LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 ^.mong the Women Who Have Written 
 FAMOUS BOOKS 
 
Book Lovers' Series 
 
 Little Pilgrimages Among the Men 
 Who Have Written Famous Books 
 
 Little Pilgrimages Among the Women 
 Who Have Written Famous Books 
 
 C. PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 200 Summer Street 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
LITTLE 
 PILGRIMAGES 
 
 Among the Women Who Have Written 
 FAMOUS BOOKS 
 
 by 
 
 E. F. HARKINS 
 ahd 
 
 C. H. L. JOHNSTON 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 MDCCCCII 
 
THF i.'BRARY OF 
 COWJRESS. 
 
 TWO Coh-im KfcCtlVED 
 
 OCT. 3! 1901 
 
 COPVRIOMT ENTRY 
 
 CLASS OL xxc no. 
 
 'jLO CO i 
 COP 3. 
 
 Copyright, 1901, by 
 L. C. Page 8f Company (Incorporated) 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Typography by 
 The Heintzemann Press Boston 
 
 Presswork by The Colonial Press 
 C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE purpose of this booh is to renew 
 an intimate acquaintance with the 
 women whom the American reading 
 public regards as favorites, and to establish a 
 like intimate acquaintance with the promis- 
 ing newcomers. The story-writers included 
 in the list represent all sections of the coun- 
 try ; but this circumstance is quite accidental. 
 Although it happily suits the scheme of the 
 book, it stands first of all as a proof that 
 the women whom the reading public honors 
 are the products of many cities and of widely 
 differing environments. 
 
 There has been no hesitation about includ- 
 ing a resident of England, Mrs. Craigie 
 (John Oliver Hobbes), in the list, for she 
 was born in America and loves no other 
 
PREFACE 
 
 land so deeply ; nor have such favorites as 
 Frances Hodgson Burnett and Amelia E. 
 Barr been excluded, for, although of foreign 
 birth, they have long considered themselves 
 Americans. On the other hand, the fact 
 that the book deals with the writers of stories, 
 long and short, and not with poets, has neces- 
 sitated the exclusion of favorites like Mrs. 
 Julia Ward Howe and Mrs. Louise Chandler 
 Moulton. 
 
 The sketches are partly critical and partly 
 biographical. They are the result of efforts 
 to inform as well as to entertain. 
 
 To many members of this gifted company 
 the authors of "Little Pilgrimages" owe 
 thanks for much new and valuable informa- 
 tion and for numerous other courtesies ex- 
 tended during the preparation of the volume. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Preface 5 
 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 11 
 
 Frances Hodgson Burnett 27 
 
 Sarah Orne Jewett 43 
 
 Mrs. Burton Harrison 59 
 
 Charles Egbert Craddock 75 
 
 Anna Katharine Green 91 
 
 Molly Elliot Seawell 107 
 
 Amelia E. Barr 125 
 
 Mary E. Wilkins 141 
 
 Octave Thanet 157 
 
 Marshall Saunders 173 
 
 Kate Douglas Wiggin 191 
 
 Gertrude Atherton 205 
 
 John Oliver Hobbes 223 
 
 Lilian Bell 239 
 
 Ruth McEnery Stuart 255 
 
 Anna Farquhar 267 
 Pauline Bradford Mackie . 283 
 
 Mary Johnston 299 
 
 Ella Anderson G. Glasgow 315 
 
 Bertha Runkle 331 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 
 
 (Mrs. Ward) Frontispiece 
 
 Frances Hodgson Burnett 
 
 (Mrs. Townsend) 27 
 
 Sarah Orne Jewett 43 
 
 Mrs. Barton Harrison 59 
 Charles Egbert Craddock (Miss Murfree) 75 
 
 Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Bohlfs) 91 
 
 Molly Elliot Seawell 107 
 
 Amelia E. Barr 125 
 
 Mary E. Wilkins 141 
 
 Octave Thanet (Miss French) 157 
 
 Marshall Saunders 173 
 
 Kate Douglas Wiggin (Mrs. Biggs) 191 
 
 Gertrude Atherton • 205 
 
 John Oliver Hobbes (Mrs. Craigie) 223 
 
 Lilian Bell (Mrs. Bogue) 239 
 
 Buth McEnery Stuart ' 255 
 
 Anna Farquhar (Mrs. Bergengren) 267 
 Pauline Bradford Mackie 
 
 (Mrs. Hopkins) 283 
 
 Mary Johnston * 299 
 
 Ellen Anderson G. Glasgow 315 
 
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 
 (WARD) 
 
 /f STRANGER who came from some 
 /J far western village and was making 
 -^ -*- a first visit to Boston, is said to have 
 thus addressed the bar-tender of an exclusive 
 hotel : " Excuse me, but I am a stranger in 
 this part of the country, and I want to ask 
 you a question. Everywhere I go I see 
 posters up like this : ' The Gates Ajar ! The 
 Gates Ajar ! ' I'm sick to death of the 
 sight of the durn thing ; I have n't darst to 
 ask what it is. Do tell a feller! Is it a 
 new kind of drink? " 
 
 Such, indeed, may be called true, though 
 unsolicited fame, and such was the popu- 
 larity of Mrs. Ward's first novel of any 
 pretensions, a popularity which returned a 
 sale of nearly one hundred thousand copies 
 
 11 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 in America, and was outrun by that in 
 Great Britain. This, when compared with 
 the enormous issues of popular fiction of 
 the present day, does not, of course, seem 
 extraordinary, but at the moment (1869) 
 it was an almost unprecedented literary 
 triumph. Translations were manifold. 
 In France, Germany, Holland and Italy 
 they appeared, yet from the inadequate 
 copyright laws which then existed in this 
 country, the just and honest rewards which 
 were due the brilliant author were never 
 received. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting edition of 
 the book was a " sickly yellow thing," 
 says Mrs. Ward, " covered with a canvas 
 design of some kind, in which the wings of 
 a particularly sprawly angel predominate. 
 The print is abhorrent, and the paper such 
 as any respectable publisher would deserve 
 to be condemned for in this world and in 
 12 
 
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 
 
 that to come. In fact, the entire book 
 was thus given out by one of the most en- 
 terprising of English literary pirates as an 
 advertisement for a patent medicine. I 
 have never traced the chemical history of 
 the drug, but it has pleased my fancy to 
 suppose it to be the one in which Mrs. 
 Holt, the mother of Felix, dealt so largely, 
 and whose sales Felix put forth his mighty 
 conscience to suppress." 
 
 Previous to the appearance of this study 
 of life actual and eternal, the existence of 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps had indeed been a 
 busy and intellectual one, yet similar to 
 that of many a New England girl whose 
 parents were of superior moral and intel- 
 lectual fibre. It was the instinctive and 
 inborn spark of genius which prompted 
 the daughter of a hard-worked and over- 
 burdened New England professor to pen a 
 work at twenty years of age which showed 
 
 13 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 a depth of insight and sympathy with the 
 sorrows of life of one of twice her experi- 
 ence. 
 
 She was born in Andover, Massachusetts, 
 on August 31, 1844, and inherited the 
 keenest and most artistic literary talent 
 from both her parents. Although " every- 
 body's mother is a remarkable woman," 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, the mother, was a 
 reconciliation of tact and power between 
 genius and domestic life, a similar represen- 
 tation of which is seldom met with. A 
 devoted, affectionate guardian and worthy 
 adviser, she still found time to pen a num- 
 ber of stories for other people's children, 
 which gave her a wider audience than that 
 of her own hearth, and one that clamored 
 with greater eagerness for further produc- 
 tions of her delicate imagination. The 
 author of "Sunnyside," "The Angel on 
 the Right Shoulder," and " Peeps at Num- 
 14 
 
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 
 
 ber Five," was a rare woman of great intel- 
 lectual gifts, who did not allow the keen 
 pleasure of writing to overbalance the stern 
 duties of motherhood. 
 
 Austin Phelps, the father, was Professor 
 of Rhetoric in the Theological Seminary — 
 a man of broad sympathies and with lit- 
 erary gifts of marked power. His " Still 
 Hour " is yet read, while his Andover lec- 
 tures, which in book-form have become clas- 
 sics, stand without peers to-day, and are the 
 accepted text-books of his department. His 
 appreciation of the uses and graces of lan- 
 guage " very early descended like a mantle " 
 upon the shoulders of his daughter. She 
 learned to love reading, not because she 
 was made to, but because she could not 
 help it. The atmosphere she breathed 
 was that of literature, and only that of the 
 best. 
 
 At the age of thirteen her first literary 
 
 15 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 effort was sent to the Youtlis Companion, 
 and was accepted. At the time she was a 
 small, rather angular person, usually attired 
 in a high-necked gingham dress, not in the 
 least precocious, and very much of a tom- 
 boy into the bargain. Far more likely, in 
 fact, to be found on the top of an apple tree 
 or walking the length of the Seminary fence 
 than writing rhymes or reading " solid 
 reading." " The story was about a sister 
 who neglected her small brother, and hence 
 defeated the first object of existence in a 
 woman-child. It was very proper, very 
 pious, and very much like what well- 
 brought-up little girls were taught to do, 
 to be, to suffer, or to write in those days." 
 For this effort the paper which had printed 
 her contribution appeared in the Andover 
 post-box for a year, and addressed to the 
 writer of the published semi-column. 
 
 The stimulating influences within the 
 16 
 
ELIZABETH STUAET PHELPS 
 
 great white house with its intellectual in- 
 mates, and the very atmosphere of Andover 
 itself, were not long in fostering renewed 
 desires for literary triumphs. The country 
 was soon upon the eve of a great conflict, 
 and the fierce, eddying tide in Virginia 
 caught with it many of the fair young 
 forms intimate with the peaceful village 
 life. The departure of friends and ac- 
 quaintances in their rough clothes of blue 
 made a great impression upon the receptive 
 mind of the timid girl, and her own feel- 
 ings of sorrow, together with a knowledge 
 of the mental sufferings of others who re- 
 mained at home, soon found voice in what 
 might justly be called her first literary ven- 
 ture — a story of the war which appeared 
 in Harper's Magazine, and for which she 
 received a cheque for twenty-five dollars. 
 This was in January, 1864, and its name, 
 "A Sacrifice Consumed." The narrative 
 
 17 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 was of a poor and plain little dressmaker 
 who lost her lover in the army. It was a 
 simple tale, but full of that delicate and 
 sympathetic appreciation of womanly sor- 
 row which Mrs. Ward is able to portray 
 with greater truthfulness, perhaps, than any 
 living American author. Her father read 
 it in printed form — she had not shown it 
 to him before — and his genuine emotion 
 gave her a "kind of awed elation which 
 has never been repeated in her experience." 
 She now was launched upon the sea of 
 literary venture, and wrote with a distinct 
 purpose and quite steadily, contributing 
 stories of various lengths to the different 
 magazines with marked success, although 
 she herself confesses that, had her first con- 
 tribution been refused, or even the second, 
 or the third, she would not have written 
 again. Discovering soon enough that one 
 cannot live by bread or by magazine stories 
 18 
 
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 
 
 alone, like many another who toils in the 
 ways of this most nnremunerative of all pro- 
 fessions, she did hack work and Sunday- 
 school books by the score. The appearance 
 of a little story called " The Tenth of Janu- 
 ary," which was founded upon the wreck of 
 the Pemberton Mills at Lawrence, and 
 upon which she spent nearly a month 
 of preparation, distinctly marked the 
 first recognition she received from literary 
 people. The catastrophe upon which this 
 I sketch was founded had indeed been a ter- 
 l rible one. At five o'clock one January after- 
 i noon, when all hands were upon duty, the 
 roof, the walls, and machinery of a great 
 building, crowded with working-men and 
 women, had given way and fallen with crush- 
 ! ing weight upon the bodies of seven hun- 
 dred living human beings. Fire, fierce and 
 uncontrollable, had added to the horror, 
 and the plight of the poor working girls who, 
 
 19 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 caught within the ruins beyond all hope of 
 escape, went to their death with the songs of 
 those hymns they had learned at church upon 
 their lips, made an impression, not only upon 
 the author but upon all who had seen and 
 heard, which was as indelible as a mark 
 upon marble that years alone can erase. For 
 the best part of a month she investigated 
 every avenue of information which might 
 throw some light upon the tragedy, even to 
 consulting engineers, physicians, officers, 
 and newspaper men, and making a com- 
 plete study of all files of local newspapers 
 with articles bearing upon the tragedy, so 
 that whatever she had to say would be from 
 the fullest and most complete knowledge. 
 Then the story was written. After its peru- 
 sal, the poet Whittier wrote her his first 
 letter and said enough to keep up the courage 
 of the youthful aspirant to literary fame, a 
 letter which to a self -distrustful nature like 
 20 
 
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 
 
 her own, was as stimulating as a life-pre- 
 serving tonic. 
 
 The inspiration for her next book, " The 
 Gates Ajar," came spontaneously. The 
 angel in her said, " Write ! " and she wrote. 
 She says : " The book grew so naturally, it 
 was so unpremeditated, it came so plainly 
 from the something not one's self which 
 makes for uses in which one's self is extin- 
 guished, that there are times when it seems 
 to me as if I had no more to do with the 
 writing of it than the bough through which 
 the wind cries, or the wave by means of 
 which the tide rises." Its composition con- 
 sumed the greater part of two years, years 
 when the country was permeated with the 
 spirit of a general grief. The regiments were 
 returning with depleted ranks, the streets 
 were dark with sorrowing women, the gay- 
 est scenes were black with crape, — in truth, 
 a world of woe into which her book stole 
 
 21 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 forth, trembling. " It was written to com- 
 fort some few of the women whose misery 
 crowded the land — the helpless, outnumber- 
 ing, unconsulted women, they whom war 
 trampled down without a choice or protest ; 
 the patient, limited, domestic women, who 
 thought little but loved much, and, loving, 
 had lost all" — to them she wished to 
 speak. The success of her efforts was mar- 
 vellous, although a storm of criticism was 
 called forth, both favorable and unfavorable 
 to the spirit that dared to produce a concep- 
 tion of the future life which was foreign to 
 all preconceived ideas. 
 
 From the time of its publication to the 
 present day, Mrs. Ward has conversed 
 through the medium of her many works to 
 an ever-appreciative and enlarging audience. 
 Beneath her writing there is a distinct 
 moral purpose, so that it does not appeal 
 perhaps to some critics who hold fast to the 
 22 
 
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 
 
 belief that nothing is worthy of high praise 
 unless it is written " for art's sake alone." 
 This idea she has always sacrificed to the 
 moral influence with which it was her ear- 
 nest desire to impregnate the pages of what- 
 ever story she has endeavored to tell, for 
 her every production has been with the idea 
 of helping those who read. She believes the 
 old rhetorical law that a high and noble 
 subject should be more worthy of a high and 
 noble medium of art than a low one, and 
 that it is not necessarily inartistic to do a 
 good and helpful thing, provided the medium 
 through which it reaches others is not wholly 
 and distinctly bad. 
 
 In 1888 she was married to the Rev. 
 Herbert D. Ward, with whom two of her 
 more recent novels have been written. 
 They are " The Master of the Magicians " 
 and " Come Forth." Perhaps her most 
 popular production, at the present time of 
 
 23 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 writing, is "A Singular Life," published 
 in 1896, but that which she regards as 
 her most important work, " The Story of 
 Jesus Christ," was published in the fall of 
 1897. These have, for the most part, been 
 written in an unpretentious but attractive 
 house at Newton Centre, where is her win- 
 ter home. In summer, she has for many 
 years been an ever-welcome and apprecia- 
 tive visitant of Eastern Point, Gloucester, 
 where her work in favor of the great cause 
 of temperance among the fisher folk of the 
 sea-faring town nearby, has greatly en- 
 deared her to the native born and stimu- 
 lated them with a love and respect that is 
 universal and sincere. Her " Story of 
 Jack," a young fisherman who ruined his 
 life and met his death through drink, is 
 perhaps one of the best appeals for temper- 
 ance that has yet appeared. At present 
 she is much interested in the anti-vivisection 
 24 
 
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 
 
 movement, and is spending much time and 
 energy in its behalf. 
 
 As a literary artist of the most successful 
 type who can well speak with a tone of 
 authority, it is of importance and great 
 interest to learn her views and comments 
 upon those who contemplate a literary 
 career : " Write if you must, not otherwise," 
 she says. " Do not write if you can earn a 
 fair living at teaching or dressmaking, at 
 electricity or hod-carrying. Make shoes, 
 weed cabbages, survey land, keep house, 
 make ice-cream, sell cake, climb a telephone 
 pole. Nay, be a lightning-rod peddler or a 
 book agent before you set your heart upon 
 it that you shall write for a living. Do any- 
 thing honest, but do not write, unless God 
 call you and publishers want you and people 
 read you and editors claim you. v Respect 
 the market laws. Lean on nobody. 
 Trust the common sense of an experienced 
 
 25 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 publisher to know whether your manu- 
 script is worth something or nothing. Do 
 not depend on influence. Editors do not 
 care a drop of ink for influence. What 
 they want is good material, and the 
 fresher it is, the better. An editor will 
 pass by an old writer any day for an un- 
 known and gifted new one with power to 
 say a good thing in a fresh way. Make 
 your calling and election sure. Do not 
 flirt with your pen. Emerson's phrase 
 was, 'toiling terribly. 9 Nothing less will 
 hint at the grinding drudgery of a life 
 spent in living i by your brains.' " 
 
 26 
 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. 
 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 
 (MRS. TOWNSEND) 
 
 TAY the name of Frances Hodgson 
 m~~\ Burnett she is still known, although 
 * ^ early in 1900, in Genoa, Italy, she 
 became Mrs. Stephen Townsend. 
 
 Generally, too, she is thought of as an 
 American, while, as a matter of fact, she 
 is English by birth. However, during the 
 greater part of her life she has been an 
 American in sympathy, as well as in resi- 
 dence ; it is America which has awarded 
 her the highest praise as a woman and the 
 heartiest applause as an author ; it is 
 American incidents which constitute the 
 subject of her most ambitious novel; it 
 was at an American university that her son 
 Vivian was educated ; and numerous other 
 ties have made her sufficiently American 
 
 27 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 to warrant giving her a place in this book. 
 As a writer said a few years ago " Ameri- 
 cans regard Mrs. Burnett as a country- 
 woman." 
 
 Mrs. Burnett was born in Manchester, 
 England, on November 24, 1849. Her 
 father, who was a well-to-do merchant, died 
 when she was ten years old ; and not long 
 after the father's death the Hodgson's 
 moved to Tennessee, whither an uncle of 
 Frances had preceded them. But even 
 before leaving England the little girl's 
 remarkable powers of observation had been 
 put into practice. The story goes : the 
 English home of the Hodgsons was in 
 Islington Square, and in the rear of it, 
 at the end of the yard, was an alley on 
 which were the homes of working people. 
 Through the bars of an iron gate, as a little 
 child, Frances watched the people who 
 lived in the alley. One day, when the little 
 28 
 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 
 
 Hodgson girl was only nine years old, she 
 saw the face of the girl whom she after- 
 ward called " That Lass o ' Lowrie's." She 
 saw the lass only twice. Once the little 
 thing was in the midst of a group of 
 children, knitting away and moving among 
 them with an authoritative air ; the second 
 time the lass was retreating home, proudly 
 yet obediently, before a coarse and brutal 
 father. 
 
 Upon reaching America the Hodgsons 
 settled in Knoxville, but the War of the 
 Rebellion ruined the uncle's business, and 
 so the mother gathered her two sons and 
 three daughters about her and went to live 
 in a log cabin in the country. At that 
 time, Frances, according to a friend who 
 has known her from childhood, was " a 
 bright girl of fourteen, who had been care- 
 fully educated in a private school, was 
 thoroughly grounded in her English studies, 
 
 29 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 spoke French fluently, and was a good 
 musician." This same friend, by the way, 
 assures us that " Frances was able to read 
 by the time she was three years old, and 
 before she was five she was writing little sto- 
 ries in her copy-book. She produced the great- 
 est quantity of this sort of literature before 
 she was twelve, but when it was decided 
 that they were to come to America, Fran- 
 ces, with the courage of a Spartan, made a 
 holocaust of the small library." 
 
