the 
 foremost minds in America. A deep religious vein in 
 her character has led her much into the society of the 
 clergy, and her Bible studies seemed to me to form 
 a part of every morning's work. I noticed that a 
 large Bible always lay open on a table in her bed- 
 room. I dare say she could read the Scriptures in 
 Hebrew. Dr. Howe had taught her Greek, and 
 she once, in Athens, in returning thanks in the col- 
 lege which he had founded, used most excellent 
 modern Greek to those embarrassed students who 
 had not yet mastered the English tongue, the lan- 
 guage of their benefactor. 
 
 I saw Dr. Howe only once, and that was at a 
 " blue tea " which Mrs. Howe gave to me at her 
 cottage, seven miles from Newport, just before his 
 death. He was a very handsome man, with eyes 
 of a peculiar blue, and very intense. His youngest 
 daughter inherited these eyes. He was nervous and 
 ill at the time, and I could only judge what he 
 must have been — one of the most attractive and 
 useful men of his generation. They had only one 
 son, Henry Howe, who made his mark as a scientist. 
 [228] 
 
Julia Ward Howe 
 
 Through Miss Maud Howe I had the pleasure 
 of knowing her gifted and eccentric uncle, " Sam 
 Ward of the Lobby." She loved him very much, 
 and he was indeed lovable and delightful. He 
 " looked at life in an oblique way," as his sister 
 said. He was a " gourmet " to a degree. He came 
 to dine with me once, bringing a piece of Gorgon- 
 zola cheese and a bunch of moss rosebuds. This 
 act does more justice to his character than could 
 pages of description. He was poet and man of the 
 world. Of her two homes, Mrs. Howe, as I knew 
 her, was most herself, most tranquil, and most 
 charming at the Newport cottage. There, in her 
 plain, simple style, she entertained many a distin- 
 guished stranger who came to this country. There 
 she wrote her poem of the " Flag," which I once 
 heard her read at a meeting of the Authors' Club, 
 with her transcendent elocution. I forget when she 
 wrote her most world-renowned lines, " The Battle 
 Hymn of the Republic." They dropped from her 
 perhaps in her sleep — no matter where. 
 
 Often called eccentric, a name which does not 
 trouble her, she has pursued the train of thought 
 and the course of action which seemed good to her 
 without shadow of fear. Her self-possession is per- 
 fect, and she has been blessed with far more than 
 the usual share of good health. Long journeys to 
 the West to talk on woman's suffrage, long trips 
 [229] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in I'heir Homes 
 
 to New Orleans to organize a colored school or 
 preside at a fair, have left her quite unmoved. 
 Fifteen years ago she took her youngest daughter 
 all over Europe and to Egypt and the Holy Land, 
 making the journey from Joppa on horseback, and 
 undergoing fatigues from which her young com- 
 panion shrank. 
 
 When Julia Ward left Bond Street she left lux- 
 ury behind her, for Dr. Howe thought every dollar 
 not spent for suffering humanity was misspent, and 
 she seemed to agree with him. She probably never 
 cared much for dress or for showy entertainments. 
 It was her pleasure to initiate at Newport the 
 Town and Country Club, which became a great 
 boon to visitors at the City of the Sea, so devoted 
 to amusement, gorgeous balls, and grand dinners. 
 It furnished once a fortnight some literary enter- 
 tainment for the more quiet and reflective citizens 
 and those " who do not dance." I have seen at 
 Mrs. Howe's cottage the road filled with carriages 
 and showy horses, which had brought the fashion 
 out from the town to hear, first, Mrs. Howe herself 
 speak, and then to listen to clever papers from the 
 choicest scholars of Boston. 
 
 [230] 
 
yeannette L. Gilder 
 In New York City 
 
BY MISS GILDER 
 
 Born in Flushing, Long Island, New Tori 
 T?lr*n by Siege. 
 
 The Autobiography of a Tomboy. 
 
 Essays from The Critic [Editor ofj. 
 
 Representative Poems of Living Poets [Editor ofj. 
 
 [Editor of The Critic from the Beginning, and still its Editor.] 
 
XXI 
 
 Jeannette L. Gilder 
 
 In New York City 
 T ten years of age Jeannette Leonard 
 
 Gilder read Franklin's autobiography and 
 
 JL JL made up her mind to be a printer. The 
 steps to the goal have been cut out of odds and 
 ends of material that did not match, but an un- 
 swerving and coherent purpose has fitted them so 
 solidly into each other that the public who grate- 
 fully claim a large part of Miss Gilder as their 
 own are fain to discern a homogeneous plan in the 
 accidents and obstacles out of which she has wrested 
 the rounded, wholesome life active among us to- 
 day. This wholesomeness and activity are charac- 
 teristic of the woman as well as her work. She 
 takes herself simply and unaffectedly, with a most 
 delightful unconsciousness that her success is any- 
 thing more than a logical fulfilment of the laws of 
 temperament and heredity. 
 
 " Printer's ink ran in our veins instead of blood. 
 I did not choose a profession, a profession chose 
 me — I might almost say before I was born, for not 
 long ago, when rummaging in the attic in our old 
 home at Bordentown, I came upon The Literary 
 Register and Review of Books and Schools, a faded 
 
 [ 233 1 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in 'their Homes 
 
 sheet of almost the same size and typographical 
 appearance as The Critic when it was a weekly, and 
 edited in Philadelphia by my father, who, until then, 
 I did not know had ever edited a paper of his own." 
 
 Mr. Gilder died in the army, and almost im- 
 mediately after the war the founder and co-editor 
 of The Critic made her first essay in literary work. 
 Mr. John Y. Foster engaged her at $10 a week to 
 go every day to the Adjutant-General's office in 
 Trenton and collect material for his " History of 
 the New Jersey Troops During the War." This 
 work lasted only six months, but she remained with 
 the Adjutant-General for six months more work- 
 ing on the records. Her next employment was in 
 the Philadelphia Mint, where she went nominally 
 to weigh gold, but practically to make bags for 
 the gold. 
 
 " I really did neither. The women at work dis- 
 covered that I could whistle, sing, and spin yarns, 
 so they made my share of the bags while I whistled, 
 sang, and spun yarns for them." 
 
 At the end of a month she applied for the yearly 
 vacation of a month, frankly telling the superin- 
 tendent before accepting the vacation payment that 
 she might not return. His answer was to hand her 
 the $40, saying, " I guess the Government can afford 
 that much if you don't come back." 
 
 She did not. Mr. Richard Watson Gilder was 
 [234 ] 
 
'Jeannette L. Gilder 
 
 at that time on the Newark Daily Advertiser. " He 
 sent home half his salary and paid out the other 
 half for board, until, it occurring to him that 
 we might as well have the benefit of the whole, 
 we moved to Newark. Here I went into an ac- 
 countant's office. Now, I never could add up a 
 column of figures correctly, so I don't know what 
 I trusted to when I accepted the position, unless it 
 was to luck. However, I stayed there for six 
 months, and my work was faultlessly done. Not 
 by me, however. There happened to be in the office 
 a young fellow who could add up several columns 
 of figures at a time and who had a love of music 
 and a defective ear. I taught him to whistle all 
 the popular airs and he did my work." 
 
 It was soon after this that Miss Gilder began 
 the career in which she has won distinction by the 
 quality of her work and for having kept her ideals 
 of achievement " free from contagion of the world's 
 slow stain." The Critic stands to-day for the high 
 impartiality, the scrupulous adherence to the un- 
 written as well as written canons of her profession, 
 and the steadfast pursuit of literature for literary, 
 as distinct from commercial, ends that have domi- 
 nated Jeannette Gilder from the time when, a girl 
 of seventeen, she worked on the Newark Register, 
 a morning paper founded by her brother, Richard 
 Watson Gilder, and R. Newton Crane, and was 
 [23s 1 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in I'hed'r Homes 
 
 reporter from Newark for The Tribune on a salary 
 of $ 12 a week. Owing to a habit of signing her 
 initials, instead of her full name, she reported for 
 The Tribune for three years before Whitelaw Reid 
 discovered she was a woman. 
 
 " Then he ' bounced ' me, because he couldn't 
 trust a woman — even one who had done the work 
 satisfactorily for three years without his discover- 
 ing that she was a woman — to do the work satis- 
 factorily. I now decided to try for purely literary 
 work, and, carrying a letter of introduction from 
 the late Kate Field, went to James Gordon Ben- 
 nett and asked for book-reviewing on The Herald. 
 He told me to send him something original in the 
 way of reviews. I went home, talked the matter 
 over with Kate Field, and the next week submitted 
 the first number of the ' Chats About Books ' that 
 afterward achieved the prominence and popularity 
 of being burlesqued. I was immediately put on 
 The Herald with a salary of $30 a week — after- 
 ward increased, for space work, to $100." 
 
 In the meantime Miss Gilder edited " The 
 Homes and Haunts of Our Elder Poets " for 
 Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. It was with the $750 
 she received for this book that she and Mr. Joseph 
 B. Gilder brought out the firs! number of The 
 Critic in a little office over Daniel's dry goods store 
 at Eighth Street and Broadway. Mr. Gilder gave 
 [236] 
 
Jeannette L. Gilder 
 
 up the position of night city editor on The Herald 
 to become the desk editor, while Miss Gilder got 
 the advertisements, collected the literary news, and 
 in a general way did the out-of-doors work. All 
 sorts of things went wrong with the printing and 
 arrangement of the first number — it was bare of 
 editors and address — but its literary quality was 
 assured by such contributors as Edmund C. Sted- 
 man, Emma Lazarus, Sidney Howard Gay, Paul 
 Potter, and Charles de Kay. In the second issue 
 appeared the first of a series of papers on nature, 
 by Walt Whitman, entitled " How I Get Around 
 at Sixty and Take Notes," and, almost immediately 
 afterward, the first instalment of Joel Chandler 
 Harris's " Nights with Uncle Remus." Marion 
 Crawford wrote poems and essays for The Critic 
 before he was generally known ; James Lane Allen 
 was another contributor of various papers before 
 he had done anything in the way of fiction, and 
 H. H. was a constant contributor. 
 