 The misery into which the Hodgson's 
 were thrown, first by an unprofitable settle- 
 ment of the father's estate and afterwards by 
 the adversity of the uncle, acted as a heavy 
 strain upon Mrs. Hodgson, who, the daughter 
 of a cotton manufacturer of large means, 
 had been reared in luxury ; and at the end 
 of a few years the strain proved her death. 
 
 But, meantime, the children took up 
 hard work enthusiastically. Frances got a 
 30 
 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 
 
 position as a school teacher. The parents 
 of the children whom she taught paid her 
 in eggs, flour, bacon, potatoes and other 
 country produce; and on this primitive 
 kind of salary the family subsisted. " They 
 were not an unhappy family even then," 
 says a witness of their struggles, " though 
 the boys had to undertake work of a 
 humble and laborious sort, and their whole 
 existence was one of dire toil and depriva- 
 tion. They were jolly young people who, 
 when work was over, had concerts together, 
 each playing a different instrument ; and 
 all of them were fond of books, of which 
 they managed by hook or by crook to 
 possess themselves." 
 
 Frances's hobby was story-writing, to 
 quote what an intimate acquaintance 
 of the author wrote when Mrs. Burnett 
 first moved to Washington ; " We can well 
 imagine no day dreary and no evening long 
 
 31 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 in that household, a circle which in later 
 years has become familiar through her pen 
 as ' Vagabondia.' The first essay at a story 
 that might go beyond the approving audi- 
 ence of ' Vagabondia ' was attempted in her 
 thirteenth year ; written and read, not told, 
 to her two sisters when she was nearly fif- 
 teen. Edith, the younger member of the 
 household, saw practical financial results in 
 this production and promptly advised send- 
 ing it where such things were paid for. 
 The young author was startled at the pro- 
 posal, though doubtless her mind had al- 
 ready awakened to the possibilities of a 
 future success, if not fame. The only dif- 
 ficulty to the younger sister's mind seemed 
 to be postage stamps ; neither had the nerve 
 to ask the head of the family, the elder 
 brother, for the few pennies, lest the shy 
 maiden and her aspirations should become 
 the subject of ridicule. The difficulty was 
 32 
 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 
 
 overcome by the Betsey Trot wood of the 
 family, as Edith was significantly called, 
 who proposed that they should gather a 
 basket of wild grapes from a neighboring 
 wood and the lucre thereby obtained should 
 be used to send the precious manuscript to 
 BalloiCs Magazine." 
 
 And to that basket, we may remark hangs 
 a romantic tale. But, first, let the other 
 story go on ; 
 
 " The answer was gratifying and compli- 
 mentary, but the offer was to publish the 
 story without remuneration. It was far 
 more than the young writer had expected, 
 but it was not satisfactory to Trotwood, 
 who sagely remarked that " if it was worth 
 praising it was worth paying for " ; so by 
 request it was returned. Then it was sent 
 to Godey's Lady's Book, whose editor not 
 only accepted it, but also several other manu- 
 scripts, on fair terms, thereby having the 
 
 33 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 distinction of first giving encouragement to 
 a pen that has won a world-wide recogni- 
 tion. Later Miss Hodgson became a regu- 
 lar contributor to Peterson's Magazine. . . . 
 Mr. Peterson not only was publisher, but 
 became an interested personal friend. To 
 him, more than to anyone else, she feels 
 indebted for the encouragement that in- 
 duced her to continue in the arduous work." 
 
 Once Mrs. Burnett was trapped — we 
 use the expression advisedly, for she seldom 
 unearths the past — into a reminiscent 
 mood, and she gave virtually the same ver- 
 sion of her first experience with publishers. 
 The story was " Miss Carruther's Engage- 
 ment." Mr. Ballou said it was a good 
 story, but that he could not afford to pay 
 for it. So at the author's request, he re- 
 turned it. Finally it reached Godey's. 
 
 " Their readers," says Mrs. Burnett, 
 " doubted its orginality, and Mr. Godey 
 34 
 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 
 
 wrote me that he liked the story, and if I 
 could prove that it was original he would pay 
 me twenty dollars for it and that I might 
 set about writing another at once. I wrote 
 in reply, showing them that the story was 
 undoubtedly my own, and to prove it sent 
 them another, called « Hearts and Diamonds ' 
 and for the two I got thirty-five dollars." 
 
 " Do you remember your sensations on 
 seeing your first story in print?" Mrs. 
 Burnett was asked. 
 
 " Yes, I can," she answered. " I know I 
 read the story over and over again, and it 
 seemed much more interesting and better 
 than it did in manuscript. The money I got 
 seemed to be a great deal, and I felt that 
 my vocation in life was fixed ; and, indeed, 
 I have been writing from that day to this." 
 
 The old files have been ill-kept, and we 
 have not been able to trace the author's 
 career back farther than a story called 
 
 35 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 "Ethel's Sir Launcelot," which appeared 
 in Peterson 's in November, 1868. 
 
 The acceptance of "Miss Carruther's 
 Engagement " and " Hearts and Diamonds " 
 certainly did fix their author's vocation, as 
 the reading world knows; but let us go 
 back to the basket of fruit that the Hodg- 
 son sisters picked that memorable day. The 
 fruit was sold to the mother of a young 
 man named Burnett — Swan Moses Bur- 
 nett ; to which young man in 1873, after 
 he had taken his degree as Doctor of Medi- 
 cine, Frances Eliza Hodgson was married. 
 He was twice Miss Hodgson's age. It is 
 said that in Mrs. Burnett's " Lass o ' 
 Lowrie's " may be found a " spiritual de- 
 scription of him as he first appeared to her. 
 The hero with the crippled arm was in real 
 life so crippled, that he was obliged to walk 
 with one knee stiffened, using the toe of 
 his foot to step upon. His face, while 
 36 
 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 
 
 having somewhat of the painful expression 
 of a physical sufferer, possessed in a high 
 degree the beauty of intelligence. Its ex- 
 pression was sensitive, sympathetic, and, 
 above all, intellectual. All these qualities 
 distinguished the young man. Observation 
 was habitual with him, and, at first, he be- 
 came interested in the girl merely out of 
 curiosity. She attracted him even more by 
 her brightness than by her prettiness." 
 
 They were married in 1873 and divorced 
 in 1898. They had two children, Lionel, 
 who died in Paris ten years ago of consump- 
 tion, and Vivian, who is the subject of his 
 mother's most popular story, " Little Lord 
 Fauntleroy." It is a curious circumstance 
 that the petition for the divorce of the 
 Burnetts was filed the day Vivian came of 
 age. Yet the doctor, who, by the way, is a 
 celebrated eye specialist, and his gifted wife, 
 were uncommonly devoted to each other in 
 
 37 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 the early days of their romance, as we shall 
 see. 
 
 After Frances's literary bow the Hodg- 
 sons prospered. They were able soon to 
 move into a pretty, yine-covered house, 
 which, at the young author's suggestion, 
 they significantly called Mt. Ararat. Just 
 after Frances's engagement to Dr. Burnett, 
 Mrs. Hodgson died, and for some time lit- 
 erature and domestic economy were in each 
 other's way. But one of the Hodgson 
 boys married a sister of Dr. Burnett, and, 
 relieved of her new burden, Frances, already 
 well-known as the author of "Surly Tim's 
 Troubles" (Scribner's, 1872), visited Eng- 
 land. Upon her return she and the am- 
 bitious young doctor were made husband 
 and wife. But of what avail was his ambi- 
 tion without the means of satisfying it ? So 
 his wife, in a little more than one year, 
 wrote three novels ; then the Burnetts — 
 38 
 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 
 
 Lionel had been born — moved to Paris. 
 There Vivian, the second son, was born. 
 When the doctor had completed his studies 
 the family came back to this country and 
 settled down in Washington. There Dr. 
 Burnett still lives. He is spoken of by his 
 friends as a kind and brilliant man. 
 
 " That Lass o' Lowrie's " was planned 
 during Mrs. Burnett's visit to Manchester 
 just before her first marriage, and was pub- 
 lished in 1877. So discriminating a critic 
 as Richard Grant White referred to the 
 story as " the flower and crown of all re- 
 cent fiction." That and "Pretty Polly 
 Pemberton " and " The Fire at Grantley 
 Mills " were the tales which met the ex- 
 penses of the journey to Paris. 
 
 One of her novels, " A Fair Barbarian," 
 was the first work of an American roman- 
 cist to receive the compliment of publication 
 in the Century after it had been published 
 
 39 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 in another magazine — Peterson 's. The 
 success of " Little Lord Fauntleroy," by 
 far the most popular of the author's works, 
 and,> in truth, one of the most popular bits 
 jof fiction ever written, has barely faded, 
 although it was achieved in 1886. The 
 dramatization of the story alone brought 
 Mrs. Burnett a handsome fortune. It was 
 the talk of the literary world when the 
 graduate of the Tennessee log cabin bought 
 herself a palatial house on Massachusetts 
 Avenue, Washington. The success of " A 
 Lady of Quality," both as a novel and as a 
 play, added another heap to the novelist's 
 gold; and then she took a house in Port- 
 land Place, London, and a magnificent 
 country seat, Maytham Hall, Rolvendon, 
 Kent. She and Mr. Townsend collaborated 
 in the dramatization of " A Lady of Qual- 
 ity." Mr. Townsend is also the author of 
 a novel, " A Thoroughbred Mongrel." 
 40 
 
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 
 
 Up to date, Mrs. Burnett's — or Mrs. 
 Townsend's — great disappointment has 
 been the comparative failure of " The De- 
 Willoughby Claim." " I now look upon 
 it," she said, before it was published a 
 couple of years ago, " as my greatest work, 
 and what I hope to make the great 
 American novel." It was brushed aside by 
 greater American novels, and some of Mrs. 
 Burnett's oldest friends among the critics, 
 scolded her for it. 
 
 Mrs. vBurnett's new book, "The Making 
 of a Marchioness," appears too late for our 
 criticism. We understand that the author 
 is at work on two other novels, at least one 
 of which will be published next year. 
 
 " Hard mental work," says one who saw 
 her lately, "has not left marks with Mrs. 
 Burnett. She is as rosy and young-looking 
 as she was fifteen years ago, with the same 
 tawny hair and the same baby-like eyes." 
 
 41 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 Rosy then, and young-looking still, rich, 
 happy in a new-found love, somewhat eccen- 
 tric, enjoying praise — such is Mrs. Bur- 
 nett to-day. 
 
 42 
 
SARAH ORNE JEWETT. 
 
SARAH ORNE JEWETT 
 
 ^^vNCE upon a time some critic found 
 m M a resemblance between Miss Jewett 
 
 ^^ and one of the old Flemish paint- 
 ers — found a resemblance between her 
 stories and the groups of Jan van Eyck or 
 Roger van der Weyden. He was a dis- 
 cerning critic, for her stories and the old 
 masters' pictures are alike in many re- 
 spects. They have a reality that is quite 
 photographic, and yet they suggest a strong 
 imagination. Their purity is remarkable, 
 and yet their atmosphere is very earthly. 
 
 Better still, however, it seems to us, it 
 would be to say that there is a strong re- 
 semblance between Miss Jewett and Jean 
 Francois Millet. They both have digni- 
 fied the meek and the lowly ; they both 
 
 43 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 have exhibited the tenderest sympathy 
 with the plain sons of Adam and Eve that 
 live far from the madding crowd ; they 
 both have done this noble and ennobling 
 work enthusiastically yet unaffectedly, 
 modestly but, ah ! how artistically. They 
 that take pleasure in " The Angelus," will 
 take pleasure also in " Deephaven." 
 Millet, too, knew his characters intimately ; 
 he had struggled and suffered like them. 
 From such painful strenuousness Miss Jew- 
 ett fortunately has been able to keep aloof, 
 for Barbizon is not like South Berwick, and 
 the French peasants would say that the 
 countryfolk of Maine lived royally. But 
 we have heard it said that Miss Jewett is 
 like her books, and that in ten minutes 
 she unconsciously tells you how she writes 
 them. 
 
 Kate Sanborn once essayed a descrip- 
 tion of her friend and contemporary, in 
 44 
 
SARAH ORNE JEWETT 
 
 which she observed : " I feel a certain 
 shrinking from attempting a personal 
 sketch of this gifted woman, whom we all 
 love for her absolutely perfect pictures of 
 New England life." Anyone who essays 
 the description must feel as Kate Sanborn 
 felt, and yet, in such a case, a sketch 
 poorly or inadequately done is better than 
 no sketch at all. The lesson will be pres- 
 ent, if not the eloquence. The old Flem- 
 ish painters made portraits of themselves, 
 but as yet, we hardly need say, Miss Jew- 
 ett has given us no sketch of herself. 
 
 Sarah Orne Jewett was born at South 
 Berwick, Maine, on September 3, 1849. 
 Her father was Dr. Theodore Herman 
 Jewett, a physician of no small renown ; 
 her mother was the daughter of Dr. Perry 
 of Exeter, another physician well-known in 
 central New England during the middle of 
 the last century. The house in which she 
 
 45 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 was born is still standing, although it was 
 built far back in the eighteenth century, 
 and it still excites the author's warmest 
 affection. " I was born here," she said, 
 as she stood in its panelled hall a few years 
 ago, " and I hope to die here, leaving the 
 lilac bushes still green and growing, and 
 all the chairs in their places." 
 
 You will meet glimpses of Miss Jewett's 
 father in " A Country Doctor," but the 
 nearest and clearest glimpse is in his 
 daughter's personal sketch of him : 
 
 " My father had inherited from his father 
 an amazing knowledge of human nature, 
 and from his mother's French ancestry 
 that peculiarly French trait called gaietS 
 de cceur. Through all the heavy respon- 
 sibilities and anxieties of his busy profes- 
 sional life, this kept him young at heart 
 and cheerful. His visits to his patients 
 were often made delightful and refreshing 
 46 
 
SARAH ORNE JEWETT 
 
 to them by his kind heart, and the charm 
 of his personality. I knew many of the 
 patients whom he used to visit in lonely 
 inland farms or on the sea-coast in York 
 and Wells. I used to follow him about si- 
 lently, like an undemanding little dog, con- 
 tent to follow at his heels. I had no con- 
 sciousness of watching or listening, or 
 indeed of any special interest in the coun- 
 try interiors. In fact, when the time 
 came that my own world of imagination 
 was more real to me than any other, I was 
 sometimes perplexed at my father's direct- 
 ing my attention to certain points of inter- 
 est in the characters or surroundings of 
 our acquaintances. I cannot help believ- 
 ing that he recognized, long before I did 
 myself, in what direction the current of 
 purpose in my life was setting. Now as I 
 write my sketches of country life, I remem- 
 ber again and again the wise things he 
 
 47 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 said, and the sights he made me see. He 
 was impatient only with affectation and 
 insincerity." 
 
 Miss Jewett was a delicate child, and, 
 consequently, was encouraged by her father 
 to spend much of her time outdoors ; and 
 outdoors she formed her extraordinarily 
 intimate acquaintance with nature and 
 with the inhabitants of the Agamenticus 
 region. She played even more eagerly 
 than did the other children of the town, 
 but when she went to school she readily 
 outstripped her classmates. It is said that 
 at the academy she found verse easy and 
 prose difficult, but such conditions are not 
 unusual. Youth takes naturally to rhymes 
 and to games. 
 
 Once someone inquired of the author of 
 
 " A Country Doctor " when the literary 
 
 bent took possession of her. " I can scarcely 
 
 say anything about that," she answered, 
 
 48 
 
SARAH ORNE JEWETT 
 
 " for I began to write so early. But my 
 first serious encouragement was the accept- 
 ance of a short story by The Atlantic 
 Monthly when I was between nineteen and 
 twenty years old." That story was " Mr. 
 Bruce," published in December, 1869. 
 
 We believe that Miss Jewett was about 
 fourteen when she wrote "Lucy Garron's 
 Lovers." Between that age and the age 
 when she was welcomed to The Atlantic 
 Monthly she published little sketches in 
 Young Folks and in The Riverside, Her 
 first great popular success was " Deep- 
 haven," which appeared in 1877. 
 
 " Popular success " however, hardly 
 expresses the reception of "Deephaven." 
 " Artistic success " might be a fitter expres- 
 sion. The fact is, Miss Jewett's works are 
 not popular, as Miss Johnston's, say, are 
 popular. James Russell Lowell used the 
 right words when, shortly before his death, 
 
 49 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 he wrote to the London publishers of the 
 New England author's books : "I am very 
 glad to hear that Miss Jewett's delightful 
 stories are to be reprinted in England. 
 Nothing more pleasingly characteristic of 
 rural life in New England has been writ- 
 ten, and they have long been valued by the 
 judicious here." 
 
 The same might be said to-day — " they 
 have long been valued by the judicious 
 here." No writer has a more devoted, 
 more admiring public than the Bostonian. 
 For we may call her a Bostonian, notwith- 
 standing her loyalty to Berwick, or Bar- 
 wick, as the natives say. During the last 
 quarter of a century she has been the almost 
 inseparable companion of Mrs. James T. 
 Fields, who loves Boston no less than the 
 "judicious" Bostonians love and respect 
 her. Back in 1882 the serene and noble 
 Whittier addressed a sonnet to them as 
 50 
 
SARAH ORNE JEWETT 
 
 they set sail for Europe — a sonnet inter- 
 esting to quote : 
 
 Outbound your bark awaits you. Were I one 
 Whose prayer availeth much, my wish 
 
 would be 
 Your favoring trade wind and consenting 
 sea. 
 By sail or steed was never love outrun, 
 And, here or there, love follows her in whom 
 All graces and sweet charities unite, 
 The old Greek beauty set in holier light ; 
 And her for whom New England's byways 
 
 bloom, 
 Who walks among us welcome as the spring, 
 Calling up blossoms where her light feet 
 
 stray. 
 God keep you both, make beautiful your 
 way; 
 Comfort, console and bless ; and safely bring, 
 Ere yet I wake upon a vaster sea 
 The unreturning voyage, my friends to 
 me. 
 
 Whittier was accustomed to attend 
 Friends' meetings in Berwick, and it was 
 in the old town that he, typical of the old 
 
 51 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 New England literary traditions, and Miss 
 Jewett, the type of the newer, made each 
 other's acquaintance ! The sweet poet was 
 greatly pleased by " Deephaven," and he 
 heartily interested himself in its writers 
 progress until he died. 
 
 Miss Jewett divides her time between 
 Boston, Berwick and Manchester-by-the- 
 Sea — the same Manchester that prompted 
 Dr. Holmes to write " Beverly-by-the- 
 Depot." The larger part of her literary 
 work is done in the old Maine settlement, 
 to whose name, by the way, no South was 
 prefixed originally. Plain Berwick it was 
 known as in the lively, picturesque days, 
 when bronze-faced sailors rolled barrels of 
 rum up and boxes of tobacco and stranger 
 wares down the north Atlantic wharves. 
 From one who visited her in Maine a few 
 years ago we gather this description of the 
 Jewett homestead : 
 52 
 
SARAH ORNE JEWETT 
 
 " It seems as if one had no right to say 
 so much about a house which is a home. 
 And yet New England has few like this, 
 and it is a part of her brave history. There 
 are few such broad, high halls, arched and 
 panelled; few such wide stairways with 
 carved and polished railings, few such 
 quaint gilded mirrors and antique portraits 
 and last century bedsteads with white can- 
 opies. . . Behind the house is a big old- 
 fashioned garden, and every room is sweet 
 with posies. There is a stable, too, for 
 Miss Jewett loves her horses, and drives 
 almost daily over the green hills ... of the 
 beautiful coast of Maine. She is an oars- 
 woman as well, and her boat knows every 
 reach of the river and all its quiet sunlit 
 groves. . . Miss Jewett's " den " is the most 
 delightful I have ever seen. It is in the 
 upper hall, with a window looking down 
 upon a tree-shaded village street. A desk 
 
 53 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 strewn with papers is on one side, and on 
 the other a case of books and a table. Pic- 
 tures, flowers and books are everywhere. 
 The room set apart for the library is one of 
 the four great square ones downstairs. But 
 the books overflow it. They lie upon the 
 sofas, and have shelves in the bedrooms. 
 It is the house of a woman who studies, 
 Scott, particularly. . . " The busier I get," 
 she said, " the more time I make to read 
 the Waverley novels." 
 
 Mention of the " den " brings us up to 
 Miss Jewett's method of working. She 
 has moods ; she does not make writing a set 
 daily task, with so many pages to be done 
 at a certain hour, as a Haverstraw laborer 
 would have so many bricks. We have 
 heard it said that sometimes her day's work 
 amounts to eight or ten thousand words. 
 That indeed would be a prodigious effort. 
 Marion Crawford is one of the swiftest 
 54 
 
SARAH ORNE JEWETT 
 
 writers we ever heard of, and his ordinary 
 limit is six thousand words a day. Possibly 
 the truth about Miss Jewett's industry has 
 been exaggerated. More reasonable is the 
 statement that while engaged on a novel 
 she pens from two to four thousand words 
 a day. Between books she enjoys periods 
 of physical recreation and literary con- 
 struction. 
 
 " Of your own books, which do you like 
 best?" Miss Jewett was once asked. 
 
 " They're a pretty large family now," 
 and she smiled. " There are always per- 
 sonal reasons, you know, and associations 
 that may influence one's judgment. I don't 
 think I have a favorite. In some ways I 
 like ' A Country Doctor ' best, and yet I 
 believe ' A Marsh Island ' is a better 
 story." 
 
 Her latest work, " A Tory Lover," was 
 concluded in The Atlantic Monthly last 
 
 55 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 August, two months after Bowdoin College 
 had bestowed upon her the degree of Doctor 
 of Letters. 
 
 " I have only written," she said to a lit- 
 erary brother a few years ago, " about 
 what I knew and felt. In giving any idea 
 of the influences which have shaped my 
 literary life, I must go back to the sur- 
 roundings of my childhood, and to those 
 friends who first taught me to observe and 
 to know the deep pleasures of simple things, 
 and to be interested in simple and humble 
 lives. I was born in an old colonial house 
 in South Berwick, which was built about 
 1750. My grandfather had been a sea- 
 captain, but retired early and engaged more 
 or less in the flourishing shipping trade of 
 that time. This business in all its branches, 
 was still in existence in my early child- 
 hood, and so I came into contact not only 
 with the farming and up country people, 
 56 
 
SARAH ORNE JEWETT 
 
 but with sailors and shipmasters and lum- 
 bermen as well. I used to linger about the 
 country stores and listen to the shrewd and 
 often witty country talk, and I delighted 
 in hearing of the ships which came to port, 
 and in seeing the sea-tanned captains, who 
 sometimes dined with my grandfather and 
 talked of their voyages and bargains at the 
 Barbadoes and Havana. And so I came 
 to know directly a good deal about a 
 fashion of life which is now almost entirely 
 a thing of the past in New England." 
 
 " Art, you know," she said to the same 
 man, as they sat discussing her Yankee 
 and Irish-American sketches, " always be- 
 gins with a recognition of the grotesque and 
 unusual in life — the mere superficial as- 
 pects of character and habit. All literature 
 in the beginning is in relation to the lower 
 forms of pictorial art — it views life from 
 the pictorial side almost exclusively. As 
 
 57 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 art goes higher it recognizes facts, and then 
 the pathetic in the ludicrous. The dis- 
 tinction of modern literature is the evoca- 
 tion of sympathy. . . . Plato said : ' The 
 best thing that can be done for the people 
 of a state is to make them acquainted with 
 each other ' ; and that is what I conceive to 
 be the business of a story writer." 
 
 Miss Jewett is rather tall and perfectly 
 dignified, but her dignity is warmed by her 
 uncommon graciousness and by the charm- 
 ing brightness of her face. As her father 
 had, surely she also has this true French 
 gaiete de cceur. It should by this time be 
 hardly necessary to say that flashes of wit 
 and wisdom characterize her conversation, 
 and that, in short, she is one of the rarest 
 ornaments of the most cultured circle of 
 Boston society. 
 
 58 
 
MRS. BURTON HARRISON. 
 
MRS. BURTON HARRISON 
 
 ^NYONE who has visited Virginia, 
 /-I and is at all intimate with its coun- 
 try life, can easily understand how 
 the mind of a highly imaginative child 
 would there be stimulated to the creation 
 of fairy stories, by reasons as natural and 
 instinctive as those which foster that early 
 love for dolls of wood, of paper, or of plas- 
 ter. Such was the beginning of Mrs. Burton 
 Harrison's literary career, and these child- 
 ish efforts were but the nucleus of other 
 stories yet to come: stories which were 
 to treat of more worldly individuals than 
 fairies, but were to retain the freshness and 
 charm of those earlier attempts, which 
 would make them ever pleasing to a large 
 and enthusiastic audience of well-cultivated 
 
 59 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 but critical Americans. The many beauti- 
 ful and always gracious heroines of colonial 
 Virginian life who are, at the present time, 
 absorbing so much authorial ink, have, in- 
 deed, a twentieth-century prototype in Mrs. 
 Burton Harrison. An aristocrat in every 
 instance, of temperament as romantic as 
 one could wish, yet not, as is usually the 
 case, with an accompanying overbalance of 
 unpractically ; with self-possession worthy 
 of another century, when graciousness of 
 manner was more fully cultivated than now, 
 she possesses a combination of character- 
 istics which are well divided against them- 
 selves, and which permeate her work with 
 a peculiar flavor of artistic excellence. She 
 is of medium height and of well-rounded 
 figure. Her hair, of auburn, just escaping 
 red, is tinged with gray. Her eyes are 
 grayish blue, and not remarkable. Her 
 features, though fairly regular, have no 
 60 
 
MRS. BURTON HARRISON 
 
 particular claim to beauty. In fact, so lit- 
 tle distinction is there in her personal ap- 
 pearance that the passer-by would not look 
 a second time at the middle-aged woman in 
 the simple attire, yet such is her mingled 
 grace and charm of manner that to see and 
 know is but to admire with ever-increasing 
 appreciation. 
 
 As Constance Cary of Virginia she came 
 of historic Anglo-Saxon blood, and passed 
 her childhood in that distinctly romantic 
 atmosphere of semi-feudalism which was 
 typical of Virginian life before the war. 
 Her colonial ancestor upon her father's 
 side, Colonel Miles Cary, was a scion of the 
 Carys of Devonshire, England, whose 
 tombs are yet to be seen at the church at 
 Clovelly, and whose present head is the 
 Viscount Falkland. Emigrating to Amer- 
 ica, he settled in Virginia about the middle 
 of the seventeenth century, and later became 
 
 61 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 a man of considerable prominence, for during 
 the vigorous rule of Sir William Berkeley 
 he was a member of the king's council. 
 Her father was Archibald Cary, of Carys- 
 brook, in Virginia, and the son of Virginia 
 Randolph, the ward and pupil of Thomas 
 Jefferson, and sister of his son-in-law, 
 Thomas Mann Randolph. Visitors to 
 Monticello are still shown the spot where 
 Jefferson stood in giving his ward in mar- 
 riage to his own nephew. Her mother was 
 the youngest daughter of Thomas Fairfax, 
 Baron of Cameron in the Scottish peerage, 
 who resided upon a large plantation at 
 Vaucluse, in Fairfax, Virginia, and there 
 lived a retired and gentlemanly life. From 
 her grandmother upon the father's side, 
 Mrs. Wilson Jefferson Cary, a well-known 
 and popular writer in her day, she may be 
 said to have inherited her literary talent, 
 although the Fairfax family was noted for 
 62 
 
MRS. BURTON HARRISON 
 
 its appreciation of good literature. As a 
 writer her father possessed considerable 
 originality and force, and the influence of 
 his great-uncle, Thomas Jefferson, the foun- 
 der of American Democracy, is distinctly 
 discernible in his political essays. Unfor- 
 tunately he died while comparatively a 
 young man, and his wife and small children 
 lived in the seclusion of the family estate, 
 not far from Arlington, where Constance 
 Cary spent a happy childhood and youth, 
 educated by her loving mother and a French 
 governess, and delving with great constancy 
 into the full-stocked family library of old, 
 but well-chosen books. 
 
 When she was seventeen, her first story 
 — a love story, of course — was sent to the 
 Atlantic Monthly. It was lurid and mel- 
 ancholy, and was returned in due course of 
 time with, " This is far better than the aver- 
 age, and should be read through," written 
 
 63 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 in very bright ink, and with a very large 
 hand, across the first page. From this 
 she inferred that only the first page had 
 been read, and, strange as it may seem, 
 even that gave her encouragement. Her 
 next attempt was a highly-colored and sen- 
 sational novel called " Skirmishing," which 
 was destroyed in a fire, an event for which she 
 has since had every reason to feel grateful. 
 The Civil War now temporarily ended 
 her literary career, for the family left Vau- 
 cluse at the approach of the hostile armies, 
 and passed through the Confederate lines at 
 Manassas to friends and acquaintances upon 
 the Southern side. Shortly afterwards their 
 hospitable home was destroyed by the gov- 
 ernment engineers, during the construction 
 of the chain of fortifications around Wash- 
 ington City, which were thrown up under 
 the direction of General McClellan. The 
 effect of this loss of home, coupled with the 
 64 
 
MRS. BURTON HARRISON 
 
 other misfortunes which crowded upon 
 Constance Cary at this period of her life, left 
 a deep impression upon her sensitive nature. 
 A shade of bitterness fostered by these 
 events may be traced in some of her writ- 
 ings, most noticeably, perhaps, in " Flower 
 de Hundred " and " Crow's Nest." But a 
 long trip abroad with her widowed mother, 
 and several years spent in European travel, 
 not only made her forget in part the sor- 
 rows of the past, but furthered an educa- 
 tion which was already of unusual com- 
 pleteness. 
 
 Soon after her return, Miss Cary was 
 married to Burton Harrison, Esq., a promi- 
 nent member of the New York bar, and, 
 like his wife, also of an ancient and well- 
 known Virginian family. The ceremony 
 was performed at the picturesque St. Anne's 
 Church, in Westchester County, New 
 York, and the wedding breakfast was at 
 
 65 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 " Old Morrisana," the country home of her 
 uncle, Gouverneur Morris. 
 
 " It was not until my return to Amer- 
 ica," she has said, "that I was bold enough 
 to take up my pen. I wrote a little article, 
 which I called ' A Little Centennial Lady.' 
 It was published in Scribner's Magazine, and 
 had so favorable a reception that I was 
 encouraged to write ' Golden Rod,' a story 
 of Mount Desert, which appeared in Har- 
 per's Magazine." These were quite widely 
 read, and were soon followed by other 
 efforts. Two spheres of life she felt well 
 qualified to represent, and these only she 
 has touched upon with success, although her 
 latest novel has been of a distinctly differ- 
 ent type. The South of her girlhood, which 
 she knew so intimately, she has depicted 
 with the true sympathy of the Southern 
 born, while the whims and fallacies of that 
 metropolitan society where Mammon wor- 
 66 
 
MRS. BURTON HARRISON 
 
 ship is paramount, and mad scramble after 
 place and leadership is all-absorbing, she 
 has shown with a delicate appreciation that 
 is unequalled. Of her own work, she has 
 said : " My books I have enjoyed most, if 
 a writer may enjoy her own work, have not 
 been those dealing with New York social 
 life, but my tales of the South. Charles 
 A. Dana, of the New York Sun, was uncon- 
 sciously responsible for my « Old Domin- 
 ion.' He gave me the agreeable task of 
 editing the ' Monticello Letters,' and from 
 them I gleaned a story which outlined my 
 * Old Dominion.' But the editors cry for 
 stories of New York social life, to gratify 
 the popular demand." And is it not human 
 nature that the public should thus raise its 
 voice ? What interests the dweller in the 
 tenth small cottage to the left of the gro- 
 cery store in the New England village more 
 than what the dweller in the second house 
 
 67 
 
LITTLE PILGKIMAGES 
 
 to the right of that same grocery is doing ? 
 Stories of a swell club, women's teas, and 
 love's broken lances among the million- 
 dollar endowed, serve but to satisfy the 
 curiosity of those who live upon a higher 
 social (not necessarily moral) plane than 
 that of the country town. They cry for 
 news of each other, and Mrs. Harrison has 
 ably satisfied this want. " Her muse is not 
 a winged Pegasus. It is a park cob," a 
 clever New York reviewer has said, but 
 Mrs. Harrison would have us think other- 
 wise. " I am sorry I am so identified with 
 society in the minds of readers. I would 
 like to be thought of as a student of human, 
 rather than of society, nature. It is cir- 
 cumstances that have made my outlook 
 upon life what it is. I have an intense 
 sympathy for the joys and sorrows of hu- 
 manity, and the older I grow the more 
 sorrows appeal to me. I see them in the 
 68 
 
MRS. BURTON HARRISON 
 
 lives of my friends and write about them. 
 The friends happen to be in society, so I 
 am known as the society novelist or sat- 
 irist." 
 
 There are two homes which are graced 
 by the presence of this successful novelist, 
 who is as competent a housekeeper as she 
 is a brilliant member of society. The Har- 
 rison's winter house is a charming but un- 
 pretentious mansion on East Twenty-Ninth 
 street, New York, the city of many more 
 palatial, but few more attractive residences. 
 " Sea Urchins " their summer cottage is at 
 Bar Harbor, and is most picturesquely situ- 
 ated upon a high bit of ground near the 
 sea. This, perhaps, is her favorite work- 
 ing place, and although she is a great 
 traveller, and has been to nearly all the 
 noted places in foreign lands, and to many 
 which are seldom visited by the casual and 
 unliterary tourist, yet she has confessed 
 
 69 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES. 
 
 that her happiest hours are spent in the 
 bracing atmosphere which surrounds this 
 northern dwelling. 
 
 Her first story of New York life, " Helen 
 Troy," in 1881, was a tale of the society of 
 her native town, and of the Berkshire Hills. 
 "The Old-Fashioned Fairy Book," pub- 
 lished in 1884, and " Bric-a-Brac Stories," 
 one year later, gave her an enviable repu- 
 tation as a writer for children, for they are 
 as much read to-day as when first produced. 
 
 " Short Comedies for American Players," 
 a translation and adaptation of several ex- 
 cellent plays of French authorship, was a 
 departure from her usual field, but a suc- 
 cessful one. Under her personal direction 
 these plays were produced in both Lenox 
 and New York, and netted an aggregate of 
 about twenty thousand dollars for the dif- 
 ferent charities in whose behalf they were 
 given. Next followed a number of histori- 
 70 
 
MRS. BURTON HARRISON 
 
 cal papers upon colonial America. " The 
 Fairfaxes in America," an article read be- 
 fore the New York Historical Society, June 
 2, 1888, was a truthful and vigorous his- 
 torical essay of unusual attraction, on 
 account of the grace of its artistic work- 
 manship. A sketch of the life of " Colonel 
 William Byrd of Westover," appeared some 
 two years later and was equally well re- 
 ceived. 
 
 In 1889, "The Anglomaniacs," caused a 
 great stir in society. " It did not cause 
 any personal stirring," she has said, " for 
 all agreed that the Anglo-worshippers were 
 not overdrawn. People criticized, but they 
 never caught themselves in the act of 
 Anglo-worshipping. They say'their neigh- 
 bors pay homage to the fetich and said, « I 
 believe these foolish people inspired Mrs. 
 Harrison's work.' Oh, yes, I am quite 
 safe and quite comfortable, I assure you. 
 
 71 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 My feet are planted on that basic rule of 
 human nature, 4 Discover the beam in your 
 neighbor's eye, and don't look for the mote 
 in your own.* Had that rule been re- 
 versed, I might have had some unhappy 
 luncheon, tea, or reception memories, but 
 after a quarter of a century of writing 
 about society people and seeing that they 
 will not discover themselves, I feel secure 
 and impregnable in my fortress of criticism. 
 My characters were taken from life, yes, 
 indeed, but they are copied of types rather 
 than individuals. That may be one of the 
 reasons that I have not been persecuted by 
 an angry original. Types, after all, are 
 composites." 
 
 " Flower de Hundred," her next work, 
 was set in Southern surroundings and was 
 successful, although not to such an extent 
 as the one preceding. " A Daughter of 
 the South," which next appeared, was a 
 72 
 
MRS. BURTON HARRISON 
 
 collection of her short stories, some of which 
 had been published in magazine form. 
 "Sweet Bells out of Tune," was followed 
 by "A Bachelor Maid," which was con- 
 densed for Russian readers in a leading 
 Russian magazine. " An Errant Wooing" 
 was an interesting love story, and in this 
 her knowledge of foreign life was well 
 utilized. " The Merry Maid of Arcady," 
 was followed by " Crow's Nest," which 
 has brought the author more letters from 
 all parts of the country, than any of her 
 books, One was from a Western ranch- 
 man, and said : " Your book has gone the 
 rounds, but it has always come back, and I 
 have threatened to put a bullet in the hide 
 of the man who does not return it." With 
 this letter the author was greatly pleased. 
 " The Circle of a Century " and " A Prin- 
 cess of the Hills " are two of her later books 
 which have received very favorable comment, 
 
 73 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 although the latter is a complete departure 
 from her ordinary scenes of action, and is a 
 story of Italian life, and of a foreign environ- 
 ment which she has good reason to know 
 with accuracy. Such a long list of publica- 
 tions bears full witness to the energy which 
 has characterized her life. " I was made 
 for action," she has said, "I cannot relax 
 as so many do. I haven't the temperament 
 and besides, there is so much to do. I 
 would be unable to write did I not thor- 
 oughly believe in my characters. I am 
 always living and observing a dozen lives. 
 There is much satisfaction in doing work 
 correctly. I am in love with mine, and am 
 a hard worker. I would like to write some- 
 thing that every one would read, something 
 powerful." Perhaps she may, such persis- 
 tence and patient toil are worthy of ac- 
 complishing the desired end. 
 
 74 
 
v&z 
 
 CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK. 
 
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK 
 (MISS MURFREE) 
 
 >^vN March 4, 1885, the Boston 
 f M Evening Transcript printed the 
 following paragraph : 
 " Last evening Dr. Holmes and Mr. 
 Howells received a genuine surprise at the 
 hands of the editor of the Atlantic. Mr. 
 Aldrich invited these gentlemen to dine 
 with him, to meet Charles Egbert Crad- 
 dock, the author of « In the Tennessee 
 Mountains,' * Where the Battle was Fought,' 
 and the remarkable novel now publishing 
 in the Atlantic (" The Prophet of the Great 
 Smoky Mountains "). The surprise lay in 
 the fact that Charles Egbert Craddock is a 
 pseudonym which for the past six years has 
 veiled the identity of a very brilliant woman 
 — Miss Mary N. Murfree of St. Louis." 
 
 75 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 Thus the curtain was rung down on one 
 of the neatest comedies ever presented to 
 the American reading public. And what 
 a distinguished cast the comedy had ! 
 
 It was in May, 1878, during the admin- 
 istration of Mr. Howells, that the readers 
 of the Atlantic were treated to a most de- 
 lightful, a most refreshing surprise, a story 
 of the Tennessee Mountains, called " The 
 Dancin' Party at Harrison's Cove," by a 
 new author, Charles Egbert Craddock. 
 