 " Before the second number was off the press the 
 $750 was gone. Then Joe confessed to having 
 $1,000 in bank. The fourth edition exhausted this, 
 and we decided to give up the paper. ' They may 
 laugh,' I said, 1 1 suppose they will, but we shall 
 close without owing a dollar; so if we can't enjoy 
 the laugh we sha'n't be afraid or ashamed of it.' 
 But it is not easy to give up the aim of a whole life. 
 [237] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in T'heir Homes 
 
 That night I thought of a friend who had money, 
 a warm heart, and literary loves and ambitions. I 
 took my courage in both hands and went to him 
 with a frank statement of the situation. The re- 
 sult was that he lent us $5 ,000 — upon the unbusi- 
 ness basis that we should not return it if we did not 
 succeed — and became a stockholder in The Critic." 
 
 The next epoch in the history of The Critic was 
 its consolidation with Good Literature — owned by 
 Taintor Brothers, Merrill & Co. — under the title 
 The Critic and Good Literature. When Taintor 
 Brothers, Merrill & Co. dissolved partnership, The 
 Critic and Good Literature was incorporated as 
 " The Critic Company," with Charles E. Merrill 
 as president. A few years later a new company was 
 formed, with Norman F. Cross as president, to buy 
 out Mr. Merrill's interest. Miss and Mr. Gilder 
 continued as editors, and, being large stockholders, 
 were officers of the new company as well. Four 
 years ago Mr. Gilder became literary adviser of 
 the publishing department of the Century Company, 
 and Miss Gilder was left sole editor with, however, 
 the benefit of her brother's valuable counsel. Mr. 
 Gilder has since gone to London to live as the 
 European representative of Messrs. Dodd, Mead & 
 Co., and can only help by " absent treatment," not 
 always the most practical in editorial work. Miss 
 Gilder spends her long vacations in Europe, and 
 [238] 
 
Jeannette L. Gilder 
 
 finds the change a stimulating one both physically 
 and mentally. 
 
 Miss Gilder's work has not been restricted to that 
 of a newspaper woman and literary editor. In 
 1886 she published, anonymously, in Lippincott's 
 Magazine, " Taken by Siege," which was after- 
 ward published anonymously in book form, then 
 syndicated, still anonymously, and eleven years later 
 published over her own name by Charles Scribner's 
 Sons. She has also had a number of plays produced 
 since the Chestnut Street Theatre, in Philadelphia, 
 brought out "Quits." "The Tomboy," brought 
 out three years ago by Doubleday, Page & Co., is 
 autobiographical. The sequel she has been asked to 
 write — " The Tomboy at Work " — will cover a 
 record of energetic effort beginning not long after 
 she left the beautiful old place at Flushing, L. I., 
 where she was born and where her father, Mr. 
 William H. Gilder, of Philadelphia, carried on, 
 with the wise co-operation of his wife (Miss Jane 
 Nutt, of New Jersey), the school for girls at which 
 many of the Harpers' daughters and relatives were 
 educated. The editor of The Critic dwells upon 
 school vacations with the retrospective pleasure of 
 a woman who for nineteen years never had more 
 than two consecutive days of holiday. Her first 
 real leisure was when, in 1886, she went abroad 
 for three months. 
 
 [239] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 Jeannette Gilder's achievement in the world of 
 critical literature bulks large not only in its quan- 
 tity, but in the influence it has had upon American 
 literature and in the position it holds in England. 
 And yet the woman herself is more interesting than 
 either the author or the editor, for the woman re- 
 veals unconsciously the pith and marrow of her 
 work — breadth and sanity of view, singleness of 
 purpose, a generous eagerness to claim for others a 
 share in her success, and the dignity that roots in 
 much feeling for the rest of the world and little 
 thought of self. The study in which she writes, 
 reads, and receives her friends is characteristic. 
 There are books and pictures, a desk suggestively 
 full and open, a blazing fire that lights up autograph 
 portraits of distinguished men and women, and 
 copies from the old masters, and, over all, the at- 
 mosphere of a life given up to the pursuit which 
 Robert Louis Stevenson says means the putting 
 down of the base and trivial in an unresting striving 
 for the highest. 
 
 [240] 
 
Edith Wharton 
 In New York City 
 
BY MRS. WHARTON 
 Born in New York City 
 The Greater Inclination. 
 The Touchstone. 
 Crucial Instances. 
 The Valley of Decision. 
 
XXII 
 
 Edith IV hart on 
 In New York City 
 
 IN 1 89 1 Edith Wharton was known only to a 
 limited and exclusive society; to-day she stands 
 in the foremost rank of the men and women 
 who are making the literary history of America. 
 Whatever else may be said of her work, it has, be- 
 yond question, the distinction which is one of the 
 qualities that makes artistic achievement imperish- 
 able. Whether she possesses the other essential — 
 the warm, full pulse of uncounted human emotion 
 that strikes an answering beat in the universal heart 
 — is a point of contest between those who condemn 
 her as the too literary disciple of Henry James and 
 those who are rapidly forming a cult of which she 
 is the central figure. The growth of this cult may 
 be watched month by month in the magazines that 
 stand for literary art as well as literary amusement, 
 and, while owing its inception to Henry James, has 
 rooted, branched, and flowered into a fecund, in- 
 dividual organism. 
 
 An assiduous and a sensitive ear to the intellectual 
 power of word relation and word suggestion, vivid- 
 ness of visualization, chastity of artistic conception 
 and artistic expression, and analysis refined almost 
 [ 243 1 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in 'their Homes 
 
 to attenuation are the qualities that Mr. James and 
 Mrs. Wharton have in common. What draws a 
 widely individualizing line between them is choice 
 of motive and the method of handling it. Mr. 
 James is elaborately indirect, Mrs. Wharton elabo- 
 rately direct. The first pages of Mr. James's story 
 are devoted to obscuring or concealing the motive 
 which the last pages sometimes fail to discover; 
 from the beginning Mrs. Wharton's motive is made 
 clear with the delicacy, intricacy, and finish of a 
 Chinese carving in ivory. Reading Mr. James is 
 like trying to follow the clew of a labyrinth whose 
 exit leaves you still puzzling over the entrance and 
 far from sure that you are out of the tangle. Read- 
 ing Mrs. Wharton is like strolling through a gar- 
 den whose farthest reaches of color and grouping 
 compose with exquisite inevitableness into the open- 
 ing vista. The essential character of Mr. James's 
 motive, since his transition from the vigorous prom- 
 ise and achievement of " Roderick Hudson " and 
 " The Portrait of a Lady " into the over-ripe ma- 
 turity of " The Sacred Fount " and " The Wings 
 of a Dove," is its aloofness from the thrill of life 
 felt in the human grasp of the obvious and accus- 
 tomed. On the other hand, there is not a story 
 in " The Greater Inclination " or " Crucial In- 
 stances " which may not find a parallel in the in- 
 communicable human experience breathing around 
 [ 244 ] 
 
Edith Wharton 
 
 us to-day; and this will be equally true when " to- 
 day " means the day of future generations. 
 
 The force of this parallel is also its limitation — 
 it runs lip to lip with the voice of social, literary, 
 and artistic culture. For Mrs. Wharton belongs 
 to that small and exclusive chapter of artists who 
 have achieved without the accepted incentives to 
 achievement. In one sense born to the place she 
 has made her own in creative art, in another she 
 has won it from the inaccessible seclusion of wealth 
 and social position — she is wholly without the 
 knowledge of life learned through study of the sor- 
 did and brutal face it turns upon those who struggle 
 with " the meanness of opportunity " or are inti- 
 mate with the clamoring needs of the body. A 
 sentence in the opening paragraph of " The Muse's 
 Tragedy " epitomizes the tonal quality of her work 
 and the impression left by her personality: ". . „ 
 she's like one of those old prints where the lines 
 have the value of color." Artistic and social dis- 
 tinction are stamped ineffaceably upon the woman 
 and the author. 
 
 Italy is the land of her love, and her stories of 
 Italian life and records of travel in Italy are 
 " seethed in the milk " of Italian history, art, and 
 literature. She knows her Italy so intimately that 
 she has forgotten — and makes her readers forget — 
 that she learned it. "The Valley of Decision" 
 [245] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 marks her escape into the freedom of a simpler 
 manner and larger issues through that rare gift — 
 historic imagination. The author has clothed the 
 dry bones of dead problems and conditions with the 
 flesh and blood of their day and generation, and 
 brought them, detached and remote, full-breathing 
 their own moment of existence, into the precincts 
 of sympathetic memory. The book rises above the 
 conventional phrases of " local color and atmos- 
 phere." In it Mrs. Wharton evinces gifts of con- 
 struction, of selection and co-ordination, not less 
 striking than her power to apprehend and present 
 a motive, a psychological situation, a movement of 
 the soul; and in it, also, she tantalizes and disap- 
 points her readers by the omissions characterizing 
 everything she writes — omissions springing partly 
 from the circumstances of her environment, partly 
 from temperament, and partly from her mastery of 
 words. Words are so plastic beneath her fingers 
 that they tempt her into playing with them; sub- 
 tility of expression rarifies the nerves and tendons 
 of life ; her characters are studies in character rather 
 than real men and women. She, with her readers, 
 stands on their outskirts, interested in the relation 
 of circumstance to soul instead of what quickens 
 the actual drama of life — the relation of the in- 
 dividual soul to the individual circumstance. In- 
 tellectual processes seem to have sealed up instead 
 [246] 
 
Edith Wharton 
 
 of divined the life-blood of creative art. One has 
 the feeling that she never forgets herself or her tools 
 in her creations, and justifies her aloofness by becom- 
 ing part of it. 
 