 The quaint and unprecedented strain 
 was noticeable in the first colloquial sen- 
 tence : 
 
 " « Fur ye see, Mis' Darley, them Harri- 
 son folks over yander ter the cove hev' de- 
 terminated on a dancin' party.' ' : 
 
 Mr. Howells was pleased with his dis- 
 covery ; the Atlantic readers — then the 
 most critical literary company in America 
 — hailed the coming of a promising author ; 
 76 
 
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK 
 
 the professional critics hesitated at first 
 and then echoed the popular applause. 
 
 Time passed, and Mr. Aldrich took Mr. 
 Howells's chair in the Atlantic office, and 
 one of the first official acts of the new edi- 
 tor was to write to Charles Egbert Crad- 
 dock inviting more contributions. Then, 
 pending an answer, he ordered in two 
 Craddock stories that had been left over 
 by reason of a superabundance of some- 
 what more important material. 
 
 The response to his invitation came in 
 the shape of a series of as excellent Amer- 
 ican stories as ever was published — " The 
 Star in the Valley," " The Romance of 
 Sunrise Rock," " Over on the T'other 
 Mounting," « The Harnt that Walks Chil- 
 howee," " Electioneering on Big Injun 
 Mounting," " A-Playin' of Old Sledge at 
 Settlemint," and the exceptionally long 
 and powerful " Drifting Down Lost 
 
 77 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 Creek," which ran through three numbers 
 of the Atlantic. Later there appeared a 
 novel, " Where the Battle was Fought," 
 a work hardly worthy of its predecessors. 
 In time the name of Charles Egbert Crad- 
 dock was signed to three books : the novel 
 just mentioned, a collection of short stories 
 ("In the Tennessee Mountains"), and to 
 " Down the Ravine," a tale for the young 
 folks, in whom the author then took a lively 
 interest. All in all, they were profoundly in- 
 teresting stories, revealing a deep insight 
 into the manners of the pent-up, ignorant, 
 law-flaunting, hard-headed, and pure-hearted 
 mountaineers. Palacio Valdes calls attention 
 to that " beautiful spectacle " — a virginal 
 man of eighty. John Fox, Jr., who has been 
 walking in the footsteps of the author of 
 " In the Tennessee Mountains," once said 
 to us that he had met Southern mountain- 
 eers who, at thirty, were as chaste as angels. 
 78 
 
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK 
 
 But aside from the virility of the Crad- 
 dock sketches, there were more substantial 
 marks of the author's masculine sex. 
 There was legal acumen, for instance, 
 which led to the assumption that Craddock 
 was a lawyer who turned to literature for 
 recreation. And there was the bold, manly 
 handwriting — inky handwriting — a bot- 
 tle of ink to a page. So inky, indeed, 
 that when Mr. Aldrich thought of asking 
 the Southerner for a serial (" The Prophet 
 of the Great Smoky Mountains ") he re- 
 marked, " I wonder if Craddock has laid 
 in his winter's ink yet; perhaps I can get 
 a serial out of him." 
 
 It was already known on Park street, 
 where the old-fashioned headquarters of the 
 Atlantic Monthly are to be seen to-day, that 
 Charles Egbert Craddock was the psuedo- 
 nym of M. N. Murfree. " Ah ! so his name 
 is Murfree ! " they were exclaiming. 
 
 79 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 Monday, March 2, 1885, brought three 
 guests from St. Louis to Hotel Vendome, 
 in Boston ; and there they were registered 
 as "W. L. Murfree, Sr." and "The Misses 
 Murfree." But the literary world was still 
 in a state of blissful ignorance. 
 
 " Last Monday morning (we quote from 
 a contemporaneous account of the incident), 
 as Mr. Aldrich was in the editorial room of 
 the Atlantic Monthly, word was brought to 
 him that a lady below wished to see him. 
 He went down and met a pleasant young 
 lady, who remarked that she was Charles 
 Egbert Craddock. Mr. Aldrich could 
 hardly have been more astounded had the 
 roof fallen in, and he turned and ran several 
 steps under the pressure of the shock, be- 
 fore he recovered his usually imperturbable 
 presence of mind. He would have been 
 better prepared to find under that name a 
 strapping six-foot Tennesseean than the del- 
 80 
 
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK 
 
 icate looking lady before him. He now 
 says he is inclined to doubt the sex of all 
 the other Atlantic's contributors whom he 
 has not met. There are certain things in 
 George Eliot's writings which, now that one 
 knows, one can clearly see could have been 
 written only by a woman ; but in the writings 
 of Charles Egbert Craddock there is not 
 the slightest trace of feminine influence. 
 Dr. Holmes and Mr. Howells were equally 
 astonished at meeting Mr. Craddock in Miss 
 Murfree. Mr. Howells had written that he 
 could not come, owing to another engage- 
 ment, though he wished very much to ' meet 
 Craddock,' but he was persuaded to come 
 by Mr. Aldrich. On his way he called at 
 a prominent publisher's, who said : ' Tell 
 Craddock to drop around and see us.' It 
 will hardly be a violation of privacy to say 
 that the evening was a delightful one to all ; 
 that the chief guest was addressed as ' they ' 
 
 81 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 by the host in recognition of the quality of 
 Miss Murfree and Charles Egbert Crad- 
 dock, while the hostess could not lose the 
 latter name from mind, and compromised 
 with < Miss Craddock.' " 
 
 It is reasonable to inquire why the inno- 
 cent deception was practiced for so long a 
 time. The author's brother, William L. 
 Murfree, Jr., once partly illuminated the 
 matter. He said : " Mr. Aldrich and her 
 publishers knew that Craddock was an as- 
 sumed name, but never doubted that M. N. 
 Murfree was a man. The nom de plume, 
 her style of writing, and chirography, all 
 contributed to this impression. The name 
 was assumed as well for a cloak in case of 
 failure as to secure the advantage that a 
 man has in literature over a woman. He 
 obtains a quicker reading by the publishers, 
 is better received by the public in the be- 
 ginning, and altogether has an easier time 
 82 
 
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK 
 
 of it. Accident led to the choice of the 
 name, which had been much discussed in the 
 family before being finally determined upon 
 by her in the form used. Those portions 
 of her writings which are called peculiarly 
 masculine are not in any sense affectations. 
 It was never doubted she was a man, and 
 hence there was no reason for the adoption 
 of disguise in writing. Each portion of her 
 work was read to the family before being 
 sent away, and, it may be, sometimes criti- 
 cized as to some detail ; she is too positive 
 and painstaking to need or allow much in- 
 terference in the plan or arrangement of 
 her material." 
 
 Inexperience is the only excuse for the 
 idea that prejudice against women exists 
 among either the publishers or the people 
 who read and love books. The proofs in 
 opposition to this idea, especially in these 
 days, are too numerous to present. 
 
 83 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 The pseudonym came to be chosen in 
 this way : Egbert Craddock was the name 
 of the hero of Miss Murfree's second story, 
 which was only partly written when the 
 time came to send the manuscript of the 
 first story to the publishers. In doubt 
 regarding what pen-name to adopt, Miss 
 Murfree took the name of her new hero 
 and prefixed Charles to it, just to give 
 it the appearance of verisimilitude. All in 
 all, it was a very happy choice — an in- 
 spired choice. 
 
 Mary Noailles Murfree was born at 
 " Grantlands," near Murfreesboro, Tenn., 
 in 1850. " Grantlands " was the family 
 home, inherited from her great-grandfather, 
 Col. Hardy Murfree, a gallant soldier of 
 the Revolution, who, in 1807, moved from 
 his native State of North Carolina to 
 the new State of Tennessee, where he 
 settled near the town that later was given 
 84 
 
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK 
 
 his name. Miss Murfree's father, William 
 Law Murfree, was a lawyer by profession ; 
 her mother, was Priscilla, the daughter of 
 Judge Dickinson. The names of both her 
 father and her brother have a place in 
 American literature. Mary exhibited " lite- 
 rary aspirations " even when, as a little girl, 
 she went to school in Nashville ; later she 
 and her sister, Fannie, went to school in 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 The Murfrees were hard hit by the War 
 of the Rebellion ; and their distress was 
 emphasized by Mary's poor health. But 
 the young woman showed a dauntless 
 spirit. Quietly observant, keenly imag- 
 inative, and strongly inclined to write, 
 she began to set down her impressions of 
 the life about her, notably the life in the 
 Tennessee mountains, where the family 
 usually spent the summer. With what 
 successful, — admirable results, the lovers 
 
 85 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 of American literature know full well. In 
 1881 the family moved to St. Louis ; but 
 Miss Murf ree's present address is her native 
 town in Tennessee. 
 
 She could not fairly be characterized as 
 a dialect writer ; her narration is generally 
 excellent ; and her power of description is 
 especially praiseworthy. Note, for ex- 
 ample, the life and the grace in the first 
 lines of " The < Harnt ' that Walks Chil- 
 howee " : 
 
 " The breeze freshened, after the sun 
 went down, and the hop and gourd vines 
 were all astir as they clung about the little 
 porch where Clarsie was sitting now, idle 
 at last. The rain-clouds had disappeared, 
 and there bent over the dark, heavily 
 wooded ridges a pale blue sky, with here 
 and there the crystalline sparkle of a star. 
 A halo was shimmering in the east, where 
 the mists had gathered about the great 
 86 
 
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK 
 
 white moon, hanging high above the moun- 
 tains. Noiseless wings flitted through the 
 dusk ; now and then the bats swept by so 
 close as to move Clarsie's hair with the 
 wind of their flight. What an airy, glitter- 
 ing, magical thing was that gigantic spider- 
 web suspended between the silver moon 
 and her shining eyes ! Ever and anon 
 there came from the woods a strange, 
 weird, long-drawn sigh, unlike the stir of 
 the wind in the trees, unlike the fret of 
 the water on the rocks. Was it the voice- 
 less sorrow of the sad earth ? There were 
 stars in the night besides those known to 
 astronomers: the stellular fireflies gemmed 
 the black shadows with a fluctuating bril- 
 liancy; they circled in and out of the 
 porch, and touched the leaves above 
 Clarsie's head with quivering points of 
 light. A steadier and an intenser gleam 
 was advancing along the road, and the 
 
 87 
 
LITTLE PILGEIMAGES 
 
 sound of languid footsteps came with it ; 
 the aroma of tobacco graced the atmos- 
 phere, and a tall figure walked up to the 
 gate." 
 
 Note — above the engaging swing of the 
 words — the masculine touch, " the aroma 
 of tobacco graced the atmosphere." Surely 
 Mr. Aldrich and his associates, not to men- 
 tion the readers of the Atlantic, were justi- 
 fied in thinking of " Mr. Craddock." And 
 in the same story you will find another 
 remarkably vivid picture, not large and 
 overwhelming — that is not the author's 
 style ; but small and delicate, with all 
 the scenery of a photograph but even a 
 more impressive appearance of reality — 
 the picture of Clarsie sitting at the win- 
 dow in the moonlight. 
 
 Miss Murfree's brother is our authority 
 for the statement that " Her pictures of 
 people are of types, not individuals ; and 
 88 
 
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK 
 
 where it is thought an individual has been 
 drawn, it is because that person possesses, 
 in a large degree ; the peculiarities of his 
 class." The vital fact, however, is the 
 author's success in portraiture ; her skill in 
 infusing vitality into her picturesque char- 
 acters ; her artistic employment of a cul- 
 tivated imaginative temperament. Her 
 natural gifts quite suit her choice of sub- 
 jects, it might be said, superficially ; but 
 beneath the surface of her success is to be 
 seen the artistry that adorns all subjects. 
 She is an artist, as we would say of Miss 
 Jewett or Miss Wilkins. Like them, she 
 would successfully hold the mirror up to 
 nature, — anywhere. 
 
 Personally, she is of medium height and 
 slight form. Her features are prominent 
 in a square and projecting forehead, large 
 gray eyes, a deep-set Grecian nose, large 
 mouth, and a chin that may be described 
 
 89 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 as accounting for her positiveness. On 
 the whole, a pleasant, magnetic, impressive 
 face. She converses vivaciously, and her 
 friends say she is a captivating story- 
 teller. 
 
 Her work is a valuable as well as enter- 
 taining contribution to American literature. 
 Indeed, she has covered her field so well 
 that any hope of improving upon her stand- 
 ard, or even of emulating it as laudably, 
 is almost futile. 
 
 90 
 
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN. 
 
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN 
 (MRS. ROHLFS) 
 
 /"T is related that when " The Leav- 
 enworth Case " was published in 
 1878, the Pennsylvania Legislature 
 turned from politics to discuss the identity 
 of its author. There was the name on the 
 title-page — Anna Katharine Green — as 
 distinct as the city of Harrisburgh itself. 
 But it must be a nom de phime, some pro- 
 tested. A man wrote the story — maybe 
 a man already famous — and signed a 
 woman's name to it. The story was man- 
 ifestly beyond a woman's powers. Femi- 
 nine names were considerably scarcer in 
 the American fiction list then than they 
 are to-day, when girls fresh from the high 
 school take a place among the authors of 
 the " best-selling " books. 
 
 91 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 A New York lawyer happened to be 
 present at the politicians' discussion. 
 "You are mistaken," he said to the in- 
 credulous. "I have seen the author of 
 ' The Leavenworth Case ' and conversed 
 with her, and her name is really Miss 
 Green." " 
 
 " Then she must have got some man to 
 help her," retorted the more obstinate the- 
 orists. They strongly remind us of the 
 characters whom Miss Green — as we 
 shall call her for the moment — portrays 
 so skillfully, the self-willed characters that 
 aim so well, but do not hit even the tar- 
 get, not to mention the bull's-eye. 
 
 The incredulity exemplified by the 
 Pennsylvanians was natural enough. That 
 an American woman in those days should 
 venture into the field of romantic litera- 
 ture was so uncommon as to be note- 
 worthy ; but that an American woman 
 92 
 
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN 
 
 should write detective stories — well, that 
 was quite preposterous. 
 
 And yet, nowadays, it would seem no 
 more preposterous than a request to Mr. 
 Carnegie to build a library. For the love 
 of a good detective story, of a story inter- 
 woven with adventure and mystery, is in 
 most persons a simple manifestation of 
 the instinctive love of excitement. We 
 know a professor — one of the most bril- 
 liant men in his profession — who has 
 never lost his juvenile fondness for the 
 pursuit of fire-engines. Similarly, many 
 men and women are never cured of their 
 youthful passion for the literature of the 
 disguises and the handcuffs. Hawkshaw ! 
 How the name thrills even to-day ! It 
 takes many a man back to the days when 
 the tattered dime-novel was smuggled into 
 the schoolroom. Sometimes the almost 
 breathless attention to syntax or the map 
 
 93 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 of the New England States betrayed the 
 guilt ; but we firmly believe that there 
 were teachers who never confiscated those 
 prizes. 
 
 But, measuring by the incessant changes 
 in times and in manners, it is not difficult 
 to understand that a quarter of a century 
 ago the still conservative reading public 
 was loth to believe that the author of 
 " The Leavenworth Case " was a woman. 
 
 Anna Katharine Green, the woman in 
 question, was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., on 
 Nov. 11, 1846. She was thirty-two, there- 
 fore, it will be seen, when the story that 
 made her famous was published. Her 
 father was a well-known lawyer; indeed, 
 the Greens, we have been told, were a 
 family of lawyers. This may account for 
 the skill with which the daughter has tied 
 and cut Gordian knots. It unquestion- 
 ably accounts for her nimble imagination, 
 94 
 
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN 
 
 her skill in producing subtle hypotheses 
 and her strength in handling the most in- 
 tricate psychological problems. In 1867 
 Anna was graduated from the Ripley 
 Female College, in Poultney, Vt., and she 
 may, if she please, write B.A. after her 
 name. She composed verses and stories 
 at the age of eleven. And speaking of 
 verses, how many readers are acquainted 
 with the fact that the author of "The 
 Leavenworth Case " is also the author of 
 a drama in blank verse and of a volume 
 of ballads and narrative poems? Yet 
 " The Defence of the Bride, and Other 
 Poems " has won encomiums from discreet 
 critics : and in some respects " Risifi's 
 Daughter: A Drama," is her most ambi- 
 tious work. 
 
 Perhaps, therefore, as we are to consider 
 her poetry as an incidental, it may not be 
 amiss at this point to quote a few charac- 
 
 95 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 teristic verses. The two stanzas which 
 follow are taken from a poem entitled " At 
 the Piano " : 
 
 Play on ! Play on ! As softly glides 
 
 The low refrain, I seem, I seem, 
 To float, to float on golden tides, 
 
 By sunlit isles, where life and dream 
 Are one, are one ; and hope and bliss 
 Move hand in hand, and thrilling, kiss 
 'Neath bowery blooms 
 In twilight glooms, 
 And love is life, and life is love. 
 
 Play on ! Play on ! As higher rise 
 
 The lifted strains, I seem, I seem 
 To mount, to mount through roseate skies, 
 Through drifted cloud and golden gleam, 
 To realms, to realms of thought and fire, 
 Where angels walk and souls aspire, 
 And sorrow comes but as the night 
 That brings a star for our delight. 
 
 Some of the criticisms of the book — " The 
 Defence of the Bride, and Other Poems " 
 — were extremely, and, indeed, rather 
 96 
 
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN 
 
 absurdly flattering ; a moderately toned 
 opinion was given in Harper s Monthly : 
 
 " The ballads and narrative poems which 
 form the greater part of this collection 
 are vigorous productions, whose barren- 
 ness of redundant words and epithets, and 
 whose directness and straightforwardness 
 of narration, are in strong contrast with 
 the diffuse garrulity of most female writers. 
 She has the true storyteller's faculty for 
 investing what she has to say with inter- 
 est, and for keeping expectation on the 
 stretch; and she delivers her message 
 with masculine force and brevity." 
 
 One of the critics, by the way, com- 
 pared Miss Green — she was still Miss 
 Green then, in 1882 — with Alfred Austin. 
 "Miss Green," says the critic, " seems to 
 be able to say delicate and graceful things 
 as easily as does the English poet." That 
 was before Mr. Austin became Poet Lau- 
 
 97 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 reate — before comparisons with him were 
 particularly odious. 
 
 " Risifi's Daughter," we may say, in a 
 word, is notable rather for its well-sus- 
 tained dramatic strength than for any es- 
 pecial skill or grace of versification. It 
 seems to have convinced its author that 
 her lines might be cast in happier places. 
 
 But to return to the main road. We 
 have already seen that as a girl Anna had 
 literary aspirations, but they reached no 
 serious stage of development until after 
 her return from Ripley College. She felt 
 drawn to literature, and yet she was in no 
 hurry either to decide which of the divers 
 literary fields was best suited to her taste 
 and talent, or to see her name in print. 
 At this critical time her father was friend 
 and counsellor. He perceived that there 
 was no fickleness back of his daughter's 
 ambition to adopt literature as a profes- 
 
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN 
 
 sion ; and, what is more important, he 
 perceived that she might successfully 
 qualify as a candidate. So he set about 
 to direct and to encourage her zeal. 
 
 He found Anna a docile pupil. When 
 doubts arose, when discouragement ap- 
 peared, he was nearby to cheer her and to 
 advise. He enlisted her sympathy in differ- 
 ent cases that interested him ; he sharpened 
 her wits ; he discoursed to her on his own in- 
 teresting experiences ; he contributed ju- 
 dicious criticisms ; above all, he fostered her 
 confidence in her own powers. In this way 
 she acquired from her father gifts that she 
 had not inherited from him. Hers was a 
 remarkably well-equipped intellect before 
 one of her books had been published. 
 