 Mrs. Wharton's first published work, " Mrs. 
 Mansty's View," a short story, appeared in Scrib- 
 ners Magazine, 1 891. Since then she has been an 
 indefatigable and versatile worker. Besides " The 
 Touchstone " — in which she reaches her highest 
 emotional level — and " The Valley of Decision," 
 she has published short stories, poems, and miscel- 
 laneous articles, all marked with the literary breed- 
 ing, the insight, the clarity of diction that make for 
 permanency. Mrs. Wharton is a daughter of 
 George Frederick Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhine- 
 lander. She was born in New York; her husband, 
 Edward Wharton, is a native of Boston. Their 
 homes in New York and Lenox breathe the influ- 
 ence of intellectual and artistic beauty springing 
 from inherited culture and eclectic and discriminat- 
 ing taste and training. 
 
 [247} 
 
Gertrude At her ton 
 In New York City 
 
BY MRS. ATHERTON 
 
 Born in San Francisco, California 
 
 Before the Gringo Came. 
 
 A Whirl Asunder. 
 
 Patience Sparhawk and Her Tines 
 
 His Fortunate Grace. 
 
 American Wives and English Husbandi. 
 
 The Californians. 
 
 Senator North. 
 
 The Conqueror. 
 
Gertrude Atherton. 
 
XXIII 
 
 it 
 
 Gertrude Atherton 
 In New Tork City 
 UT I have no home," Mrs. Atherton 
 
 r^L said, "I am a wanderer upon the face of 
 the earth. The necessity to settle down 
 would, I think, actually affect my brain. Some 
 time ago I leased an apartment, but for several days 
 was made quite wretched by the idea that I had 
 committed myself to stay in one place for a year. 
 Freedom is, or at least should be, essential to any 
 artist, and freedom is to be found only through an 
 open mind and a wide and varying horizon." 
 
 This sentence epitomizes Mrs. Atherton's per- 
 sonality and her intellectual trend both as an essay- 
 ist and a novelist, the three so interlacing that it is 
 difficult to separate the woman from the author. 
 " Patience Sparhawk," " The Californians," " The 
 Daughter of the Vine," " American Wives and Eng- 
 lish Husbands," "Senator North," "The Aristo- 
 crats," " The Conqueror," and " The Splendid Idle 
 Forties " are alive with the temperament, the inter- 
 est in different motives and questions, the cosmo- 
 politan receptivity to impression and suggestion, the 
 cosmopolitan readiness to seize and assimilate con- 
 
 [251] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in c The?'r Homes 
 
 trasting phases of modern living as well as modern 
 life that make Mrs. Atherton as entertaining as her 
 books. Though, as her earlier work indicates, she 
 was born, brought up, and educated in San Fran- 
 cisco, she has spent much of her time abroad. In- 
 deed, it was in England that she first received dis- 
 tinguished recognition as a writer. But long 
 before this, when a girl of twelve or fourteen, she 
 planned the scheme of life that she had so success- 
 fully worked out. 
 
 " When I was almost a child," she said, " I made 
 up my mind to be a writer — that nothing else was 
 really worth while — and I have never wavered 
 either in my ideals or their pursuit. I wrote stories 
 when a child, a play when I was still at school, and 
 soon after my marriage — which, by the way, was 
 one of the most important incidents of my school- 
 life — my first novel, ' What Dreams May Come.' 
 It was great trash. I could not read it now, but I 
 was so delighted with having written a book that 
 I rewrote it every time it came from the publishers 
 — seven times, I think." 
 
 Mrs. Atherton has little patience with a delib- 
 erate search for material, but she believes that con- 
 stant change of scene and association affords the best 
 stimulus to creative work. To this end she is a 
 traveller, and has been a sojourner in many lands. 
 More than one of her novels was written in Eng- 
 [ 252 ] 
 
Gertrude Atherton 
 
 land, " American Wives and English Husbands " 
 in Rouen, " Senator North " at Bruges, " The Con- 
 queror " in New York. 
 
 The rapid movement and diversity of scene char- 
 acterizing the author's novels are in keeping with 
 her methods of work : " Senator North " was writ- 
 ten in ten weeks, " The Conqueror " in seven 
 months. Mrs. Atherton spent a winter in Wash- 
 ington before writing the former. When congratu- 
 lated upon having caught " the very moral " of the 
 Senate chamber in the chapter containing Senator 
 North's speech on the Cuban War, she said : " I 
 ought to be familiar with the proceedings of the 
 House and Senate — I went there nearly every day 
 for three months. No, I did not originally intend 
 to make the Cuban War the setting for my story. 
 It worked up to that period, and I then read the 
 ' Congressional Records ' of that session." 
 
 It is the author's interest in political history which 
 led to the writing of her latest and, perhaps, strong- 
 est novel, though she herself insists that " The 
 Conqueror " is dramatized biography, not a novel. 
 Its foundations are laid in exhaustive study of 
 American history, politics, and biography, and of 
 the historical, political, and social conditions of 
 Nevis, St. Kitts, and St. Croix at the time of Ham- 
 ilton's birth and during his life there, of his family 
 on both sides of the house, and of the islands them- 
 [253] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 selves. Mrs. Atherton's attitude to her work is 
 happily illustrated by a half-jesting remark about 
 this particular book: " As I wrote on my interest in 
 Hamilton became so strong, so maternal, that I 
 could not bear to part from him. In fact, I rewrote 
 the last chapters three or four times before I could 
 bring myself to sever the relation between us." 
 
 " My style is all my own," she said, in answer to 
 a question about her magazine work, " and not the 
 result of magazine training — which stamps the work 
 of every other writer of the first class in the coun- 
 try. I used to regret that the magazines would not 
 have me, but now I am very glad; for good or ill, 
 I stand alone." 
 
 Though she goes out socially between books, the 
 author of " The Conqueror " is happiest shut off 
 from the world with her pen. When writing, she 
 works all day except during the hours allotted to 
 meals and exercise, and sleeps all night. The sug- 
 gestion, inspiration — whichever may be the proper 
 term — of a story comes to her usually through the 
 characters who are to figure in a certain situation. 
 Incidents follow of themselves, as it were, the au- 
 thor not always knowing what will happen next or 
 what will be the end. Toward the last she often 
 writes at night, spurred on by the cumulative in- 
 terest of the final drama. 
 
 The notes for this sketch were taken with the 
 [254] 
 
Gertrude Atherton 
 
 pen — m ade from a Nevis lime-tree — with which 
 she corrected the proofs of " The Conqueror," and 
 the ink dipped from a curious and beautiful ink- 
 stand of Russian silver and black enamel given to 
 her to use in writing " Senator North." As a mat- 
 ter of fact, her first as well as last copy is made on 
 the type-writer — the first very rapidly, with scarce- 
 ly an erasion; the polishing and refining are done 
 later. 
 
 Just now she has in view a play of which the hero 
 is Hamilton. This, however, is the only point of 
 resemblance between " The Conqueror " and the 
 drama which will extend still further the versatility 
 that is one of Mrs. Atherton's marked traits. " The 
 idea came to me one night, and when I awoke the 
 next morning two acts were waiting to be put into 
 concrete form." 
 
 Mrs. Atherton's attitude to publishers is that of 
 the author to whom writing has meant pecuniary 
 success as well as literary distinction. " I have 
 found that a writer may safely trust to the fairness 
 and generosity of reputable publishers, but the ad- 
 jective means everything." 
 
 Her mother, Gertrude Franklin, was a grand- 
 niece of Benjamin Franklin and a Southern woman ; 
 her father, Thomas L. Horn, a prominent citizen of 
 San Francisco, originally from Stonington, Conn.; 
 and people interested in tracing the influence of 
 [255] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in ^heir Homes 
 
 heredity and of opposing characteristics in union 
 will find in her writings and in herself a picturesque 
 blending of the energetic North and West and the 
 tropical South. In spite of the somewhat masculine 
 note of her work she is essentially feminine. 
 
 [256] 
 
Mary Mapes Dodge 
 In New Tork City 
 
BY MRS. DODGE 
 
 Born in New York City 
 
 The Irvington Stories. 
 Hans Brinker. 
 Rhymes and Jingles. 
 A Few Friends. 
 Donald and Dorothy. 
 Along the Way. 
 The Land of Pluck. 
 
XXIV 
 
 Mary Mapes Dodge 
 In New York City 
 
 I T is a far cry from " Harry and Lucy " to 
 "Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates," from 
 Maria Edgeworth to Mary Mapes Dodge, and 
 one that runs the whole gamut of literary expression 
 separating conventional instruction, mental and 
 moral, put into the mouths of conventional children 
 who speak conventional English and do the conven- 
 tional thing in the conventional situation, and flesh- 
 and-blood children whose end you must learn as 
 soon as you know their beginning, and whose minds 
 and morals you forget in the interest of themselves 
 and their story. In other words, Miss Edgeworth 
 wrote theoretically about children; Mrs. Dodge 
 interprets childhood. She crystallized in a casual 
 sentence or two one day the open sesame to the do- 
 main she has made her own. " The child's world 
 is a different world, a preparatory world, a world 
 that is coming on. You must build yourself around 
 the humanity of childhood." And again, "The 
 natural thing is the thing that grasps a child in lit- 
 erature as well as in life." 
 
 To separate the woman in her home from the 
 editor at her desk or the author in her study would 
 [259] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in "their Homes 
 
 be impossible — happy endeavor and love given 
 largely and actively bind into a unified whole a life 
 of versatile expression and achievement. Under- 
 lying a style of spontaneous charm, and going hand 
 in hand with humor whose keenest thrusts leave no 
 sting, are intellectual integrity/delight in discover- 
 ing and acknowledging in others gifts of mind or 
 spirit, responsiveness, a quickness to feel and believe 
 as buoyant as if her energies had not been claimed 
 by an absorbing profession, and a serene and joyous 
 outlook undimmed by much knowledge of the world 
 gained by living in the midst of its ambitions and 
 activities. Mrs. Dodge's first published article, 
 " Shoddy Aristocracy in America," and the manner 
 of its publication, were as much the outcome of her 
 susceptibility to the human, as well as the literary, 
 appeal of life as to her sense of humor and instinct 
 for artistic expression. Because it was based upon 
 personal observation the article was sent to The 
 Cornhill Magazine, of London, as a publication 
 safely removed from the comedy and the actors it 
 presented. By return post she received a draft for 
 £50 and a request from The Cornhill for a series 
 of papers. To Mrs. Dodge's amazement the article 
 was reprinted in whole or in part by many of the 
 leading newspapers in the United States. 
 
 Her first short story, " My Mysterious Enemy," 
 was promptly accepted by Harpers Magazine, and 
 [260] 
 
Mary Maps Dodge 
 
 " The Insanity of Cain," a brilliant piece of special 
 pleading, and one of her most characteristic essays 
 in the humorous or satirical vein, attained instant 
 popularity at the time of its publication in Scrib- 
 ner's Monthly. This article grew out of a remark 
 to Mr. Roswell Smith when Mrs. Dodge and he 
 were discussing the recent acquittal of a criminal 
 on the plea of emotional insanity. 
 
 " They will be saying next that Cain was in- 
 sane," Mrs. Dodge said, jestingly. 
 
 " What a subject for an article," he exclaimed. 
 " Won't you write it for us, at once? " 
 
 " Miss Malony on the Chinese Question," which 
 was one of Charlotte Cushman's favorite humor- 
 ous selections, is another instance of the author's 
 gift for finding stories in the obviously common- 
 place, and of the rapidity with which she writes. 
 " We were at supper one evening — we were liv- 
 ing in the country at that time — when Mr. Gilder, 
 then assistant editor of the old Scribner's Monthly 
 — now The Century Magazine — was announced. 
 Instead of coming in to tea as he was in the 
 habit of doing, he made signs from the dining- 
 room door that he wished to speak to me privately. 
 Somebody had failed them at the eleventh hour, and 
 Dr. Holland had sent out to say that they must 
 have a humorous contribution from Mrs. Dodge the 
 next morning. Protestations and expostulations 
 [261] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in ^their Homes 
 
 were received with counter protestations and ex- 
 postulations, and after supper Mrs. Dodge went 
 upstairs to write the article. " With not an idea 
 in my head, I sat for a while gazing vacantly into 
 space, and then, perhaps because there was no pos- 
 sible connection between the task in hand and a 
 quick-witted Irish cook we had, she flashed before 
 my mental vision and persistently filled it, obscur- 
 ing everything except the blank sheet and a miser- 
 able consciousness of Mr. Gilder waiting confidingly 
 downstairs. What key of association brought to 
 mind the name of a Chinese servant of my sister, in 
 San Francisco, is equally inexplicable — but in the 
 imaginary by-play between these two characters the 
 article took shape. The only difficulty was to write 
 fast enough. When, an hour or so later, I carried 
 it down to Mr. Gilder he tried to look pleased, but 
 I have always felt that in time he must have shared 
 my surprise at the public appreciation which it 
 received." 
 
 Mrs. Dodge, already a well-known writer for 
 grown people, had created a children's department 
 in Hearth and Home, founded and edited by Don- 
 ald G. Mitchell and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and 
 some years later edited by Edward Eggleston, and 
 had published the " Irvington Stories " and " Hans 
 Brinker " when Mr. Roswell Smith asked if she 
 would write him a letter embodying her idea of a 
 [262] 
 
Mary Mapes Dodge 
 
 magazine for children. "But in the writing the 
 letter developed into an article, so I drew my pen 
 through the heading," said Mrs. Dodge, " and sent 
 with the manuscript a note asking Mr. Roswell 
 Smith to let me have it again. Mr. Eggleston, at 
 that time the editor-in-chief of Hearth and Home, 
 had told me that he needed something to fill a space 
 left blank by the illness of one of our regular con- 
 tributors, and therefore I told him of the letter I 
 had just sent off. But the next day I received a 
 note from Mr. Roswell Smith enclosing a check 
 instead of my manuscript — which appeared as an 
 article in the next month's issue of Scribner's 
 Monthly." 
 
 Not long after, Mrs. Dodge was asked by Mr. 
 Roswell Smith to edit a magazine for children 
 upon the lines drawn in her letter. Meanwhile, 
 wishing to give her undivided time to writing, she 
 had refused a very handsome offer to become the 
 editor of Hearth and Home. Her two sons were 
 then at college, and it was eventually the younger 
 son that turned the scale in favor of the Scribner 
 proposition. He had studied beyond his strength, 
 and his mother felt that he needed an extended 
 vacation and change of scene. She herself had long 
 wished to go abroad, and so, when she was offered 
 a salary to begin upon the day of the preliminary 
 offer— this was in April or May— with the under- 
 [263] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in ^their Homes 
 
 standing that the initial number of the magazine 
 was not to appear until January, and freedom to 
 spend the intervening time where and as she chose, 
 she accepted the offer. 
 
 From the first everything was left entirely in her 
 hands. " If I asked for suggestions, I received one 
 unvarying answer: 1 It is your magazine; do what 
 you think best.' The choice of a name was a diffi- 
 culty that assumed gigantic proportions. I wrote 
 to two or three friends asking for suggestions, but 
 none that were offered fulfilled what seemed to me 
 an essential — that the name should belong to no 
 time or nationality, and that it should belong in- 
 alienably to all children. I was in my aunt's 
 drawing-room one day, waiting for her return home, 
 when I said to myself, 1 You must find a name be- 
 fore you leave this room.' And then 4 St. Nicholas ' 
 came to me. I never had a misgiving about it; it 
 seemed impossible that I should ever have thought 
 of any other." The house decided to bring out the 
 first number in November, and Mrs. Dodge re- 
 turned from Europe, having found nothing in the 
 publications there to modify her original plan. At 
 the end of the year the new magazine had out- 
 stripped all competitors. Indeed, within a few 
 months after the issue of the first number, Messrs. 
 Osgood & Co. frankly acknowledged that they 
 could not stand against their rival, and made a 
 [264] 
 
Mary Mapes Dodge 
 
 proposition which resulted in the merging of Our 
 Young Folks into St. Nicholas. 
 
 St. Nicholas is now a household word both in 
 England and America, an influence so long estab- 
 lished that it is taken for granted, but its birth and 
 growth have meant the creation of a new school 
 of literature for children. The ideals that have 
 given " The Irvington Stories," " Donald and Dor- 
 othy," and " Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates " 
 a permanent place in this literature have made St. 
 Nicholas plastic and progressive. " A magazine for 
 children can have no policy,'' the editor avows. 
 " Influence springs from something deeper than 
 opinion." It is this absence of policy, a spontaneity 
 that has its source in a catholic sense of beauty and 
 a whole-hearted adaptation to the demands of the 
 present as well as the obligations of the past that 
 endues St. Nicholas with youth as immortal as that 
 of each day and generation. 
 
 But Mary Mapes Dodge is not only the play- 
 fellow of little children and the comrade of young 
 folks, she is the poet of men and women who have 
 contended with the horsemen and breasted the 
 swelling of Jordan. " The Two Mysteries," " En- 
 foldings," and " The Compact " are the key-note to 
 the woman herself. Depth and tenderness of feel- 
 ing, intellectual poise, spiritual insight, and sim- 
 plicity of expression are one with her and her work. 
 [265] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 Mrs. Dodge was born in New York, and has 
 spent the greater part of her life there. She comes 
 of distinguished lineage; her mother was Sophia 
 Furman, her father the noted scholar, scientist, and 
 inventor, Professor James J. Mapes. She married, 
 early in life, William Dodge, a prominent lawyer 
 of New York. While still in her early youth she 
 was left a widow with two little boys. A little later 
 she entered the profession in which she has achieved 
 international distinction. " Hans Brinker " has 
 been translated into French, German, Dutch, Rus- 
 sian, and Italian. The French version won the 
 Montheyon prize of the French Academy, and when 
 Mrs. Dodge's son, some years ago, asked in Amster- 
 dam for the best and most popular Dutch story for 
 boys and girls, the bookseller handed him — to his 
 delighted surprise — a Dutch translation of " Hans 
 Brinker," with the remark that the best book of the 
 kind was by an American woman. Not only this 
 famous story, but many other notable compositions 
 for young folk, in both prose and verse, were writ- 
 ten during these busy years. 
 
 Mrs. Dodge permits no intrusion upon her home- 
 life, but there are friends within the inner circle 
 who count among their happiest memories the 
 " den," arranged and decorated by herself, in which, 
 during her early widowed life, she kept her sons' 
 birthdays with simple gifts, a feast of nuts and 
 [266] 
 
Mary Mapes Dodge 
 
 fruit, a birthday cake, and verses, written sometimes 
 while the boys clamored for admittance — verses 
 holding within their light-hearted greeting a kernel 
 of sweet and wholesome inspiration. These birth- 
 days rounded the circle of weekly holidays in which 
 the mother belonged wholly to her children. Mrs. 
 Dodge's only surviving son has inherited his moth- 
 er's and grandfather's intellectual gifts. He is a 
 well-known inventor and president of the Link- 
 Belt Engineering Company and The Dodge Cold 
 Storage Company, and in 1902 was elected presi- 
 dent of the American Society of Mechanical En- 
 gineers. 
 