 " The Leavenworth Case " came to 
 startle the reading public in 1878. The 
 plot of the story had been in the author's 
 mind for some years. The book, there- 
 
 L.fC. " 
 
LITTLE PILGRIM AGES 
 
 fore, was no inspired or spasmodic effort ; 
 rather it was the product of a finely regu- 
 lated intellect applied to the ever-enter- 
 taining theories of cause and effect. 
 What if those legislators had been in- 
 formed of the fact that the author was a 
 student of criminology ! 
 
 Mrs. Rohlfs is too adept a psychologist 
 to pretend that instinct led her with the 
 manuscript of " The Leavenworth Case " 
 to Mr. G. P. Putnam's office ; it was more 
 likely a simple piece of good fortune to 
 happen upon so wise and liberal an ap- 
 praiser. It is a tribute to his perspicacity 
 that he introduced to the American reading 
 public one of its most popular writers, and 
 it is a happy commentary on the relation- 
 ship between author and publisher that, 
 with an exception or two, the Putnam 
 house has issued the periodical output of 
 Anna Katharine Green. 
 100 
 
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN 
 
 When " A Strange Disappearance " ap- 
 peared, in 1885, a critic — or perhaps we 
 should say reviewer — made the comment : 
 " We have a Gaboriau in our own tongue." 
 It must have seemed extremely flattering 
 — assuming that the author of " A Strange 
 Disappearance " is normally susceptible to 
 flattery — to be named favorably in the 
 same sentence with the brilliant French- 
 man. Mrs. Rohlfs resembles Gaboriau in 
 so far as her strong point, as his was, is 
 the simple and perspicuous narrative of 
 events; thus, too, she resembles Wilkie 
 Collins, who was called an imitator of 
 Gaboriau. But we doubt that any pen 
 excepting Gaboriau's could write or could 
 have written the first part of " Monsieur 
 Lecocq." Possibly the English writer 
 thought he saw an imitator in the author 
 of " The Leavenworth Case." At any rate, 
 while she was enjoying the first fruits of 
 
 101 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 renown, Collins wrote to her publishers 
 that he sincerely admired her stories ; and 
 we understand that he conveyed to the 
 young American some "wise practical 
 hints " and "warm expressions of belief in 
 her future." The belief has been abun- 
 dantly justified. 
 
 " It is said " — we quote from an anony- 
 mous paper dealing with the career of the 
 New York author — " that she does not 
 herself claim to be a novelist. She is not 
 a novelist in the sense that George Eliot 
 and Hawthorne are novelists." These words 
 remind us of the reflections of Mr. Herbert 
 Paul, the brilliant English essayist, on 
 Collins's " Woman in White " and " Moon- 
 stone." "Are these books and others like 
 them literature ? " he asks. " Wilkie Col- 
 lins deliberately stripped his style of all 
 embellishment. Even epithets are ex- 
 cluded, as they are from John Austin's 
 102 
 
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN 
 
 'Letters on Jurisprudence.' It is strange 
 that a man of letters should try to make 
 his books resemble police reports. But, if 
 he does, he must take the consequences. 
 He cannot serve God and Mammon." The 
 reflections, to some extent, may be applied 
 direct to Mrs. Rohlfs's books, for they, too, 
 are stripped almost bare of epithets. But 
 if, as Mr. Crawford, for example, urges, if 
 the first purpose of a novel is entertain- 
 ment, then the books bearing the name of 
 Anna Katharine Green are excellent novels. 
 But it is not a point to be insisted upon. Let 
 the statement suffice that the books in ques- 
 tion, whatever be their true denomination, 
 give rare pleasure. Fastidious critics, like 
 Professor Bates of Wellesley, may classify 
 them as police-court literature ; but even 
 in the police court is revealed the joy and 
 the woe of human passions, the wonderful 
 keenness and the terrible dullness of the 
 
 103 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 human intellect. Mrs. Rohlfs knows her 
 limitations, and is content to be exalted or 
 condemned by her performances. 
 
 Her manner of working takes us back 
 to Charles Reade. " The account of any- 
 remarkable or strange event that comes to 
 her attention in the reading of the news- 
 papers she cuts out and pastes into a scrap- 
 book. . . When the time comes to write 
 out the plots which she has previously de- 
 veloped in her mind, she takes care to 
 work only when she can work at her best. 
 Sometimes she writes, therefore, two hours 
 a day, sometimes ten ; but there is none 
 of that plan of persistent plodding, day in 
 and day out, to produce a prescribed 
 amount, which Anthony Trollope carried 
 on so successfully." Yet in the twenty- 
 three years covering her literary career 
 she has written a score of books. This 
 has been no light task for one with a 
 104 
 
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN 
 
 household to take care of, for in Novem- 
 ber, 1884, the novelist became Mrs. 
 Charles Rohlfs. Some of the books have 
 been translated into German and Swedish, 
 which circumstance is a notable tribute to 
 their attractiveness. 
 
 Technically, Professor Bates was justi- 
 fied in referring to Mrs. Rohlfs as a the 
 foremost representative in America to-day 
 of police-court literature " ; yet to us this 
 reference seems unsatisfactory, inadequate. 
 It conveys no hint of the constructive 
 skill, the imaginative power and the per- 
 ceptive faculties necessary for the praise- 
 worthy writing of police-court literature ; 
 and, furthermore, it offers no suggestion of 
 Anna Katharine Green's exquisite sense 
 of humor. How delightfully, for example, 
 that most interesting spinster in " That 
 Affair next Door " — Miss Butterworth, 
 as we remember the name — plays hostess 
 
 105 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 for the Van Burnam girls ! What a gen- 
 uine piece of comedy amid the pathos and 
 terror roundabout ! And how much flesh 
 and blood there is in many of these unpre- 
 tentious tales of mystery. One may not 
 approve that sort of literature, or take 
 any pleasure in it, but it is not to be de- 
 nied that Mrs. Rohlfs writes artistically. 
 Art concerns the work, not the subject. 
 
 We venture the prediction that the 
 stories written by Anna Katharine Green, 
 by virtue not only of their attractive skill- 
 fulness but also of their perennially inter- 
 esting subjects, will be read eagerly and 
 with delight when many of the novels of 
 brighter present fame have accumulated 
 dust. 
 
 106 
 
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL. 
 
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL 
 
 jr Y~ 7" HEN Rudyard Kipling issued 
 1/1/ a story with strange characters 
 before it, people wondered. They 
 wondered still more when they discov- 
 ered that in ".007", the reportorial hand 
 of the master exhibited a knowledge of 
 steam engines that was as technically cor- 
 rect as that of the man who designed them. 
 When seamen read the sea tales of Molly 
 Elliot Seawell, they were in the same men- 
 tal condition as the engineer who read 
 the article with the hieroglyphic heading : 
 they marvelled. 
 
 It was not the technical knowledge of 
 vessels and the navy alone that made Miss 
 Seawell's stories so fascinating. With that 
 they combined a delicate and romantic 
 
 107 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 touch that was unusual, for, with the every- 
 day story of the sea, there is often a certain 
 roughness that destroys the pleasure of 
 a sensitive reader. For this reason one 
 prominent American author has few ad- 
 mirers among the gentler sex. 
 
 An uncle of Molly Elliot Seawell had 
 been in the United States Navy before the 
 Civil War. After the commencement of 
 hostilities he had resigned to follow the 
 Confederate arms, and had served with dis- 
 tinction throughout the four years of open 
 hostilities. From him she heard in child- 
 hood true and glowing accounts of what is 
 known as the romantic period of the Amer- 
 ican Navy, the period when ships still car- 
 ried a great spread of canvas, when cruises 
 meant long absences of years from home, 
 and a naval officer was called upon to meet 
 tremendous emergencies now provided for 
 by the cable and the telegraph. This is 
 108 
 
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL 
 
 what stimulated her to write of Decatur and 
 Somers, of Paul Jones, of midshipman 
 Paulding, of Quarter-deck and Fo'c'sle, and 
 of Little Jarvis ; and the technical knowl- 
 edge she displayed, like everything she has 
 done, was the result of hard and conscien- 
 tious mental labor. 
 
 In 1890 the Youth's Companion, which 
 periodically gives some stimulus to good 
 writing, held out a prize of five hundred 
 dollars for the best written story for boys. 
 Miss Seawell's "Little Jarvis" won the 
 place of honor. It was the story of our 
 navy and of our midshipmen, which has 
 the same patriotic wholesomeness that is 
 possessed by Edward Everett Hale's "Man 
 Without a Country," and, as it has nearly 
 as large a circulation to-day as when first 
 published in book form, there is no doubt 
 that it will have as Long and prosperous a 
 career. 
 
 109 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 Miss Sea well's literary life is a curious 
 example of the Tesults of environment. 
 Born in a quaint and long-established Vir- 
 ginian community — Gloucester County — 
 she was brought up in a distinct atmosphere 
 of books and of good literature. Her father 
 was a lawyer of note, and in the great ram- 
 bling house — "The Shelter" — was a fine 
 old-fashioned library. It included a collec- 
 tion of the English classics and many trans- 
 lations of eighteenth century books of 
 French philosophy, which Thomas Jeffer- 
 son when minister to France, had selected 
 for her great-grandfather, Judge Tyler, one 
 of the first Federal judges appointed under 
 the present system, and for three terms gov- 
 ernor of his State. He was a great reader 
 and his love for books was transmitted to 
 his descendants. 
 
 As a child she went to school most 
 irregularly, and had a short term at a f ash- 
 110 
 
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL 
 
 ionable boarding school, where she declares 
 she learned nothing but folly and irrever- 
 ence. At home the morning hours which 
 other children spent with arithmetic, geog- 
 raphy, or science, she passed in making the 
 intimate acquaintance of the library books. 
 Here she met with Shakespeare, an ancient 
 edition of his works with all of Johnson's, 
 Steevens', and Malone's notes, which had 
 been read by several generations of Seawells 
 and showed it ; and here also with Volney, 
 with Jean Jacques Rousseau and other phil- 
 osophers, whom she approached when in her 
 teens and could not well understand. Her 
 father and mother forbade her to read 
 novels, — for fear of her getting notions in- 
 to her head, — but, while they were strongly 
 denying her such wild delights as Khoda 
 Broughton and Ouida might furnish, she 
 was imbibing Byron and Shelley with the 
 highest relish. By the time she was fifteen 
 
 111 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 she knew all they could teach about the 
 emotions, and when novels were allowed 
 her, found them decidedly tame beside her 
 already acquired knowledge of what they 
 were all about. 
 
 Her mother was devoted to reading from 
 the beginning to the end of her life, and 
 absorbed Shakespeare with a thoroughness 
 that is seldom met with. Every two or 
 three years she would begin deliberately at 
 the first pages of "The Tempest" and read 
 through to the last page of " Titus Andron- 
 icus," and in the same way would read 
 " Hume's History of England," Scott's nov- 
 els, and many other standard works. She 
 was also a systematic peruser of newspapers, 
 and had better knowledge of public affairs 
 than most people in public life. It thus can 
 easily be seen how honestly the daughter 
 came by her love of writing. She was un- 
 consciously, but naturally, fitted for it as is 
 112 
 
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL 
 
 the fisherman with many generations of sea- 
 men behind him, and a home in Gloucester. 
 
 Miss Seawell is herself an omniyerous 
 reader. Thackeray, Macaulay, and Jane 
 Austen have been her roast-beef and po- 
 tatoes of artistic creation, although she is 
 passionately fond of biographies. So fond 
 indeed of Boswell's " Johnson" that one lit- 
 erary acquaintance declares it to be the only 
 book she had really read, because no matter 
 what is the subject of conversation, she is 
 certain to bring in a remark about the cele- 
 brated author. 
 
 Her home is with her sister in a charming 
 house near Dupont Circle, or "Millionaires' 
 Circle," in Washington, and overlooking the 
 gardens of the Spanish legation. It is here 
 that she does her literary work, and in very 
 systematic fashion ; for she is of the opinion 
 that the mind can be made to work auto- 
 matically as well as the body, and we can 
 
 113 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 command our powers more than we can 
 believe. Every morning, at half-past nine, 
 she retires to her own room and, while there, 
 writes steadily until the luncheon hour. 
 Books and ideas of books are now discarded 
 until the following day. This work is dis- 
 continued from the middle of June until 
 the first of October, when she retires from 
 home — as far away as she can get — and 
 there imbibes fresh ideas for forthcoming 
 romances, while taking a complete rest from 
 literary endeavor. In spite of this habit of 
 yearly travel abroad, she is a thoroughly 
 patriotic American, and has frequently re- 
 marked that nothing would induce her to 
 leave her native country without a ticket 
 for the return voyage. 
 
 Upon every subject upon which she 
 writes, she reads as much as possible, fol- 
 lowing the example of Thackeray, who said 
 that " The Virginians" was the resultant of 
 114 
 
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL 
 
 a thousand books; and in her long journeys 
 of investigation to places far from home 
 she but imitates the method of the great 
 Macaulay, who would sometimes travel a 
 hundred miles to write a single line of de- 
 scription. The scenes of "The House of 
 Egremont," which has recently appeared, 
 were laid in France, and, in order to obtain 
 the proper material, a special visit was 
 necessary to the country in which the 
 events were. laid. The quaint palace of St. 
 Germains, with its terraces and broad gar- 
 dens, was well studied by the author, who 
 spent days in rambling about, and in absorb- 
 ing a thorough knowledge of the neighbor- 
 hood. Like other authors, she has found 
 that to saturate the mind with a certain 
 period is a powerful assistance to the imagi- 
 nation; and for this reason she oftentimes 
 has read three or four entire volumes in 
 order to write a story of five thousand words. 
 
 115 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 In 1895 the New York Herald offered 
 four prizes : one of ten thousand dollars for 
 the best novel, one of three thousand dol- 
 lars for the best novelette, one of two 
 thousand dollars for the best short story, 
 and one of one thousand dollars for the best 
 epic poem on a subject of American history. 
 The first and third prizes were respectively 
 won by Mr. Julian Hawthorne and Mr. 
 Edgar Fawcett, while Miss Seawell received 
 the money for the best novelette, " The 
 Sprightly Romance of Marsac," — and over 
 the heads of two thousand competitors. 
 When the news that she had received a 
 three-thousand-dollar prize reached the old 
 family negroes in Gloucester County, the 
 darkies magnified the amount ten hundred- 
 fold, and went about with natural awe and 
 astonishment, while solemnly proclaiming: 
 " Mars' John Seawell's daughter done taken 
 three million dollars for one book." 
 116 
 
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL 
 
 The story she considers one of her best 
 productions, and it is her best known work 
 with the exception of "Little Jarvis"; but 
 she has a long list of novels and juveniles 
 to her credit, and one play, the manuscript 
 of which she was the author, "Maid Mar- 
 ian," an amusing and witty satire on the 
 Knickerbocker element in New York so- 
 ciety, was originally written as a short 
 novel, and was subsequently dramatized by 
 Miss Seawell for Rosina Vokes, who made 
 it a great success. 
 
 Zippincottfs Magazine had the honor of 
 receiving her first literary venture, and it 
 was her first literary success, for it was 
 accepted. The editor who appreciated its 
 merit has, however, never had the satisfac- 
 tion of knowing his own keenness and lit- 
 erary foresight, for it was signed under an 
 assumed name. In fact, under a variety of 
 pseudonyms, a great number of her earlier 
 
 117 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 stories, sketches, and articles of all sorts 
 were published in magazines and newspa- 
 pers. Where these immature productions 
 are to be found she has never revealed and 
 says she never will, and for this reason 
 reckons herself more fortunate than most 
 writers, for the criticism which might just- 
 ly be severe upon this 'prentice work has 
 had no chance to be expended. 
 
 Curiously enough, to literature may be 
 ascribed the influence that changed her 
 earlier religious faith. When a small girl, 
 an aunt, who had the reputation of being the 
 best-read woman in the State of Virginia, 
 warned her that her grandmother, who 
 had died many years before her birth, had 
 been in youth much unsettled in her re- 
 ligious beliefs by reading the very books to 
 which her descendant was becoming so 
 firmly attached, and with which she was 
 spending so much time in the well-fitted 
 118 
 
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL 
 
 library of "The Shelter." The grand- 
 mother in question was undoubtedly a 
 woman of uncommon capacity and of rest- 
 less inquiry, and probably a very pro- 
 nounced agnostic at one time in her life ; 
 but sorrow and age and physical suffering, 
 brought about a change. Miss Seawell's 
 extremely pious aunt always declared that 
 wider experience and a deeper knowledge 
 of life and of books had changed her mother 
 into a devout Christian in middle life. 
 Unlike the experience of her grandmother, 
 the result of this reading was to turn Miss 
 Seawell's thoughts towards religious in- 
 quiry instead of in the opposite direction — 
 indeed a daring thing for a young girl in a 
 community like that of Gloucester County, 
 where the Episcopal Church had been 
 established for nearly three hundred years, 
 and where there was a strong survival of the 
 old English idea of church and state. In 
 
 119 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 her own circle of friends and relatives, the 
 young girls were confirmed, usually, at 
 sixteen or seventeen, and their brothers, 
 although not frequently particularly pious, 
 were expected to be graduated into vestry- 
 men and strict churchmen, as their ances- 
 tors had been before them. In the midst 
 of her reading of Mr. Jefferson's selec- 
 tions of French philosophers, she came 
 suddenly across Macaulay's Essays. In 
 his review of Ranke's " History of the 
 Popes," and in speaking of the Catholic 
 Church, occurs this passage: 
 
 "She may still exist in undiminished 
 vigor when some traveller from New Zea- 
 land shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, 
 take his stand on a broken arch of London 
 Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's." 
 
 This impressed her immensely, and for 
 the first time she realized the existence of 
 that tremendous community which prefers 
 120 
 
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL 
 
 the moral case of the great Roman church. 
 The severe blows which Macaulay fre- 
 quently levels at the Established Church 
 of England in his essay on Hallam's " Con- 
 stitutional History," as well as the admira- 
 tion which Thackeray expressed in nearly 
 all his stories for the Catholic religion, 
 made a deep impression upon the sensitive 
 mind of such a young girl. Macaulay or 
 Thackeray never dreamed of making a 
 convert to the church of which neither 
 was a member, but such indeed was the 
 case. 
 
 A list of some of her more impor- 
 tant novels includes : " The Berkeleys 
 and Their Neighbors," " Throckmorton," 
 "Children of Destiny," "Maid Marian," 
 " The History of Lady Betty Stair," and 
 u The Loves of Arabella." For several 
 years she has been running away from the 
 reputation she made in her juveniles, 
 
 121 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 because it interferes with her reputation 
 for more serious work. It is for this rea- 
 son that we have had no further stories 
 of Little Jarvis and his fellow midship- 
 men. 
 
 A magazine article which Miss Sea well 
 once wrote, and which was called " The 
 Absence of the Creative Faculty in 
 Woman," had considerable ephemeral 
 fame. It was praised, attacked and criti- 
 cized by writers all over the United States 
 and in many European countries. Certain 
 masculine critics, as Mr. Andrew Lang, 
 who wisely declined to take sides with 
 Miss Seawell, declared that her essay had 
 disproved her own case. 
 
 " Papa Bouchard," which the Messrs. 
 Scribner, Miss Seawell's publishers, claim 
 will duplicate the success of " The Sprightly 
 Romance of Marsac," will be published 
 October the first, 1901. Besides this, she 
 122 
 
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL 
 
 has a long novel in preparation, to be fin- 
 ished early in 1902, and which will prob- 
 ably appear under the name of " Franceska 
 Capello." 
 
 123 
 
Courtesy of Dodd, Mead & Co. 
 
 AMELIA E. BARR. 
 
AMELIA E. BARR 
 
 "¥ ^OR the last sixteen years the 
 #7 name of Amelia E. Barr has been 
 one of the foremost in the list of 
 popular American writers. 
 