 Mrs. Dodge's New York home is filled with rare 
 and beautiful things; original drawings, bas-reliefs, 
 signed etchings and engravings, family portraits, 
 old and modern pictures, antique furniture — the 
 breath of inherited culture — and books, books every- 
 where. " An open book is a roomful," she said, 
 with her hand on an author's copy. The drawing- 
 room, library, and music-room are the centre of her 
 domestic and social life — a gathering-place of chosen 
 friends and of many well-known authors and artists. 
 Her " study " is her work-room. Most of her 
 editing is done here. From the first Mrs. Dodge 
 has been a home-worker, going only once a week to 
 the St. Nicholas office. As to her method of work, 
 she confesses to a bad habit of writing without stay 
 [267] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in 'Their Homes 
 
 or pause when she is in the fervor of composition, 
 and an utter inability to work by the clock. She 
 acknowledges, also, a bit of crankiness in preferring 
 a quill pen to any other. 
 
 She spends her summers at her cottage in Onte- 
 ora Park, and here, as in New York, she makes her 
 home a place of 
 
 "gracious freedom, like the air 
 Of open fields ; its silence hath a speech 
 Of royal welcome to the friends who reach 
 Its threshold, and its upper chambers bear, 
 Above their doors such spells, that, entering there 
 And laying off the dusty garments, each 
 Soul whispers to herself : « 'Twere like a breach 
 Of reverence in a temple could I dare 
 Here speak untruth, here wrong my inmost thought. 
 Here I grow strong and pure ; here I may yield, 
 Without shamefacedness, the little brought 
 From out my poorer life, and stand revealed, 
 And glad, and trusting, in the sweet and rare 
 And tender presence which hath filled the air.' " 
 
 [2681 
 
Rebecca Harding Davis 
 
 In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
 
BY MRS. DAVIS 
 
 Born in Washington, Pennsylvania 
 
 Life in the Iron Mills. 
 
 Margaret Howth. 
 
 Waiting for the Verdict. 
 
 Dallas Galbraith. 
 
 A Law Unto Himself. 
 
 Kitty's Choice. 
 
 Frances Waldeaux. 
 
 Doctor Warrick's Daughter. 
 
XXV 
 
 Rebecca Harding Davis 
 
 In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
 
 IT has been a long time since Rebecca Harding 
 Davis published her first novel, " Margaret 
 Howth." "A funny little book," she calls it, 
 " in which I hammered my readers with the views 
 and opinions smouldering for years in me — and for- 
 got to tell a story." " Waiting for the Verdict," 
 published soon after the war, approaches more 
 nearly the author's present attitude to life and its 
 problems. Views and opinions touch life at so 
 many differing points that they have broadened into 
 openness and perception in which the race problem 
 — of the negro — is passed under succeeding lights 
 having nothing in common except the tragic, ines- 
 capable shadow cast by each turn of the lantern. 
 Then, too, the author remembers to tell a story, and 
 a very human and interesting one. Whichever side 
 of the question her readers may take there will 
 scarcely be two opinions as to the interest of the 
 story and the quality that makes the interest. And 
 this may be said of everything Mrs. Davis has 
 written, from " Dallas Galbraith " to " Frances 
 Waldeaux." Her answer to a question about the 
 [271 ] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in I'kezr Homes 
 
 latter book is characteristic of the woman and her 
 work: 
 
 " When I finished ' Frances Waldeaux ' I 
 couldn't decide which you believed the stronger in- 
 fluence in a man's life — his love for his mother or 
 for his wife," someone once said to her. 
 
 " That is for you to decide," was her instant 
 response. 
 
 This willingness to leave questions open, to ac- 
 knowledge that every verdict must be an individual 
 verdict; and an equally pronounced unwillingness 
 to talk about herself, either as an individual or as 
 an author, are distinctive traits of a writer who was 
 one of the first American women to win interna- 
 tional recognition as a thoughtful interpreter of 
 American life and human nature. 
 
 Another thing not to be omitted in any attempt 
 to bring Mrs. Davis's personality before her read- 
 ers is the environment in which that part of her 
 belonging to the public has budded, flowered, and 
 borne the fruit of high-minded, persistent devo- 
 tion to the profession of letters. She is primarily the 
 house-mother, as innocent of ambition to be known 
 as was Mrs. Oliphant, whose place in English life 
 and literature is nearly akin to that Mrs. Davis holds 
 in America. Both wrote, in the beginning, because 
 writing came easily and eagerly to them ; both have 
 chosen to portray chiefly domestic life in their own 
 [272] 
 
Rebecca Harding Davis 
 
 country, the bulk of their work is creative; both 
 have been emphatic contradictions of the supersti- 
 tion of their day — that the pursuit of literature as 
 a profession unfits a woman for family life and 
 rational friendships; both have chosen to rest their 
 claims to distinction upon their sons. Happily for 
 Mrs. Davis the parallel ends here. The tragic 
 drama of Mrs. Oliphant's motherhood finds no echo 
 in the achievements, still full and vigorous, that 
 makes Rebecca Harding Davis happy in her son's 
 work. 
 
 For maternal love is almost a passion with her, 
 and blending with it in scarcely unequal parts is 
 love of country. She happened to be at the Warm 
 Springs, in the Virg inia Mountains, when news 
 came that the Spanish fleet had been destroyed in 
 attempting to escape from the Havana harbor. 
 For weeks she had heard nothing from Richard 
 Harding Davis, who was fighting as well as report- 
 ing fights. Those who saw her when, at the Fourth 
 of July dinner, the orchestra struck into " The 
 Star Spangled Banner " will never forget her. She 
 was the first person on her feet, and as she faced the 
 length of the large dining-room, her hands crossed 
 on the chair in front of her, her head a little thrown 
 back, she might have stood for Love and Renuncia- 
 tion — the model of the Christian mother and the 
 Greek patriot. 
 
 [273] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 Not that there is anything of the Greek in her 
 appearance or her ideals. She has a square-cut face 
 with strongly marked features, a reticent mouth, 
 and earnest, dark brown eyes ready to kindle into 
 merriment — the face of a woman who has thought 
 and lived deeply and wisely — and a sense of right 
 that refuses to bend to any sophistries about beauty 
 or art for art's sake. Large sympathies, a keen 
 sense of humor where humor does not trench upon 
 ridicule or satire, and simplicity and vividness of 
 expression make her a delightful companion. She 
 has, too, a capacity — indispensable to the artist — for 
 self-absorption and concentration upon the task in 
 hand regardless of social allurements. Her habits 
 of work at home are only to be guessed at, but dur- 
 ing the summers she spends at the Warm Springs, 
 at the end of an hour's talk, she always manages to 
 escape from the shady veranda, and the friends and 
 acquaintances who would detain her there, to the 
 little white weather-boarded one-story cottage, built 
 flat to the ground, and overlooking a lawn beautiful 
 with close-cut, freshly springing grass and noble 
 trees. Here she writes all of the morning and most 
 of the afternoon — what, she will never say, any 
 more than she will discuss what she has already 
 given to the public. Silence, stony in its impene- 
 trableness, is her refuge from admirers who want 
 to talk over her books. 
 
 [274] 
 
Rebecca Harding Davis 
 
 " But wh y won 't you tell me anything when you 
 know I have read and loved you ever since I was 
 a little girl ? " a young writer demanded one day. 
 
 " Because when you are mad about a thing you 
 should never talk about it," she returned, and fled 
 incontinently to her cottage. 
 
 " I have been very good to you," she said to the 
 same person a day or two later, her eyes twinkling; 
 
 "Senator was rejoicing this morning that 
 
 there wasn't a person on the grounds who wrote- 
 for newspapers or anything, and I didn't betray 
 you." 
 
 Not long afterward, in answer to a request for 
 criticism, she unconsciously enunciated two princi- 
 ples underlying everything she has written: " There 
 is no such thing as a generality that covers the 
 ground it takes," and " If you want a reader tQ §ee 
 a thing you must slap him in the face with it." 
 
 Mrs. Davis was born in Washington, Pa., and 
 is a daughter of Rachel Leet Wilson and Richard 
 Harding. Since her marriage (1863) to Lester 
 Clark Davis, the well-known editor of The Public 
 Ledger, she has lived in Philadelphia; but much of 
 ier work has been done at her country home in 
 Marion. Here for a part of every summer the 
 am.ly life is still unbroken, her sons returning for 
 heir vacation with as much delight as when, boy 
 ■nd college students, their most trusted and dearest 
 [27s ] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 comrade was their mother. Mrs. Davis's intel- 
 lectual outlook is not confined to her home and 
 literature. She is abreast with the thought and 
 movement of the day, entering into the life around 
 her with the enthusiasm which is one of her most 
 helpful and inspiring qualities and which is tem- 
 pered and individualized by the habit of reflection. 
 
 [276] 
 
Edith M. Thomas 
 In West New Brighton, New York 
 
BY MISS THOMAS 
 
 Born in Chatham^ Ohio 
 
 A New Year's Masque and Other Poems. 
 
 The Round Year. 
 
 Lyrics and Sonnets. 
 
 The Inverted Torch. 
 
 Fair Shadow Land. 
 
 In Sunshine Land. 
 
 In the Young World. 
 