 Strictly speaking, Mrs. Barr is as much 
 English as American, for she was born in 
 Ulverston, Lancashire, England, in 1831, 
 and since the establishment of her fame 
 her books have been almost as widely read 
 in the old country as in this. But, not- 
 withstanding the ties of birth and popu- 
 lar affection, and notwithstanding the fact 
 that many of her stories have dealt with 
 British countries and British character, 
 she is, as she probably would say herself, 
 more American than foreign. For nearly 
 fifty years she has been a resident of the 
 
 125 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 LTnited States ; here her children were 
 born, here her noble husband died, here 
 she has struggled and here succeeded. A 
 more interesting career we have not had 
 the pleasure of sketching. 
 
 Amelia Edith Huddleston was her 
 name in girlhood. Her father was the 
 Rev. William Henry Huddleston. She is 
 fond of applying to her own case, they say, 
 the old Scotch proverb : " It is gude luck 
 to be born in a house f u' o' gude company, 
 wi' a fu' moon and a high tide." When 
 she was a girl she served her father as 
 reader, and thus she was introduced into 
 the literary as well as into the social 
 world. 
 
 Our feminine readers will probably en- 
 joy learning how strong an influence dolls 
 had on Mrs. Barr's early life. " The 
 dolls most in use when I w T as a child 
 in Yorkshire and Lancashire," she says, 
 126 
 
AMELIA E. BARE 
 
 "were wooden ones ; a round head, square 
 body, legs and arms of thin slats of wood, 
 fastened to the body with wire, thus making 
 the limbs flexible and movable. ... I 
 possessed a number of all sizes, and I don't 
 think I used them in the ordinary way. I 
 valued them as entities for representing 
 my story books, with big dolls for giants, 
 little ones for children and fairies, and 
 medium ones for men and women." She 
 was an imaginative child, it will be noticed. 
 "When I was six years old there was a 
 great agitation on the slavery question, 
 and a black leather doll was given me to 
 represent a negro. For some time I failed 
 to place him ; then I read ' Robinson Cru- 
 soe,' and he became, of course, Man Friday, 
 then a little later a slave. My first copy- 
 book, I remember, was covered in pale, yel- 
 low paper, bearing a picture of a very 
 black slave, loaded with chains, toiling in 
 
 127 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 the sugar field, and a tall white overseer, 
 with a whip, standing near. I very soon 
 abstracted the steel chain that held my 
 mother's bunch of keys, loaded my negro 
 doll with chains, selected a white doll to 
 act as overseer, and finally I allowed the 
 doll I called after Apollyon in « Pilgrim's 
 Progress ' to run away with the overseer. 
 Cinderella was one of my favorite play- 
 mates. She was a lovely blonde, as was 
 her fairy godmother, and the only doll I 
 possessed that might be called a baby was 
 a large wax affair that could open and shut 
 its eyes, and who came to me on my fourth 
 birthday in a long narrow box lined with 
 blue satin. . . . When I was eight years 
 old my story books were too complex for 
 such illustrations as the dolls once pro- 
 vided, and I have a dim memory of a wet 
 Saturday and ' Stories from Ancient His- 
 tory,' and a miniature funeral pyre within 
 128 
 
AMELIA E. BARE 
 
 the nursery fender, on which all the heroes 
 of my first romances received the fiery solu- 
 tion. I think of them all tenderly now. 
 There was a pathos about those graceless 
 wooden toys, some of which I can recall 
 with a vividness almost startling. They 
 still live, though they never had life, and 
 this is a mystery which in my next idle 
 hour I must ponder." 
 
 Idle hours come seldom to Mrs. Barr, in 
 spite of her fulfilled three-score years and 
 ten. She is not of the idle race, and she is 
 distinguished no less for her enthusiastic 
 industry than for her tenderness of heart 
 and her fertility of imagination. Mr. Ham- 
 ilton W. Mabie tells us also that "as a 
 child she was her father's boon companion 
 in his preaching tours through the fishing 
 villages, and that rocks and boats and the 
 surge of the sea were the background and 
 accompaniment of many happy days." 
 
 129 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 In 1850, shortly after her education had 
 been completed at Glasgow, she married 
 Robert Barr, a Scotchman, and four years 
 afterward she came to this country with 
 him. They lived for a while in New York, 
 then in the West, then in the South, and 
 finally they settled in Austin, Texas, where 
 Mr. Barr established himself as a merchant. 
 At the close of the Civil War the family, 
 which then included three sons and three 
 daughters, moved to Galveston. There 
 took place the tragedy which changed the 
 course of Mrs. Barr's life. We repeat the 
 circumstances as they were related a few 
 years ago : 
 
 " The yellow fever broke out with ex- 
 traordinary violence in Texas in 1867. 
 The terror of the visitation is still remem- 
 bered. People died on every side. The 
 Indians, especially, fell like flies before the 
 poisoned breath of the pestilence. The 
 130 
 
AMELIA E. BARR 
 
 panic spread, and all the white folk who 
 could, abandoned the afflicted district. Mr. 
 Barr refused to leave, for the Indians 
 trusted him, and took from his hand medi- 
 cines which they refused to take from an- 
 other. The doctors and nurses all died or 
 left. Still, Mr. Barr stood his ground, and 
 his wife remained by his side. His gallant 
 efforts are honorably mentioned in the offi- 
 cial reports of that terrible visitation. Mr. 
 Barr literally laid down his life to save 
 others' lives. Before the pestilence abated, 
 Mrs. Barr had lost three sons and her hus- 
 band. The three daughters still remained 
 to her, and for them she resolved to live 
 and work." Or, as Mr. Mabie says, " In 
 the desperate struggle against despair, 
 which followed, Mrs. Barr turned her face 
 northward and settled in New York in the 
 autumn of 1869." She was then thirty- 
 eight. 
 
 131 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 She was fortunate in bringing with her to 
 New York a letter of introduction to Robert 
 Bonner, the generous and influential editor 
 of the New York Ledger. Her first original 
 literary undertaking was a short story pub- 
 lished in the Christian Union. While 
 writing, she was learning to write. Cir- 
 cumstances had thrown her virtually upon 
 her own resources. Her naturally buoyant 
 disposition stood by her well ; it sweetened 
 her work, it brightened the future. Here 
 is an account of those days that we once 
 ran across : 
 
 "She wrote advertisements, circulars, 
 paragraphs, verses, etc. She spent hours 
 daily in the Astor Library, studying the 
 secrets of her craft, getting up materials for 
 descriptive articles and historical stories. 
 For a long time she considered herself rich 
 if a ten-dollar note stood between her and 
 the future. The precious notes were de- 
 132 
 
AMELIA E. BARE, 
 
 posited between the leaves of a Bible, with 
 tarnished clasps, which still lies on Mrs. 
 Barr's table. One of the incidents that she 
 and her daughter, who is her devoted com- 
 panion, often recall, is of a night when 
 thieves broke in and stole all they could lay 
 their hands on, breaking open the desk and 
 taking the trinkets that had been deposited 
 there for safety, but the Bible that lay 
 near it, and that held all the family's fortune, 
 was left untouched. . . . The stress of that 
 time of struggle and privation was lightened 
 when Mrs. Barr's first serial story appeared 
 in the columns of the Ledger." 
 
 Her first great success, the success that 
 founded her renown, came in 1885 with 
 the publication of "Jan Vedder's Wife," 
 although we find records of the publication 
 of at least three other books — " Scottish 
 Sketches" and " Cluny MacPherson " 
 (1883) and "Paul and Christina" (1882). 
 
 133 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 But there was power as well as originality 
 in "Jan Vedder's Wife," and to this day it 
 remains one of the novelist's most note- 
 worthy and most characteristic tales. It 
 has passed through many editions, and it has 
 been read in many countries and many lan- 
 guages. It was on Thanksgiving Day, 
 1884, by the way, that Mrs. Barr received 
 notice of its acceptance. The scene of Jan 
 Vedder's disappearance and apparent res- 
 urrection has especially been given wide 
 quotation because of its rare dramatic force 
 — its singular commingling of the earthly 
 and the spiritual element, a commingling that 
 has had much to do with the establishment 
 of the author's remarkable popularity. For, 
 in addition to an intimate knowledge of the 
 world's simpler folk, Mrs. Barr displays 
 the deepest reverence for religion. Which 
 fact tends sometimes to make her books 
 unique. 
 
 134 
 
AMELIA E. BARR 
 
 A bit of episode characteristic of the 
 author comes to mind. It is the scene in 
 the "Bow of Orange Ribbon," that delight- 
 ful picture of New York in provincial days, 
 when Joris Van Heemskirk decides to cast 
 his lot with the patriots. He had ended 
 the discussion with his wife, Lysbet. 
 
 " Then he rose, put on his hat, and 
 walked down his garden ; and, as he slowly 
 paced between the beds of budding flowers, 
 he thought of many things — the traditions 
 of the past struggles for freedom, and the 
 irritating wrongs that had embittered his 
 own experience for ten years. There was 
 plenty of life yet in the spirit his fathers 
 had bequeathed to him ; and, as this and 
 that memory of wrong smote it, the soul- 
 fire kindled, glowed, burned with passion- 
 ate flame. « Free, God gave us this fair 
 land, and we will keep it free. There has 
 been in it no crowns and scepters, no bloody 
 
 135 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 Philips, no priestly courts of cruelty ; and, 
 in God's name, we will have none ! ' 
 
 "He was standing on the river bank; 
 and the meadows over it were green and 
 fair to see, and the fresh wind blew into 
 his soul a thought of his own untrammelled 
 liberty. He looked up and down the river, 
 and lifted his face to the clear sky, and 
 said aloud, < Beautiful land ! To be thy 
 children we should not deserve, if one inch 
 of thy soil we yielded to a tyrant. Truly 
 a vaderland to me and to mine thou hast 
 been. Truly do I love thee.' And then, 
 his soul being moved to its highest mark, 
 he answered it tenderly, in the strong-syl- 
 labled mother-tongue that it knew so well : 
 * Indien ik u vergeet, o Vaderland ! zoo ver- 
 gete mijne regter-hand zich zelve.' " * 
 
 Since 1885 book after book has come 
 from the pen of Mrs. Barr with amazing 
 
 * " If I forget thee, O Fatherland ! let uiy right hand 
 forget her cunning." — Ps. cxxxvii, 5. 
 
 136 
 
AMELIA E. BAER 
 
 regularity. It is a pen that fairly rivals 
 Marion Crawford's in fertility, which is no 
 light statement to make. And yet, not- 
 withstanding this abundance — this lux- 
 uriance, it might be said — the quality is 
 generally excellent, not brilliant, indeed, or 
 stylish, but rather sweet and endearing. 
 The author of " The Maid of Maiden Lane " 
 holds the mirror up to nature — but, as a 
 rule, at the right time, at the good and 
 happy time. So, her men, for the most 
 part, are honest and magnanimous, her 
 women chaste and charming. Her latest 
 book, « The Lion's Whelp : A Story of 
 Cromwell's Time," is one of her strongest. 
 During the middle of the winter, Mrs. 
 Barr, we are told, seeks recreation in New 
 York City or in Virginia, but the spring 
 finds her back in her home on Storm King 
 Mountain, which lies two miles from Corn- 
 wall-on-the-Hudson, " Cherry Croft " the 
 
 137 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 house is named. It was built, we are told, 
 on plans drawn by the writer herself. Her 
 workshop is on the top floor. A writer in 
 the Boston Transcript (July 8, 1901) thus 
 describes Mrs. Barr's method of working : 
 
 " When a book is to be completed from 
 cover to cover, this woman is up and doing 
 long before the ordinary person is awake, 
 often rising before daylight, A cold 
 plunge, taken directly on rising, a light 
 lunch of fruit and coffee, usually partaken 
 of on the veranda, for she is another famous 
 lover of the open air, spending as much as 
 possible of her time within its invigorating 
 embrace — prepare her for the day's duties, 
 and by the time the sun is beginning to 
 gild the mountains opposite her study 
 window, she is busy with her pen. At 
 twelve comes the important meal of the 
 day. A two hours' nap, followed by an- 
 other cold plunge, is then in order, after 
 138 
 
AMELIA E. BARR 
 
 which the morning's work is carefully type- 
 written by the author's own hands — no 
 one else being allowed to handle her manu- 
 script — and labors for the day are over. 
 Then comes relaxation, indoors or out, call- 
 ing or receiving calls, but the moment the 
 clock strikes nine, no matter what guests or 
 engagements the family may have, she is 
 off to bed. This exacting routine is followed 
 until the book is finished." 
 
 Not many men or women of seventy live 
 more vigorously or work more enthusi- 
 astically, and still fewer at that age court 
 the success and esteem which still attend 
 Amelia E. Barr. 
 
 139 
 
Copyright by Floride Green. Permission of Doubledny, Page & Co. 
 MARY E. WILKINS. 
 
MARY E. WILKINS 
 
 /T is natural to suppose that any reader 
 of current English literature would 
 know Miss Wilkins, yet it is the 
 much-admired author herself who tells this 
 story of her introduction to a popular con- 
 temporary : 
 
 "It was before Mr. Crawford had publicly 
 appeared as a reader, and just after he had 
 read to a select coterie of Brooklyn people 
 at the house of a well-known lady. A re- 
 ception followed, and when I was intro- 
 duced the hostess said, 'Mr. Crawford, I 
 wish to introduce Miss Wilkins.' 
 
 " Mr. Crawford gave me a coldly polite 
 bow, and I would have passed on perfectly 
 satisfied, but not so my hostess. She felt 
 that Mr. Crawford ought to have recognized 
 
 141 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 in me a fellow-author, and she quickly fol- 
 lowed the first introduction with an impres- 
 sive: 
 
 "'Mr. Crawford, this is Miss Mary E. 
 Wilkins.' 
 
 "Again the delightful novelist gave me 
 a polite bow of recognition. My friend was 
 sorely distressed. Not even now did the 
 lion of the evening deign to recognize this 
 poor little body, but my friend would not 
 be repulsed, so she returned afresh to the 
 assault, and in a still more impressive man- 
 ner, she said: 
 
 " « But, Mr. Crawford, this is Miss Mary 
 E. Wilkins, the author of those charming 
 stories of New England life.' 
 
 "Mr. Crawford, I felt quite sure, had 
 never heard of poor me. I did not wonder 
 at it. Why should he ? Living so far away, 
 and naturally enough absorbed in his own 
 work, he probably had never seen a line I 
 142 
 
MARY E. WILKINS 
 
 had written, but he was equal to the occa- 
 sion, and if he did simulate I could forgive 
 him, for he was very polite. He bowed and 
 smiled most graciously, and shaking me by 
 the hand, he expressed great pleasure at 
 meeting me. How I have laughed over this 
 incident. It may not seem funny to hear 
 me relate it, but the time, the place, and his 
 bewildered manner as he tried to make me 
 believe he knew all about me, was most deli- 
 cious comedy." 
 
 The majority of the members of the 
 reading public, either in this country or 
 in England, would feel no need to 
 simulate a knowledge of the author of 
 "Pembroke." Mr. Crawford is an extra- 
 ordinarily busy man, and he has been grace- 
 fully forgiven, but we may well be asked 
 to believe that the hostess of that occasion 
 was astonished. 
 
 Miss Wilkins has had an admiring audi- 
 
 143 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 ence for the last eighteen years. It was 
 early in the eighties that she first tried her 
 pen seriously. She wrote a short story 
 called " The Ghost Family" for the Boston 
 Budget, a weekly SLirvival of the days of 
 Boston's literary renown ; and the story won 
 a prize of fifty dollars, We might go back 
 further than the eighties ; but the fact that 
 she wrote poetry at the age of twelve is con- 
 ventional. What bright child does not write 
 poetry ? 
 
 We shall rely on an old friend of Miss 
 Wilkins, Mrs. Kate Upson Clark, for a few 
 details : 
 
 " Her first literary attempts were almost 
 entirely for children, but at the urgent solici- 
 tation of friends she soon began to take up 
 a deeper kind of work, and sent her first 
 story for older readers to Miss Mary L. 
 Booth, then editor of Harpers Bazar. Miss 
 Booth thought that such cramped and un- 
 144 
 
MARY E. WILKINS 
 
 formed handwriting promised little, and 
 that she was the victim of some ambitions 
 but "unavailable" child. With her usual 
 conscientiousness, however, she looked the 
 little piece carefully over. It was Miss 
 Booth's habit when attracted by a story, to 
 read it through three times, on different 
 days, and in different moods, before accept- 
 ing it. She paid this compliment to « Two 
 Old Lovers,' the contribution which Miss 
 Wilkins had submitted to her. Two days 
 later the ' ambitious child' received a hand- 
 some check for it. From this time forth 
 Miss Booth befriended the young writer in 
 every way, and Miss Wilkins, who is almost 
 morbidly appreciative of kindness, and as 
 true to her friends as one of her own in- 
 flexible New England characters, rewarded 
 Miss Booth's thoughtfulness by giving to 
 her as long as she lived, the first choice of 
 her stories." The date of the appearance 
 
 145 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 of "Two Old Lovers" in Harper's Bazar 
 is March 31, 1883. 
 
 But the tail of the sketch is moving faster 
 than the head. The author of " Two Old 
 Lovers" was born in Randolph, Mass., in 
 1862. Her father, a native of Salem, was 
 a descendant of a conspicuous Puritan, Bray 
 Wilkins. Her mother was a Holbrook of 
 Holbrook, an old-established family of Mas- 
 sachusetts country folk. Mr. Wilkins was a 
 carpenter of ancient style, that is to say, he 
 was both designer and builder. When Mary 
 was a little girl, however, he gave up his pro- 
 fession to keep store in Brattleboro, Vt. In 
 the town where restless Mr. Kipling alighted 
 for a while, the daughter of the Randolph 
 carpenter passed her girlhood. Mr. J. E. 
 Chamberlain, who collaborated with her in 
 the writing of " The Long Arm" (the two 
 thousand dollar newspaper prize detective 
 story), remarks, " so far as local influences 
 146 
 
MARY E. WILKINS 
 
 have affected her work, I fancy that those of 
 Southern Vermont have preponderated." 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain also is the authority 
 for the statement that " Her creations are 
 mainly drawn purely out of her imagina- 
 tion, and squared to Nature and reality by 
 the exercise of a keen and omnivorous fac- 
 ulty of observation which has grown in- 
 stinctive, and is as unconscious as it is 
 accurate — like the minutely true eye- 
 measurements with which the Japanese car- 
 penters astonished us at the World's Fair. 
 And for her nature-settings and decora- 
 tions she depends rather on the sharp recol- 
 lections of childhood than on more recent 
 observations. She never had a bit of the 
 spirit of the naturalist." 
 
 All the same, there are glimpses of Ran- 
 dolph — of the Randolph of her childhood, 
 in some of Miss Wilkins's stories. We 
 read in " Jerome " : 
 
 147 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 " Three fields to the northward from the 
 Edwards's house was a great rock ledge ; 
 on the southern side of it was a famous 
 hiding-place for a boy on a windy spring 
 day. There was a hollow in the rock for 
 a space as tall as Jerome, and the ledge 
 extended itself out beyond it like a shelter- 
 ing granite wing to the westward. ... At 
 the side of the gentle hill at the left a pile 
 of blooming peach trees looked as if they 
 were moving down the slope to some impe- 
 rious march music of the spring." 
 
 That spot is in Randolph — within 
 sight of the weather-beaten, two-story house 
 in which the author was born. But Miss 
 Wilkins is careful not to offend the towns- 
 people by portraying the living. She has 
 portrayed the dead, however. Barnabas, 
 in " Pembroke," was a Randolph character. 
 As a rule, she draws from her imagination, 
 as Mr. Chamberlain says. 
 148 
 
MA RY E. WILKINS 
 
 In the ten years that Miss Wilkins lived 
 in Brattleboro she experienced a world of 
 sorrow. Her father died, and her mother, 
 and her sister. Burdened with her grief, 
 Mary returned to Randolph, and there, 
 with friends, in a typical country house 
 standing about half a mile from her birth- 
 place, she has since lived. Where she will 
 live the rest of her life rests largely with 
 Dr. Charles Manning Freeman, of Metu- 
 chen, N. J. 
 