XXVI 
 
 Edith M. Thomas 
 In West New Brighton, New York 
 
 THOUGH Edith Thomas was born in 
 Ohio, her mother was a native of Con- 
 necticut, and her father's family of Welsh 
 origin. With the Welsh instinct for emigration 
 and pioneering, they settled in the Western Reserve 
 when it was little more than a wilderness. Here 
 love of adventure and a taste for letters seem to 
 have blended in her forefathers, just as later martial 
 ideals mingled with the poet's childish dreams of a 
 career. A paternal uncle was a school-teacher, a 
 lawyer, a journalist, and one of Walker's filibuster- 
 ing band ; Miss Thomas when a little girl showed a 
 taste for books and made up her mind to be a soldier. 
 
 The martial ring is, however, conspicuously ab- 
 sent from her poems, though it finds an echo in the 
 profession of her choice; to be a writer means to 
 carry on a perpetual warfare that victory lends 
 impetus to and defeat alone ends. Edith Thomas 
 dates this warfare — the working period of her lit- 
 erary life — from 1877, the year in which the first 
 poems that she regards as more serious than " un- 
 considered experiments " appeared in the New York 
 Graphic. Long before this, when a school-girl in 
 [279] 
 
W omen Authors of Our Day in 'their Homes 
 
 Geneva, she wrote " in-doors and out-of-doors, in 
 the street, in the school-yard, or wherever she might 
 be when the poems ■ came to her,' " finding, as she 
 does now, suggestions in chance words and homely 
 incidents, in the beauty breathing from sky and air. 
 Through The Century, The Atlantic, and other 
 magazines of the same order, she won, first, recog- 
 nition from the reading public, then distinguished 
 rank among contemporary writers, and, finally, the 
 place that is now with one voice accorded her. " A 
 New Year's Masque and Other Poems," " The 
 Round Year," " Lyrics and Sonnets," " The In- 
 verted Torch," "Fair Shadow Land," "In Sun- 
 shine Land," " In the Young World," " A White 
 Swallow, with Other Verses," attest her capacity 
 for work and the quality of it; while her love of 
 nature and her interest in the graver questions and 
 aspects of life are indicated by her choice of subjects. 
 The tone of her poems is restrained and elevated, 
 the diction sober and delicate. 
 
 Miss Thomas's personality is seen only in a 
 measure through her creative work. So far from 
 being a dreamer, she is alive to the current interests 
 and topics of the day, delighting in the push and 
 thrust of contact with large movements and the 
 people who are living in them and inspiring them. 
 She lives in Staten Island, a few feet from the sea. 
 Though only seven miles from New York, the 
 [280] 
 
Edith M. Thomas 
 
 scenery is as wild and picturesque as when General 
 Putnam's head-quarters were there. Odd little 
 houses, with beams let conspicuously into the ma- 
 sonry, show where the Huguenots settled, and visible 
 traces of the Indian occupation complete the atmos- 
 phere of a day long past. 
 
 In charming contrast to the sylvan character of 
 the surroundings and the quaint old foreign houses 
 is the varied and interesting society of which Miss 
 Thomas is a distinguished member. " The Boston 
 Colony," of which George William Curtis was the 
 centre, discuss the latest or the newest play, music 
 and literature, art and science, politics and sociology, 
 interweaving with the repose of country life the 
 culture that comes of close touch with the life of 
 the nation. 
 
 The busiest half of Miss Thomas's year is spent 
 in New London at Stone Cottage, where in a cozy 
 room, with deep window-seats shaded by overhang- 
 ing ivy, she passes the working hours. These are 
 not fixed ; she works industriously, but refuses to be 
 bound to hours or a desk. Many of her poems have 
 been written while crossing New York Bay, and in 
 summer most of her writing is done out of doors. 
 In appearance Edith Thomas is the complement of 
 her poems. Her features are delicately modelled, 
 her brow has breadth and fulness, and her eyes, soft, 
 dark, and compelling, are the eyes of a poet. 
 
 [281] 
 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
 
 In Gloucester, Massachusetts 
 
BY MRS. WARD (Elizabeth Stuart Phelps) 
 
 Born in Boston, Massachusetts 
 
 The Gates Ajar. 
 
 Men, Women and Ghosts. 
 
 The Story of Avis. 
 
 An Old Maid's Paradise. 
 
 The Madonna of the Tubs. 
 
 A Singular Life. 
 
 Chapters from a Life. 
 
XXVII 
 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
 
 In Gloucester, Massachusetts 
 
 « Tjf T is impossible to forget the sense of dignity 
 I which marks the hour when one becomes a 
 A wage-earner," Elizabeth Stuart Phelps says 
 in that delightful "story of the story-teller," 
 " Chapters from a Life." " The humorous side of 
 it is the least of it, or was in my case. I felt that 
 I had suddenly acquired value— to myself, to my 
 family, and to the world. Probably all people who 
 write ' for a living ' would agree with me in recall- 
 ing the first check as the largest and most luxurious 
 of life." It came to her at the mature age of thir- 
 teen, when she had recently been promoted to the 
 dignity of high-necked dresses and sitting up until 
 nine o'clock, amounted to the vast sum of $2.50 
 
 paid by an orthodox young people's periodical — 
 
 and is perpetuated in some excellent photographs 
 of Thorwaldsen's " Night " and " Morning " that 
 hang in Mrs. Ward's rooms to-day. Her first vent- 
 ure was even earlier, and was accepted by the 
 Youth's Companion and paid for by a year's copy 
 of the paper. 
 
 But Mrs. Ward's real awakening to the intel- 
 lectual life she traces to her father's reading to her, 
 [285] 
 
IV omen Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 three years later, the writings of De Quincey and 
 the poems of Wordsworth. De Quincey and 
 Wordsworth opened to her the world of letters, and, 
 while she was still in her seventeenth year, " Aurora 
 Leigh " " revealed to her her own nature." " I 
 owe to Mrs. Browning," she writes, " the first vis- 
 ible aspiration (ambition is too low a word) to do 
 some honest, hard work of my own in the World 
 Beautiful, and for it." Her father's devoted en- 
 ergy, his scholarship, his " high thinking and plain 
 living " had already fixed the ideals of life which 
 have taken beneficent and beautiful form in effort 
 extending over a period of thirty years and embrac- 
 ing short stories, novels, poems, and essays, and in- 
 cluding the noble work done for the fishermen of 
 Gloucester. For twenty years she spent six months 
 of every year among them — first as a visitor, after- 
 ward as one of the most active and beloved members 
 of their community — and her summer home is still 
 on the confines of the old fishing town. Her work 
 as a temperance lecturer and reformer — for that was 
 what she really became to those tried and tempted 
 fishermen — began in the seventies and lasted as long 
 as her strength did. The murder — in a bar-room — 
 of a fisherman, and the hour spent in his devastated 
 home, scattered her traditions of prejudice against 
 the temperance movement. 
 
 " I am going into that rum-shop next Sunday," 
 [286] 
 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
 
 she announced to a friend upon leaving the desolate 
 home, " to hold a service." The initial step was 
 easily taken; the bartender, to her amusement and 
 amazement, welcomed her as his "saviour from social 
 downfall." Nor was there any difficulty about an 
 audience — the saloon was packed, chiefly with men. 
 The crux of the situation was that the " lovely, 
 gray-haired 'lady from Philadelphia,'" who had 
 been trained by Phillips Brooks in his younger pas- 
 torate, and who Mrs. Ward expected to conduct the 
 service, gently and persistently refused. Mrs. Ward 
 had to speak for the first time in her life, and with- 
 out preparation. Perhaps nothing will present her 
 personality more forcibly than what she has to say 
 about this service : " A great red stain in the floor 
 was covered from sight by the crowd. To say that 
 the audience was respectful is to say little enough. 
 If we had been angels from the clouds or courts of 
 heaven we could not have been received with more 
 deference, more delicacy, or more attention. To say 
 that no disturbance of any kind took place is again 
 saying too little for the occasion. Not a foot stirred, 
 not a lip whispered ; indeed, it is quite within bounds 
 to say that not an eye wandered. We read a little 
 — not too much — from the Bible, and we sang a 
 hymn or two, and I said a few words, and we came 
 away. . . . We did not too much blame these 
 men ; they had reasons for getting drunk, which life 
 [287] 
 
IV men Authors of Our Day in 'Their Homes 
 
 had never made apparent to us, nor did we berate 
 the rum-seller; we were his guests. We read and 
 spoke to them of better things; that was all." 
 
 The bartender's hospitality cooled as the excite- 
 ment died out, and, after a few services, he refused 
 the use of his saloon. It was not until the next 
 summer that the work regularly began, of which 
 Mrs. Ward says: " For three years I had the great 
 happiness of serving the people who had needed and 
 selected me. There and then, if ever, I became 
 acquainted with life. I learned more from my 
 Gloucester people than I ever taught them. . . ." 
 
 Her account of the " beginning " is characteristic : 
 " The next year, when the Old Maids' Paradise was 
 opened for the season, a person, indistinctly known 
 to our domestic world as ' the vegetable man,' one 
 day quietly made his way from the back door to the 
 front, and boldly demanded that I should visit the 
 Reform Club and give a temperance lecture. If he 
 had asked me to discover the North Pole in a 
 Gloucester dory I should have been less astounded, 
 perhaps less shocked. In vain did I reason that I 
 did not know what a reform club was; that I was 
 not, and never might, could, would, or should be a 
 lecturer, and that a temperance lecturer was a being 
 so apart from my nature and qualifications that I 
 was better fitted to salt fish upon the wharves than 
 to assume the position which I was desired to fill. 
 [288] 
 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
 
 The petitioner was dogged, obstinate, ingenious, and 
 respectful. It seemed that the organization which 
 he represented, having heard of the rum-shop ser- 
 vices, had appointed a committee to request my 
 presence in the appalling capacity specified, and no 
 for an answer these enthusiasts declined to take. 
 