 The author chooses to be distant to all 
 but her dear friends, or, rather, she has a 
 shrinking nature, like the sensitive plant. 
 " The ancient kitchen which is Miss Wil- 
 kins's sitting-room is not also her writing- 
 room. Though it is nicely retired, and out 
 of the noise of the exceedingly quiet house- 
 hold in which she has her home, its win- 
 dow commands a view of nothing but the 
 side of the adjoining house, which affords 
 
 149 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 but slight inspiration. She writes upstairs, 
 in a room that looks off eastwardly over 
 the street with its electric cars, and to the 
 low coast hills and woods in the distance." 
 Before she became addicted to the type- 
 writer — which was only a few years ago — 
 she was accustomed, when in the mood for 
 work, to produce a thousand words a day 
 in what she once herself described as an 
 " unformed and childish " style of hand- 
 writing. To-day her pages are as prim as 
 a professional secretary's. We have a page 
 before us, and at the bottom of it is the 
 decrepid signature. It gives character to 
 the page, however — and what would not 
 many an autograph hunter give for it! 
 Now and then, when at the height of her 
 fervor, Miss Wilkins will write three or 
 four thousand words a day; and now and 
 then a week will pass without winning a 
 line from her. "Environment affects her 
 150 
 
MARY E. WILKINS 
 
 strongly," says Mrs. Clark. " She finds it 
 difficult, sometimes impossible, to compose 
 anything when away from home." 
 
 " She is not," Mr. Chamberlain says, 
 " one of those fortunate ones who can say, 
 4 Go to ! I will sleep from ten until six, 
 and then be fresh for my work.' Sleep 
 with her has to be wooed with subtle arts, 
 and will follow no program. Sometimes 
 her work goes reluctantly, and sometimes 
 she is mastered and possessed by it, and it 
 leaves her nervously exhausted as well as 
 desorientee regarding every-day affairs. 
 After writing her Deerfield massacre story 
 . . . she found it hard to make herself realize 
 that she was not living in the time and 
 place of the story: she really believed that 
 the story — her story — was true." 
 
 For with a strong imagination is com- 
 bined in her an extremely sensitive nature. 
 Her father was remarkable for his nervous- 
 
 151 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 ness, it is said, and so was her maternal 
 grandfather. And Mrs. Clark assures us 
 that, " The difficulties against which she 
 contends are largely physical. Though her 
 constitution is apparently sound, she is 
 small, being only five feet tall, and is very 
 slight." That was some years ago ; to-day 
 Miss Wilkins is plump of figure. "She 
 possesses the sensitive organization which 
 accompanies a large intellectual develop- 
 ment in such a frame. Her transparent 
 skin, her changing eyes, sometimes seeming 
 blue, sometimes hazel, her heavy braids of 
 golden hair, her delicately molded features, 
 all proclaim a singularly high-strung and 
 nervous temperament." 
 
 Doubtless this has influenced her choice 
 of residence. Randolph is off the main 
 line of literature, and perhaps that is why 
 she has resisted the allurements of Boston. 
 We saw her at a reunion of the Daughters 
 152 
 
MARY E. WILKINS 
 
 of Vermont in the "Hub," once upon a 
 time, and she acted, now haughtily, and 
 again timidly, as if she would like to rim 
 home. Yet they say that with her chafing- 
 dish — her only hobby — in hand, she is a 
 prodigal hostess. 
 
 Phillips Brooks is reported to have said 
 that "A Humble Romance" was the best 
 short story he ever read. It certainly reveals 
 Miss Wilkins in her strongest form. It is 
 realism brought close to idealism. In its 
 few pages are set forth simply yet artis- 
 tically, in a manner characteristic of her 
 most successful representation of rural life 
 in New England, quaint humor and grave 
 tragedy, melting pathos and tickling com- 
 edy, — in the background a touch of careless 
 virtue, and in the foreground an example of 
 rough but admirable honor. Not every 
 critic will go as far as Phillips Brooks went, 
 but the discriminating critic will admit 
 
 153 
 
LITTLE PILGKIMAGES 
 
 that "A Humble Romance" is one of the 
 author's perfect efforts. Perhaps to an 
 admirer of the demure woman of Randolph 
 that is saying as much as could be said. A 
 few days ago she said that "Pembroke" 
 was probably her best work. In England 
 — where she is hardly less beloved than in 
 this country — a similar opinion exists 
 among the leading critics. And, by the 
 way, Mr. Kipling is reported to have de- 
 clared that her stories will survive his, and, 
 at the same time, to have confessed that 
 they touch him altogether too deeply ! 
 
 But Miss Wilkins's pen does not deal 
 exclusively with rural life. In 1893 she 
 turned to the stage for an arena, and 
 " Giles Corey, Yeoman," a drama of the 
 early Puritan days, was acted in Boston 
 under the auspices of the Theatre of Arts 
 and Letters. Two years afterward, in col- 
 laboration with the aforementioned Mr. 
 154 
 
MARY E. WILKINS 
 
 Chamberlain, she wrote a detective story, 
 " The Long Arm," which won a prize of 
 $2,000 offered by a newspaper syndicate. 
 Her latest novel, " The Heart's Highway," 
 dealt effectively with a colonial theme, and 
 her next novel — "A Portion of Labor" is 
 the title of it, we believe — is said to have 
 an industrial setting. 
 
 The reading public — whose interest in 
 literature is not confined to books — had 
 taken it for granted that Miss Wilkins 
 would remain in single blessedness for life, 
 but in October, 1900, was announced her 
 engagement to Dr. Charles Manning Free- 
 man, of Metuchen, N. J. Probably the 
 author had never thought that she would 
 live to be the central figure of a sensation, 
 but she was, nevertheless; and the public 
 soon began to ask, When will the marriage 
 take place? The question remains unan- 
 swered, but we betray no real secret by 
 
 155 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 remarking that the affair is in no danger of 
 ending like the bride-to-be's well-known 
 story, "Two Old Lovers." 
 
 156 
 
Courtesy of Harper & Bio* 
 
 OCTAVE THANET. 
 
OCTAVE THANET 
 (MISS FRENCH) 
 
 J^v H. STODDARD once said that 
 j\ Octave Thanet was the best writer 
 # of short stories in America. In 
 fact, he went further, we believe, and said 
 that he enjoyed her work more than that 
 of any other writer of the day. That was in 
 1888. Without discussing the value of the 
 opinion, we may say that the fair Westerner 
 is writing as vigorously and as picturesquely 
 as ever ; and right here we shall take the lib- 
 erty of anticipating a very natural question 
 by reprinting some remarks she made a few 
 years ago : 
 
 "How did I come to take the nom de 
 plume of Octave Thanet? Well, really, that 
 was an accident. I was a little wary of hav- 
 ing my identity known in the first place, and 
 
 157 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 made up my mind to write under a fictitious 
 name. Octave was the name of a school 
 friend of mine. It is both French and 
 Scotch. I thought if I could find another 
 name to go with it that was both Scotch and 
 French I would adopt that. I was riding 
 on a train one time when we stopped at a 
 way station, and on a siding near where I 
 sat was a freight car painted red. On the 
 side was chalked the word " Thanet." 
 What it meant or how it got there I have 
 not the slightest idea, but I decided then and 
 there to adopt it. Lots of people still think 
 that Octave Thanet is a man, and I frequent- 
 ly get letters like this : ' My dear Mr. 
 Thanet : I have read your works and I am 
 sure you are a manly man.' They usually 
 contain a request for a small loan, to be 
 repaid in the near future." 
 
 There is an unmistakable masculine tinge 
 in her style sometimes, and her interests 
 158 
 
OCTAVE THANET 
 
 are half masculine. Her interest in the sub- 
 ject of the relations between capital and 
 labor, for instance, is deeper than that of 
 probably any other woman in the land, just 
 as her knowledge of the subject is more ex- 
 tensive. Six years ago, besides she took an 
 active interest in the Flagler case in Wash- 
 ington, and this year she displayed similar 
 activity at Pittsfield, Mass., in connection 
 with the Fosburgh case. It was she, indeed, 
 who advanced the interesting theory that it 
 may not have been thieves that entered the 
 Fosburgh house. " Has it occurred to any- 
 one," she asked, "that at the very time the 
 Fosburgh firm were in the midst of a very 
 serious difficulty with a labor union ? " 
 And then she added what, coming from not 
 merely a student of industrial matters but 
 from an outspoken friend of the Ameri- 
 can workingman, seems startling : " It is 
 a characteristic of labor unions to regard a 
 
 159 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 strike as war, and, you know, all is fair in 
 war. Such men are as honest in their con- 
 ception of right as we are, but they would 
 think it as much a plan of campaign to « do 
 up' the chief enemy as General Funston did 
 in the capture of Aguinaldo. Men in such 
 a cause would be just the kind to scorn to 
 lay hands on valuables. They are not 
 thieves. But they are as clannish as were 
 the Irish at the time of the Phoenix Park 
 murders, and would never betray their own." 
 
 But more of her sociology, later. Let 
 us turn to her life. 
 
 Her name is Alice French, and she was 
 born in Andover, Mass., on March 19, 
 1850. Her father, George Henry French, 
 was at one time in the bank business with 
 Austin Corbin, and thirty years ago he 
 was the president of the Davenport and 
 St. Paul Railroad. That was some ten 
 years after his change of residence from 
 160 
 
OCTAVE THANET 
 
 Andover to Davenport, Iowa. At Daven- 
 port lie established an iron factory, which 
 business, we understand, is still conducted 
 by his sons. The Frenches, by the way, 
 are of Irish descent. The American branch 
 of the stock was founded by Sir William 
 French, who emigrated to Massachusetts in 
 the seventeenth century. One of his descen- 
 dants took a prominent part in the Revo- 
 lutionary War, "The Fighting Parson of 
 Andover " they called him. Governor Mar- 
 cus Morton was the father of Miss French's 
 mother, and Chief Justice Morton was 
 Mrs. French's brother. On this side the 
 author is descended from the Mayflower 
 immigrants. One of these pioneers married 
 Governor Bradford's sister. 
 
 Miss French was educated at Abbot 
 Academy and at Vassar. Her taste for the 
 pen came as early as that of most other 
 girls for the needle. "I began writing, 
 
 161 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 like many another, at an early age," she 
 informed an interviewer in Washington six 
 years ago, "and when I was at boarding- 
 school I surreptitiously sent off a number 
 of literary efforts to the magazines, all of 
 which were returned with thanks. No, not 
 all of them, for, through some accident, 
 one was printed in Godeys Magazine, and I 
 was given a six months' subscription in 
 payment. I have never in after years 
 received a check which gave me as much 
 pleasure. My earlier efforts were devoted 
 for the most part to very heavy essays on 
 questions of sociology. I was a great stu- 
 dent of history and political economy, but 
 for three years I made no addition to my lit- 
 erary work. I read everything that I 
 thought would improve my style, saw every- 
 thing I could that I thought would increase 
 my powers of observation, and literally 
 worked hard at my preparation for a literary 
 162 
 
OCTAVE THANET 
 
 career. I wrote two very heavy essays on 
 the subject of pauperism, and if Iliad my own 
 way to-day I would rather write history 
 than fiction. Yet I suppose that fiction is the 
 history of every-day life, and may be made 
 just as true a picture of our day and genera- 
 tion as a more laborious and ambitious effort. 
 " I sent one story at a time to the Cen- 
 tury, and the editor suggested that I would 
 be wise to confine myself to short stories. I 
 cannot say that I wanted to altogether, but 
 I realized that I might make from one 
 hundred dollars to three hundred dollars 
 a year writing on social and economic 
 questions, and as I enjoy spending rather 
 more money than I receive as dividends 
 from an iron mill, I decided to take his ad- 
 vice. Since then I have met with some 
 degree of favor and success. All my 
 stories that I have written since that three 
 years of rest have been printed somewhere, 
 
 163 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 though not always where they were first 
 sent. I have had stories that I sent to the 
 leading magazines end up in a western 
 weekly paper, and received three dollars 
 and a half, when I had counted on fifty 
 dollars." 
 
 Doubtless the foregoing account may be 
 regarded as reliable. But we have met 
 other conflicting statements. A member 
 of Miss French's family has been referred to 
 as the author of the statement that her 
 first story was sent to Harper's Monthly, 
 "and, after a long and weary waiting, it 
 was published in their Bazar, as being not 
 up to the mark of the monthly magazine." 
 According to Mrs. Lillie B. Chace Wyman, 
 " her sketch called ' A Communist's Wife ' 
 was published by Zippincotfs Magazine in 
 1878, under the title of 'Communists and 
 Capitalists.' . . . The young author received 
 forty dollars for it." This may have been 
 164 
 
OCTAVE THANET 
 
 one of the two "very heavy essays" to 
 which the author has referred. 
 
 However, it was "The Bishop's Vaga- 
 bond," published in The Atlantic Monthly in 
 January, 1884, which forms the cornerstone 
 of Octave Thanet's fame. It is a memorable 
 story in many respects. It signalized the 
 author's first display of her gift of narrative 
 power, and also her first attempt to portray 
 southern character. Mrs. Louise Chandler 
 Moulton used to maintain that the story 
 " shows Octave Thanet at her best." It is 
 certainly a remarkable welding of humor and 
 pathos, and the wreck of the train is as dra- 
 matic a scene as Sardou himself ever drew. 
 
 But, while the dramatic element is in 
 mind, let us take a scene from " Expiation," 
 Miss French's most ambitious work — the 
 scene in which Bud Fowler covertly watches 
 Fairfax Rutherford on guard over the vil- 
 lanous Dick Barnabas in the swamp. The 
 
 165 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 guerilla is pleading to be freed, and the 
 hero is sorely perplexed. 
 
 " ' It 's no use, Barnabas ; I bear you no 
 malice, but I can 't let you go.' 
 
 " 'Ye das tit let me go ! You 're a coward ! ' 
 screamed the wretch. His voice was terrible. 
 
 " Fairfax's face was whiter than his. In- 
 stead of replying to the taunt, he pulled a 
 whiskey flask out of his pocket and threw 
 it at the outlaw, calling him to catch it, 
 drink it — it would keep the cold out. 
 
 "But he would not look at the man 
 gulping down the liquor in furious haste. 
 
 "He wheeled his horse to ride back a 
 little distance, thinking to get a better 
 view through the trees, and to call for help. 
 At the same instant Betty Ward shied, 
 and something like a line of white fire 
 sheared the air past him, to bury itself in a 
 cypress-trunk, where it hung quivering — 
 Dick Barnabas's bowie-knife. 
 166 
 
OCTAVE THANET 
 
 " Fairfax turned. But not for the useless 
 blow ; he turned because the wood was re- 
 verberating with the crash of a gunshot and 
 a scream of agony. 
 
 " Where Dick had stood there remained 
 only an awful bas-relief of a head and 
 shoulders flung face downward, with out- 
 stretched arms on the smooth black mud. 
 A hand moved once. The wind lifted the 
 long black hair. That was all. In a few 
 moments the smooth black surface was un- 
 broken. 
 
 " Bud Fowler stepped calmly down from 
 his perch in a swamp hackberry-tree, at 
 right angles to Fairfax. He was neither 
 pale nor flushed, but sallow and freckled 
 and solemn-looking, as usual. And, as 
 usual, one of his hands was hitching up his 
 trousers. 
 
 " ' All that ar good whiskey plumb 
 wasted ! ' was his first speech. ' Wa'al, he 
 
 167 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 won't drink no more. I promised maw I 'd 
 kiU 'im, an' I done it.' " 
 
 For a small picture it is one of the most 
 terribly dramatic in American fiction. In 
 excitement it falls short of the rescue of 
 the bishop in " The Bishop's Vagabond," 
 the scene to which we referred previously, 
 but for grimness combined with brevity it 
 is unsurpassably impressive. 
 
 Coming back to Mrs. Moulton's opinion 
 and the question of preference, there has 
 for years been a strong popular and critical 
 liking for "The Ogre of Ha Ha Bay," 
 which, it seems to us, shows the author " at 
 her best." This story was printed in The 
 Atlantic Monthly in October, 1885. It 
 won for Miss French the hearty admiration 
 of Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 
 
 " Truth," she said to an interviewer once, 
 " is what I seek above all things else. I 
 want to tell my story as it really is, and 
 168 
 
OCTAVE THANET 
 
 describe things and people as they really 
 are" — which reminds us of a famous line 
 that Kipling wrote a few years ago. " I do 
 not try to write « purpose stories,' nor have 
 my stories often a pointed moral. I say 
 what I have to say, and let my readers 
 draw their own conclusions." Which re- 
 minds us — if another intrusion will be 
 excused — of what a critic said when " Ex- 
 piation " and "We All " were new : " There 
 is a lurid, realistic tone ... in some of her 
 later fiction that does not impress us as 
 favorably as that which had preceded it." 
 But Octave Thanet is stubborn in her pur- 
 poses — and erratic, as witness her prepos- 
 terous ideas on the Fosburgh mystery. She 
 does not court popularity. But we were 
 quoting her remarks : 
 
 " Yes, I have written much of western 
 towns. I think it is in the villages and 
 in the country districts that the best of our 
 
 169 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 American citizenship can be found to-day, 
 not in the big cities. I am a believer in all 
 things American, and I believe, too, that 
 many of the social questions that vex us to- 
 day may be solved without hard feeling or 
 trouble if both sides try to understand each 
 other. Sympathy and understanding are 
 needed." 
 
 Miss French's working hours are as long 
 as the daylight is, but she has her wholesome 
 amusements, also. She loves the southwest- 
 ern country. There, we are told, she roams 
 enthusiastically, admiring the landscape, 
 which she calls " ideally beautiful "; and 
 her wanderings always strengthen her con- 
 viction that " there are no forests like the 
 cypress woods in Spring." She has been 
 wont to spend a part of every summer in the 
 East, on the sands of Cape Cod. It was in 
 the East a decade or so ago, that she acquired 
 no mean skill in photography. 
 170 
 
OCTAVE THANET 
 
 One who has viewed the author at close 
 range says : " Many seeing Miss French 
 would readily believe her a very contented 
 German. She is of medium height, rather 
 stout, and has light brown, curling hair, now 
 just beginning to mark the flight of time. 
 Her expression is very animated and her 
 conversation vivacious. She excels in cook- 
 ing and is very domestic." 
 
 She excels, too, we must say, in the writ- 
 ing of short stories. Writers of that sort of 
 literature have become almost as numerous 
 in this country as blades of grass since Mr. 
 Stoddard uttered his very flattering opinion 
 of her, but the name of Octave Thanet is 
 still exceedingly brilliant, and in adeptness 
 of construction and power of expression and 
 vividness of portrayal, the author of " The 
 Bishop's Vagabond " still remains among 
 our foremost writers of fiction. 
 
 171 
 
MARSHALL SAUNDERS. 
 
MARSHALL SAUNDERS 
 
 r'HERE was once a young French 
 man who was studying the painter's 
 art. Similar to the usual student 
 of small stature and equally small means, 
 he had an enormous ambition. He worked 
 with a will, and yet in every sketch of 
 casts, of moving figures, or of still life, his 
 restless fingers always ran instinctively to 
 the military. The signing of his name to 
 a poster or oil would always be accompanied 
 by some small token of a soldier's life, 
 a bugle, a bayonet, a cuirassier's helmet, or 
 what not. One day his instructor accosted 
 
 him thus : " Well, , you have been a 
 
 good student and a hard worker, but you 
 should be a general. Go and join the 
 army ! " He followed this advice, but the 
 
 173 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 overwhelming sense of the artistic in his 
 nature drew him back again to the pencil 
 and the paint brush. When he died the 
 greatest delineator of European military 
 life had been lost to the world. 
 