 " ' I do not lecture,' I persisted, ' but I will come 
 up to your club-room and help you somehow.' Thus 
 compromising with my fate, I rode up in the vege- 
 table man's carry-all to the club-room, and left it 
 that first evening the firm friend of those struggling 
 men and women, and of all like them, in hard posi- 
 tions and in service like theirs forever." 
 
 Gloucester is the scene of "An Old Maid's 
 Paradise " and " Burglars in Paradise," and of " A 
 Singular Life " — the story which, she says, " came 
 out of the depths of the sea, and of a heart that has 
 long loved the sea-people. Bayard is my dearest 
 hero." Indeed, Gloucester is intimately associated 
 with the most active period of her literary life. 
 Though she has studiously eschewed everything ap- 
 proaching personalities in her creative work, many 
 of her short stories smack of the old fishing town; 
 and here, too, she wrote " The Story of Avis " just 
 before succumbing to the illness which at one time 
 threatened to withdraw her wholly from literary 
 work. Wisely directed energy and capacity to adapt 
 herself to existing conditions averted what would 
 [289] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in tfheir Homes 
 
 have been scarcely less a misfortune to the reading 
 public than to Mrs. Ward herself. For her value 
 has been a steadily increasing value. Succeeding 
 years have enriched and chastened her technique, 
 while taking nothing from the vividness, the spiritual ! 
 passion, the power to strike the human note which ; 
 won acceptance in Harpers Magazine (1864) for 
 her first story, " A Sacrifice Consumed," and elicited: 
 from Whittier and Thomas Wentworth Higginsonj 
 letters of congratulation upon her first mill-story, j 
 " The Tenth of January," founded on the fall of 
 the Pemberton Mill, and published in The Atlantic. 
 
 These two stories are marked with red letters on 
 the author's calendar of literary success; but be-! 
 tween them stretch a rapid sequence of accepted 
 stories and, alas! the hack-work that all writers 
 rebel against however eager they must be to get it. 
 Happily, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps was young and 
 innocent enough to rejoice in the sets of Sunday- 
 school books she " did "—four in a set, and, what 
 seems almost incredible, four in a year — and td 
 accept cheerfully $100 each for the "Tiny" set, 
 and, with an abandonment of gratitude, $150 each 
 for the " Gypsy " set. She also contributed regu^ 
 larly to weekly denominational papers secular arti- 
 cles, though, strictly speaking, she was never a 
 journalist. 
 
 Her first recollections are of being knocked down 
 [290] 
 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
 
 by her dog in her father's area in Boston, and being 
 " crowed over by a rooster of abnormal proportions 
 that towered between her and the sky," but all the 
 influences of her life date from Andover. When 
 she was three years old, her father, the Rev. Dr. 
 Austin Phelps, resigned his Boston pulpit for the 
 professorship of Rhetoric and Homiletics in Ando- 
 ver Seminary; and it was in Andover that she was 
 educated and did her earliest literary work. Across 
 the greensward, which as a baby of three she had 
 indignantly demanded should be supplanted by a 
 brick sidewalk to play upon, she trudged, skipped, 
 or skated, as the weather or her spirits made most 
 expedient, to Mrs. Edwards's School for Young 
 Ladies — frivolously known as the " Nunnery "— 
 and in the old white house, fragrant with helpful 
 and happy memories of the gifted young mother who 
 had also written, she wrote her first stories and her 
 first novel, " The Gates Ajar." It may be safely 
 said that no book of fiction ever created wider con- 
 troversy; certainly few have given an author as 
 much pleasure and as much pain, or have been as 
 generally translated. 
 
 Its genesis and completion are best told in Eliza- 
 beth Stuart Phelps's own words: " It is impossible 
 to remember how or when the idea of the book first 
 visited me. Its publication bears the date of 1869, 
 but I am told that the exact time was in 1868— 
 [291 ] 
 
Women Authors of Our Day in 'their Homes 
 
 since publishers sometimes give to an autumn book 
 the date of the coming year. My impressions are 
 that it may have been toward the close of 1864 that 
 the work began, for there was work in it, more 
 than its imperfect and youthful character might lead 
 one ignorant of the art of book-making to suppose. 
 At that time, it will be remembered, our country 
 was dark with sorrowing women. The regiments 
 came home, but the mourners went about the streets. 
 . . . Into that great world of woe my little book 
 stole forth, trembling. So far as I can remember hav- 
 ing had any ' object ' at all in its creation. I wished 
 to say something that would comfort some few — I 
 did not think at all about comforting many, not 
 daring to suppose that incredible privilege possible 
 — of the women whose misery crowded the land. 
 . . . How the book grew, who can say? In a 
 sense, I scarcely knew that I wrote it. Yet it sig- 
 nified labor and time, crude and young as it looks 
 to me now. . . • Every sentence received the 
 best attention which it was in the power of my in- 
 experience and youth to give. I wrote and rewrote. 
 The book was revised so many times that I could 
 have said it by heart. The process of forming and 
 writing ' The Gates Ajar ' lasted, I think, nearly 
 two years." The writing was done wherever she 
 could find quiet: sometimes in her own little room 
 overlooking the garden, sometimes in the attic or 
 [292] 
 
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
 
 an unfrequented closet, sometimes in the barn or on 
 the hay-mow. 
 
 Mrs. Ward's finest achievement — for " The Con- 
 fessions of a Wife" is still avowedly anonymous, 
 though those who love and admire Elizabeth Stuart 
 Phelps most are not to be convinced that she is not 
 its author — is " The Story of a Singular Life." It 
 is, too, her latest acknowledged novel, and was writ- 
 ten chiefly at her home in Newton Centre, Mass. 
 Here, within twenty-five minutes' ride of Boston, 
 she lives from October to June, in the happy seclu- 
 sion of absorbing work done under the stimulus of 
 sympathetic criticism and companionship and in 
 obedience to the law of regular hours and periods. 
 For, in the beginning of her life as a writer, Mrs. 
 Ward formed the habit of work which she believes 
 to be the keenest spur to whatever may be meant 
 by inspiration, and which she has made the secure 
 basis of incessant and fruitful activity. 
 
 [293] 
 
Index 
 
Index 
 
 A BBOTT, LYMAN, 118 
 
 Alden, Henry M. , 46, 60 
 Aldrich, T. B., 48, 59, 185 
 Allston, Washington, 223 
 Atherton, Gertrude, portrait of, 
 
 facing 250 ; sketch of, 249- 
 
 256 ; books by, 250 
 "Atlantic, the," 48, 49, 195 
 
 JgALZAC, HONORE DE, 
 
 Barr, Amelia E., scene in her 
 home, facing, 112 ; sketch of, 
 111-119; books by, 112 
 
 Barrie, J. M., 196 
 
 Belcher, Governor, 177 
 
 Bennett, J. G., 236 
 
 Birrell, Augustine, 197 
 
 Booth, Miss, 190 
 
 Bridgman, Laura, 226 
 
 Brooks, Phillips, 287 
 
 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 
 286 
 
 Browning, Robert, 196 
 Bryant, W. C, 6 
 Bunker Hill Monument, 221 
 Burnett, Frances Hodgson, her 
 
 home in England, facing 74 ; 
 
 sketch of, 73-81 
 Byron, Lord, 222 
 
 pARLETON, WILL, 189 
 ^ Century Company, the, 37 
 "Century Magazine, the," 78 
 Cherry Croft, 114 
 Clark, Kate Upson, 189 
 Clarke, James Freeman, 223 
 Cleveland, Grover, 70 
 Cogswell, Dr., 221 
 " Collier's Weekly," 162 
 Congdon, Charles T. , 6 
 Cooper, Fenimore, 5 
 Craigie, Mrs., see Hobbes, 
 John Oliver 
 
 Crane, Stephen, 159 
 Crawford, Marion, 227, 237 
 " Critic, the," 234, 237-238 
 Crockett, S. R., 197 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 116 
 Curtis, G. W., 2S1 
 
 TRAVIS, L. CLARK, 275 
 
 Davis, Rebecca Harding, 
 sketch of, 269-276 ; books by, 
 270 
 
 Davis, Richard Harding, 159 
 
 De Kay, Charles, 237 
 
 Deland, Margaret, sketch of, 
 51-61 ; books by, 52 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas, 286 
 
 Dodge, Mary Mapes, her desk 
 at home, facing 258 ; sketch 
 of, 257-268 ; books by, 258 
 
 Dodge, William, 266 
 
 ■CDGEWORTH, MARIA, 
 A " 259 
 
 Eggleston, Edward, 262 
 Eliot, Charles, 225 
 Eliot, George, I33 
 Ellsler, Fanny, 224 
 Emerson, George B., 181 
 Emerson, R. W., 224 
 
 piELD, KATE, 236 
 ■*- Foster, John Y., 234 
 Franklin, Gertrude, 255 
 Freeman, Dr., 211 
 Freeman, Mrs., see Wilkins, 
 
 Mary E. 
 Fuller, Margaret, 224 
 Furman, Sophia, 266 
 Furness, H. H., 43 
 
 pAY, SIDNEY HOWARD, 
 237 
 
 Gilder, Jeannette L., at her 
 desk at home, facing 232 ; 
 
 [297] 
 
Index 
 
 sketch of, 231-240 ; books by, 
 232 
 
 Gilder, J. B. , 236, 237-238 
 Gilder, Richard Watson, 38, 
 
 78, 261, 234-235 
 Gilder, W. H. , 239 
 Gosse, Edmund, 109 
 Guion, Warren, 148 
 
 HALE, EDWARD EVER- 
 ETT, 177 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 253-255 
 Harding, Richard, 275 
 Hardy, Thomas, 126, 160 
 Harland, Marion, picture of 
 her home, frontispiece ; 
 sketch of, 17-29; books by, 18 
 " Harper's Bazar," 190 
 " Harper's Magazine," 60 
 Harris, J. C, 201, 207, 237 
 Harrison, Frederic, 197 
 Harrison, Mrs. St. Leger, see 
 
 Mabel Lucas, 65 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 7, 55 
 Herrick, Mrs. Christine, 27 
 Heyse, Paul, 157 
 Hobbes, John Oliver, sketeh 
 
 of, 101-109 ; books by, 102 
 Holland, J. G., 261 
 Holmes, O. W., 3, 59, 225 
 Hope, Anthony, 126, 216 
 Horn, Thomas L., 255 
 Hornung, E. W., 67 
 Howard, Blanche Willis, sketch 
 
 of, 153-163 ; books by, 154 
 Howe, Florence, 227 
 Howe, Henry, 228 
 Howe, Julia Romana, 226 
 Howe, Julia Ward, her home, 
 facing 220 ; sketch of, 219- 
 230 ; books by, 220 
 Howe, Laura, 227 
 Howe, Maud, 227 
 Howe, Dr. Samuel, 221-223 
 Howells, W. D., 59, 195 
 Huntington, Bishop, 182 
 Hutchinson, Thomas, 177 
 
 TRVING, WASHINGTON, 
 Irwin, Miss, 49 
 
 TAMES, HENRY, 155, 243- 
 J 244 
 
 Johnston, Major John W. , 96 
 Johnston, Mary, sketch of, 91- 
 99 ; books by, 92 
 
 TZELLER, HELEN, 191 
 Kingsley, Charles, 68 
 Kipling, Rudyard, 160, 197 
 Knox, John, 117 
 
 T AZARUS, EMMA, 237 
 
 Longfellow, H. W., 10-12, 
 223 
 
 Lothrop, S. K., 177 
 Lowell, J. R., 10 
 
 TV/IACLAREN, IAN, 197 
 
 Malet, Lucas, sketch of, 
 
 63-72 ; books by, 64 
 McAllister, Ward, 227 
 McKinley, Miss Helen, 147 
 McKinley, William, 152 
 Mapes, James J., 266 
 Meredith, George, 126, 160 
 Meynell, Alice, 161 
 Miller, Olive Thorne, 189 
 Mitchell, D. G., 262 
 Motley, J. L. , 223 
 Moulton, Louise Chandler, 
 
 scene in her home, facing 
 
 122 ; sketch of, 121-128 ; 
 
 books by, 122 
 Muller, Max, 69 
 
 JVjEWBURYPORT, 167 
 
 r\LIPHANT, MRS., 197, 
 272 
 
 O'Reilly, John Boyle, 59 
 
 pARKER, THEODORE, 
 223 
 
 Partridge, William Ardway, 
 185 
 
 Passmore Settlement, the, 131 
 
 Pater, Walter, 161 
 
 Pellico, Silvio, 222 
 
 Pennell, Elizabeth Robbins, 49 
 
 [298] 
 
Index 
 
 Phelps, Austin, 291 
 
 Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, 
 
 sketch of, 283-293 ; book by, 
 
 284 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 224 
 Pierce, Franklin, 172 
 Poe, E. A., 9-10 
 Potter, Paul, 237 
 Prescott, W. H., 13, 223 
 Prime, Irenaeus, 25 
 Putnam, George P., 5 
 
 Q 
 
 UILLCOTE - ON - SACO, 
 85 
 
 DALPH, JULIAN, 189 
 Reid, Whitelaw, 236 
 
 Repplier, Mrs. , 48 
 
 Repplier, Agnes, sketch of, 
 40-49, 161 
 
 Richardson, Locke, 195 
 
 Riggs, Mrs. George C., see 
 Wiggin, Kate Douglas 
 
 Rives, Amelie, 49 
 
 Robbins, Elizabeth, 49 
 
 Runkle, Bertha, house in 
 which "The Helmet of Na- 
 varre " was first written, fac- 
 ing 31 ; sketch of, 30-40 
 
 Runkle, Mrs. Cornelius A., 
 34, 39 
 
 CT. NICHOLAS, 263-265 
 ^ Sangster, Margaret E., 
 
 sketch of, 187-198 ; books by, 
 
 188 
 
 Schley, W. S., 152 
 
 Seligman, Mrs. , 151 
 
 Sherwood Forest, 140 
 Sherwood, M. E. W. , her 
 
 home in Delhi, facing 138 ; 
 
 sketch of, 137-152 ; books 
 
 by, 138 
 
 Sherwood, Samuel, 140 
 Sixty-ninth Regiment, the, 149 
 Smith, Miss Nora Archibald, 
 86 
 
 Smith, Roswell, 261, 262, 263 
 Spofford, Harriet Prescott, 
 sketch of, 165-174 ; books 
 
 by, 166 ; her home, facing 
 166 
 
 Spotswood. Governor, 94 
 Stedman, E. C. , 237 
 Stevenson, R. L., 240 
 Stockton, F. R. , 22 
 Stowe, H. B. , 12-13, 2 °2 
 Stuart, Ruth McEnery, sketch 
 
 of, 199-208 ; books by, 200 
 Sumner, Charles, 223, 225 
 
 '"TAYLOR, BAYARD, 14, 171 
 Terhune, Mrs., see Har- 
 
 land, Marion 
 Teuffel, Madame von, see 
 
 Howard, Blanche Willis, 155 
 Thackeray, W. M. , 107 
 Thomas, Edith M., sketch of, 
 
 277-281 ; books by, 278 
 Thornton, Sir Edward, 171 
 Ticknor, George, 223 
 Townsend, Mrs., see Burnett, 
 
 Frances Hodgson 
 Train, Colonel Enoch, 179 
 Train, George Francis, 179, 
 
 181 
 
 Trask, Mrs. Spencer, 139 
 
 UAN DE WATER, MRS., 
 V 2 j 
 
 WALES, JOHN, 214 
 v v Ward, Elizabeth Stuart 
 Phelps, see Phelps, Eliza- 
 beth Stuart 
 
 Ward, Mrs. Humphry, sketch 
 of, 129-136 ; books by, 130 
 
 Ward, Samuel, 229 
 
 Warren, James, 177 
 
 Warren, Joseph, 178 
 
 Washington, George, 117 
 
 Watson, William, 126 
 
 Weiss, John, 177 
 
 Welsh, Margaret Hamilton, 
 189 
 
 Wharton, Edith, portrait of, 
 facing, 242 ; sketch of, 241- 
 247 ; books by, 242 
 
 Wharton, Edward, 247 
 
 Whitman, Walt, 237 
 
 [ 299 ] 
 
Index 
 
 Whitney, A. D. T., her home, 
 
 facing 176 ; sketch of, 175- 
 
 185 ; books by, 176 
 Whitney, Seth, 181 
 Wiggin, Kate Douglas, view 
 
 in her home, facing 84 ; 
 
 sketch of, 83-89 
 
 Wilkins, Mary E., her home, 
 facing 210 ; sketch of, 209- 
 217 ; books by, 210 
 Willis, N. P., 6, 8, 118 
 Windsor Hotel, the, 144-152 
 Woodland House, 143 
 Wordsworth, William, 98, 286 
 
 [300] 
 
COMPANION VOLUMES 
 
 r 
 
 Authors of Our Day in Their Homes 
 
 Personal descriptions and interviews. Edited, with addi- 
 tions, by Francis Whiting Halsey. Seventeen illustrations. 
 I 2mo, cloth, gilt top. With Index and lists of books. 
 $1.25 net. % Levant. $2.50 net. 1 2c. postage. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Mark Twain 
 
 in Hartford and Dresden 
 Winston Churchill 
 
 in New Hampshire 
 Edward Eggleston in Lake George 
 S. Weir Mitchell in Philadelphia 
 Edwin Markham in Staten Island 
 Laurence Hutton in Princeton 
 Goldwin Smith in Toronto 
 John Bigelow in Highland Falls 
 R. W. Gilder in New York 
 C. D. Warner in Hartford 
 
 John D. Champlin in New York 
 J. C. Harris in Atlanta 
 Theodore Roosevelt in Oyster Bay 
 Robert Grant in Boston 
 E. E. Hale in Boston 
 Will Carleton in Brooklyn 
 Marion Crawford in Italy 
 Sir Gilbert Parker in London 
 Robert Barr in England 
 J. L. Allen in New York 
 Booth Tarkington in Indianapoli* 
 Carl Schurz in New York 
 
 American Authors and Their Homes 
 
 Personal descriptions and interviews. Edited with intro- 
 duction and additions by Francis Whiting Halsey. Eighteen 
 illustrations. With Index and lists of books. 1 2mo, cloth, 
 gilt top. $1.25 % Levant. $2.50**/. 12c. postage. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 R. H. Stoddard in New York 
 John Burroughs in West Park 
 Henry Van Dyke in Princeton 
 
 F. R. Stockton in West Virginia 
 H. W. Mabie in Summit 
 
 T. B. Aldrich in Boston 
 W. D. Howells in New York 
 P. L. Ford in New York 
 John Fiske in Cambridge 
 
 G. W. Cable in Northampton 
 Joaquin Miller in California 
 
 E. C. Stedman in Bronxville 
 T. N. Page in Washington 
 
 F. Hopkinson Smith in New York 
 
 D. G. Mitchell in New Haven 
 T. W. Higginson in Cambridge 
 
 G. E. Woodberry in New York 
 Andrew Carnegie in New York 
 Brander Matthews in New York 
 J. K. Bangs in Yonkers 
 
 H. M. Alden in Metuchen 
 
 E. Thompson Seton in New York