 This incident bears directly upon the 
 life and art of Marshall Saunders, for hers 
 is a mind that has its own particular sphere 
 of creative ability, and in this sphere it has 
 remained and has won success. The same 
 invisible something that drew the French- 
 man's fingers to the soldier, has drawn the 
 imagination of Miss Saunders to the delin- 
 eation of the lives and characteristics of 
 simple natures. Differing also from a 
 prominent American authoress who gave 
 promise of masterful work in this same 
 sphere by one great story on the American 
 child, but disappointed those who expected 
 wonderful things by spending the time 
 subsequent to its production in the creation 
 174 
 
MARSHALL SAUNDERS 
 
 of romances of a degenerate English aris- 
 tocracy ; Miss Saunders has followed the 
 success of her first great juvenile with 
 other successes of equal merit. "The 
 Adventures of 'Tilda Jane " in 1901 is a 
 chronicle which bids fair to be as widely 
 read as the story of " Beautiful Joe," which 
 appeared in 1894, and has sold four hun- 
 dred thousand strong. Worth alone could 
 stimulate such a reading. 
 
 This worth is of a character which is 
 similar to the motto of most successful 
 business men, " in the long run, honesty is 
 the best policy." The value of her writ- 
 ing is the value that the stories of Louisa 
 May Alcott possess, that of purity, honesty, 
 and simplicity, characteristics which are 
 alone able to sustain the respect and ad- 
 miration of the Anglo-Saxon, no matter in 
 what direction they are employed. 
 
 She was born at her grandfather's house 
 
 175 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 in Milton, Queen's County, Nova Scotia, 
 on April 13, 1861, and is the daughter 
 of a clergyman. In early life he conducted 
 her education, and as he was a great Latin 
 scholar, gave her a thorough drilling in 
 that language, a foundation which is un- 
 deniably accountable for the purity and 
 vigor of her style. At the age of six, an 
 occurrence took place that was a memora- 
 ble one for a child of her years. The 
 family left their beautiful country home 
 and moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and of 
 her first impressions of the city she has 
 said : " I shall never forget the feeling 
 of depression, as I gathered my brothers 
 and sisters around me (I am the eldest of 
 the family) and, sitting on our front door- 
 step, surveyed the rows of houses opposite. 
 What a change in our lives ! We country 
 plants had been transferred to the arid soil 
 of a city. We turned our backs on the 
 176 
 
MARSHALL SAUNDERS 
 
 confusion of unpacking, and wandered up 
 and down the street. I remember being 
 particularly struck with a row of seven 
 houses all alike. Such a thing had been 
 unknown in my previous experience." 
 
 With the adaptability of childhood, how- 
 ever, she soon became accustomed to city 
 life, although her love for the country has 
 ever been the stronger. She was educated 
 in public and private schools until fifteen, 
 when at a Presbyterian boarding school in 
 Scotland she learned how to stifle the 
 agonies of homesickness. After a year in 
 Edinburgh she was sent to France, where 
 she was thrown almost entirely with French 
 people, and a year or two later returned to 
 Nova Scotia — " brimful of fun, having 
 passed through many interesting experi- 
 ences, and with nothing now to do." For 
 some time she taught school, and then 
 began her literary work — and quite by 
 
 177 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 chance. In her own words, she tells ns 
 that upon one occasion, her father asked 
 her to reply to a letter that he had recently 
 received from Dr. Rand, a professor in a 
 Canadian college. " The subject matter of 
 the correspondence was of a public char- 
 acter and had its humorous side. In re- 
 plying to the letter of the professor, who 
 had been from early childhood an intimate 
 friend of the family, I indulged in some 
 banter which impressed him. In his re- 
 ply to my father he said : ' Judging from 
 Marshall's letter, her calling is assured. 
 Why does she not begin at once to write ? ' 
 The idea struck me as an exceedingly 
 amusing one, and not until the intimate 
 friend had referred to it again, did I con- 
 consider it. Then I asked him, 'What 
 shall I write about ? ' 
 
 " < Write of the beauty of our winter 
 scenery,' he responded, « of the stillness 
 178 
 
MARSHALL SAUNDERS 
 
 of the woods, the rabbits' track in the 
 snow.' 
 
 " I was grateful to him for the suggestion 
 but did not seem able to act upon it. How- 
 ever, I turned the matter over in my mind, 
 and shortly afterwards when both my par- 
 ents were away in the country, took pen 
 and paper and sat down to write. I was 
 then twenty-three years old, and the sensa- 
 tional appealed to me more strongly than 
 anything else. I could make nothing of the 
 rabbit, so discarded him for a burglar. In 
 three weeks I had concocted a story of a 
 man, his wife, and a robbery. Now what 
 to do with it ? I went to town with my 
 sister Rita, my first confidante in literary 
 affairs, and bought an armful of magazines 
 and papers." Her sister was as ignorant 
 as she was, but between them they decided 
 on the Leslie publications. They, if any, 
 would be able to appreciate her venture, so 
 
 179 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 the story was mailed and the result was 
 anxiously awaited. 
 
 One day her parents came home and she 
 went to them with a letter. Mrs. Frank 
 Leslie had sent her forty dollars for her 
 story, and " she would be pleased to get 
 another one." 
 
 "My sister and I made a rapid and 
 jubilant calculation," she tells us ; " forty 
 dollars for every three weeks in the year 
 — what a comfortable amount of pin 
 money ! Alas ! the next story was 
 promptly rejected. However, my parents 
 came to my rescue. 4 You can write and 
 you like to write,' my father said; 'take 
 all the time you wish, and remember that 
 uninterrupted success does not come to 
 anyone setting out on any career.' There- 
 fore I wrote on. I needed practice, and 
 occasionally I sent a story to some paper 
 or magazine. Some were accepted, more 
 180 
 
MARSHALL SAUNDERS 
 
 rejected, and there is one dismal entry in 
 my note-book : ' Two stories stolen by a 
 literary bureau.' " 
 
 With excellent judgment she now spent 
 several years in foreign travel, and return- 
 ing to Nova Scotia began writing more 
 vigorously than ever. She became corres- 
 pondent for a Canadian newspaper, but it 
 was not until 1887 that she had the grat- 
 ification of seeing one of her own produc- 
 tions in book form. It was called " My 
 Spanish Sailor," and was brought out by 
 a London firm. Its reception by the Eng- 
 lish press was a warm one, but did not in- 
 sure a large sale either in England or Can- 
 ada. Nothing daunted, she still applied 
 herself diligently to literary work and in 
 1892, after returning from a year's visit in 
 northern Canada, saw the advertisement 
 of the American Humane Educational 
 Society for a story about animals, and be- 
 
 181 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 came immediately possessed with the de- 
 sire of competing for it, for she is passion- 
 ately fond of dumb creatures and had 
 never attempted a story about them. The 
 preparation of " Beautiful Joe " took six 
 months, and the story was largely of her 
 own life. It gained the coveted prize, 
 which was two hundred dollars, but the 
 alternative was offered the author of re- 
 taining the manuscript and forfeiting the 
 prize. This she preferred, and for six 
 months " Beautiful Joe " went begging 
 among the publishers. Finally it fell into 
 the hands of a firm in Philadelphia, one 
 of whose members recognized its merit and 
 accepted the responsibility of bringing it 
 out. In a few years it had sold over two 
 hundred thousand copies and had been 
 translated into Swedish, German, and 
 Japanese. Since the publication of " Our 
 Dogs " by John Brown, and the touching 
 182 
 
MARSHALL SAUNDERS 
 
 story of " Rab and his Friends " by the 
 same author, no better or more sympa- 
 thetic narrative of animal life has yet ap- 
 peared. 
 
 " Daisy," a short temperance story, writ- 
 ten for an English charity, was published 
 during the following year, and " Charles 
 and His Lamb" in 1896. This was like- 
 wise a children's story, and although it 
 did not share the great popularity of 
 " Beautiful Joe," a letter written by an 
 Italian princess to the author, will show 
 how far from home it penetrated and was 
 appreciated. Writing from Naples, she 
 touchingly remarked : " I never read any- 
 thing sweeter in my life than the story of 
 that darling child and his lamb. May the 
 dear Father who made them both, bless 
 them both, and her, too, who has written 
 so lovingly of them." " Such epistles as 
 these are more to be desired than the most 
 
 183 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMA GES 
 
 flattering criticism of the keen reviewer, 
 who has become so satiated with manu- 
 script, and excellent manuscript at that, 
 that only the most artistic work could un- 
 loosen a word of ardent praise," an eminent 
 critic has said : " it is similar to the word 
 of admiration the minister receives from 
 the poor parishioner, who, from the very 
 last seat in the fashionably crowded church, 
 has listened with appreciation to his words 
 of hope and comfort. His simple com- 
 mendation gives more genuine and lasting 
 satisfaction than the well-phrased and 
 laudatory paragraph in the ecclesiastical 
 review." 
 
 " For the Other Boy's Sake " came out in 
 1897, and " The House of Armour," " The 
 King of the Park," and " Rose a Charlitte " 
 in 1898. Of them, the latter, a tale of the 
 country of Longfellow's "Evangeline," was 
 destined to meet with a most favorable recep- 
 
 184 
 
MARSHALL SAUNDERS 
 
 tion. Many of the Acadians, it is known, 
 after enduring unutterable hardships in 
 exile, found their way back to the land of 
 their birth and there resettled the aban- 
 doned country and made new homes. In 
 the western part of Nova Scotia there is 
 one continuous village, thirty-five miles in 
 length, which winds about the sinuous 
 curve of St. Mary's Bay. It is here that 
 the Acadians live separately from the 
 English to the present day, and still pre- 
 serve their language, traditions, customs, 
 and unique manner of life. Here Miss 
 Saunders spent the summer of 1897, and 
 " Rose a Charlitte " was the resultant. 
 
 In 1899 appeared "Deficient Saints," a 
 story of Maine, in which the characters 
 were of the same wholesome purity that 
 has typified the productions of her imagi- 
 nation. They were descendants of an old 
 French family, whose home for many years 
 
 185 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 had been in Maine, and the plot dealt in 
 the reunion of the many branches of the 
 original house, and the obstructive work- 
 ings of the French and Puritan emotions 
 in each individual. It was soon followed 
 by " Her Sailor" (which was her first 
 novel rewritten), " For His Country," a 
 patriotic story for children, and « 'Tilda 
 Jane," which first appeared in the Youttis 
 Companion, and was from the beginning 
 a tremendous success. " 'Tilda Jane " is a 
 small orphan who seeks industriously for 
 a home, and the experiences through which 
 she passes in the endeavor to reach the 
 coveted object possess a pathetic humor 
 that is of peculiar charm. Miss Saunders 
 is exceedingly fond of local stories, and to 
 collect material for this narrative, travelled 
 through Maine with note-book in hand. 
 The orphan arouses interest because she 
 appeals to that longing in every human 
 186 
 
MARSHALL SAUNDERS 
 
 breast — the longing for a happy home. 
 " 'Tilda wanted a fire and a rocking-chair 
 and someone to smooth her head and call 
 her « my own dear child.' ' 
 
 Mr. Angell, president of the American 
 Humane Society, has said it is not enough 
 to educate the intellect, but that one must 
 also educate the heart. That the schools 
 and colleges are multiplying, but that 
 crime is on the increase. That if one but 
 teaches the little child his duty to the lower 
 creation, statistics prove that he will be 
 more mindful of duty to the higher. This 
 idea Miss Saunders has assimilated, and 
 consequently her pet hobby is that of hu- 
 mane education. 
 
 Her apprenticeship has indeed been a 
 long and varied one. Articles from her 
 pen, and of varying lengths, have appeared 
 in nearly every important magazine in this 
 country and in Canada, and, as she says of 
 
 187 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 " 'Tilda Jane," " I am learning all the time, 
 and have profited by former mistakes in 
 its composition." It is only rarely that a 
 real character is put into a story. The 
 heroine of " Beautiful Joe," was her own 
 beloved sister, who died at the age of 
 seventeen, and her character was faithfully 
 drawn ; but usually she prefers to use sug- 
 gestions — a little from here, there, and from 
 everywhere. 
 
 The fact that as a child she enjoyed boy's 
 books because they possessed more life and 
 energy than stories for girls, in some measure 
 accounts for the vitality that she has shown 
 in most of her productions. Throughout 
 her life she has been an omnivorous reader, 
 making literary pilgrimages in the city, to 
 the shrines of ancient and modern histori- 
 ans, and, when all else failed, taking to a 
 cyclopedia of anecdotes of literature and 
 fine arts. In the country, some of her dear- 
 188 
 
MARSHALL SAUNDERS 
 
 est spots were the old garrets. " From 
 their hiding places under the eaves, I 
 would draw out old books and back num- 
 bers of magazines. Reading has been one 
 of the greatest pleasures of my life." 
 
 Representing, as she does, the best and 
 purest moral force in literature, and in a 
 century when there seems to be danger of 
 a literary degradation through popular 
 clamor for books of a realistic and ques- 
 tionable type, it is just to hope for what 
 one of Dickens' characters so much de- 
 sired : " a plenty, an' as hot off'n the stove 
 as it will come." Though we cannot put 
 in a plea of a similar nature, — for literary 
 preparation, as all who try well know, must 
 be undertaken first with pains, and again 
 with time, in order to excel ; we can at 
 least make the additional remark, that the 
 world will be all the better for more 
 " Beautiful Joes " and " 'Tilda Janes." 
 
 189 
 

 ;; :? r pPF 
 
 
 mjpg 
 
 
 B « - mM 
 
 
 IB wHJIm i 
 
 
 
 KATE DOUGLAS WIG GIN. 
 
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN 
 (MRS. RIGGS) 
 
 jf$& postscript to a very amusing 
 /J letter which Kate Douglas Wiggin 
 -^ -*" had written to an inquisitive biog- 
 rapher, and which she had addressed to 
 " My dear Bos well," and playfully ended 
 with " Believe me, my dear Bozzy, Sin- 
 cerely your Johnson (K. D. W.)," her 
 sister added the following : 
 
 My sister was certainly a capable little 
 person at a tender age, concocting delectable 
 milk-toast, browning toothsome buckwheats, 
 and generally making a very good Parent's 
 Assistant. I have also visions of her toiling 
 at patchwork and oversewing sheets like a 
 nice old-fashioned little girl in a story-book; 
 and in connection with the linsey-woolsey 
 frock and the sled before mentioned, I see a 
 blue and white hood with a mass of shining 
 
 191 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 fair hair escaping below it, and a pair of very- 
 pink cheeks. 
 
 Further to illustrate her personality, I 
 think no one much in her company at any age 
 could have failed to note an exceedingly 
 lively tongue and a general air of executive 
 ability. 
 
 If I am to be truthful, I must say that I 
 recall few indications of budding authorship, 
 save an engrossing diary (kept for six 
 months only), and a devotion to reading. 
 
 Her " literary passions " were the " Arabian 
 Nights," " Scottish Chiefs," " Don Quixote," 
 " Thaddeus of Warsaw," Irving's " Mahomet," 
 Thackeray's " Snobs," " Undine," and the 
 "Martyrs of Spain." These volumes, joined 
 to an old green Shakespeare and a Plum 
 Pudding edition of Dickens, were the chief 
 of her diet. 
 
 But stay ! while I am talking of literary 
 tendencies, I do remember a certain prize 
 essay entitled " Pictures in the Clouds,"— not 
 so called because it took the prize, alas ! but 
 because it competed for it. 
 
 There is also a myth in the household 
 (doubtless invented by my mother) that my 
 192 
 
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN 
 
 sister learned her letters from the signs in 
 the street, and taught herself to read when 
 scarcely out of long clothes. This may be 
 cited as a bit of " corroborative detail/' though 
 personally I never believed in it. 
 Johnson's Sister, 
 
 K A. S. 
 
 The " lively tongue and general air of ex- 
 ecutive ability " which were hers as a child 
 are what have won her success in later 
 years. Wisdom and wit, practical knowl- 
 edge and capacity, have here been blended 
 with curious balance. Perhaps the varied 
 experiences of her career have been of ex- 
 ceptional influence, and have stimulated 
 a keener insight into things human, and a 
 more delicate and humorous appreciation 
 of certain phases of life than others possess. 
 Her ancestors, indeed, bestowed good gifts, 
 for they were men of prominence in the 
 church, in politics, and at the New England 
 bar, combining a certain shrewd humor 
 
 193 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 with stern Puritan wholesomeness, many 
 traditions of which have been handed down 
 in the family. Her environment has also 
 been diversified : born in Philadelphia, she 
 was educated in New England, next trans- 
 planted to California, and then brought 
 back to the Atlantic coast, where she has 
 only spasmodically remained. 
 
 The excellent and wholesome St. 
 Nicholas had the honor of receiving Kate 
 Douglas Smith's first article, written at the 
 age of eighteen, and for it donated the sum 
 of one hundred and fifty dollars. At the 
 time it was composed, she was studying 
 methods of the kindergarten under the 
 celebrated Emma Marshall in California, 
 and the story, " Half a Dozen House- 
 keepers," was relative to this interesting 
 work. To California she had moved after 
 the death of her stepfather, and here she 
 was teaching in the Santa Barbara College 
 194 
 
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN 
 
 when called upon to organize the first free 
 kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. 
 The " Silver Street Kindergarten " in San 
 Francisco was the outcome of her individual 
 efforts and those of her sister. It was not 
 only a great object lesson, but was the 
 progenitor of fifty-six other similar schools, 
 and the inspiration for similar efforts in 
 Japan, Australia, New Zealand, British 
 Columbia, and the Hawaiian Islands. The 
 first year of its existence fifteen hundred 
 people visited this novelty in primary edu- 
 cation, and it did effective and telling work, 
 for with the poorest of the city Mrs. Wiggin's 
 energy was principally devoted, and the 
 school was, — and is at the present time, — 
 located in the slums of San Francisco. 
 
 Upon the wall of one of the rooms which 
 is a favorite with the children, is a lifelike 
 portrait of the founder, underneath which 
 are the following words : 
 
 195 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 Kate Douglas Wiggest. 
 
 In this room was born the first free kin- 
 dergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. Let 
 me have the happiness of looking down upon 
 many successive groups of children sitting in 
 these same seats. 
 
 Shortly after the school had been placed 
 upon a stable basis, its originator was 
 united in marriage to Mr. Samuel Bradley 
 Wiggin, a talented young lawyer. She 
 now gave up teaching, but continued to 
 give weekly lectures to the training class, 
 and to visit the many kindergartens which 
 had resulted from the spirit and individu- 
 ality which she had infused into this move- 
 ment. She thus unconsciously obtained a 
 thorough knowledge of human nature, and 
 as a result of her observations " The Story 
 of Patsy " was written and printed in San 
 Francisco. It was to raise money for her 
 work, and three thousand copies were 
 196 
 
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN 
 
 quickly disposed of without the publisher's 
 aid. This was soon followed by " The 
 Birds' Christmas Carol," a book equally 
 popular and written with the same end in 
 view. 
 
 A few years later, in 1888, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Wiggin moved to New York, where 
 the friends of the brilliant authoress, who 
 at that time was totally unknown to the 
 East, urged upon her to offer the two books 
 to an Eastern publisher. Acting upon 
 their advice, she submitted " Pasty " and 
 the " Carol " to Houghton, Mifflin & Com- 
 pany, although it is not customary to re- 
 print work that has already appeared 
 elsewhere, and in book form. Their success 
 under the stamp of this great New England 
 house, was exceptional. 
 
 The children of " The Birds' Christmas 
 Carol " have endeared Kate Douglas Wiggin 
 to thousands in America and this is her most 
 
 197 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 popular work in Great Britain. It has been 
 translated into Japanese, French, German, 
 and Swedish, and has also been put into 
 raised type for the blind. 
 
 Her next publication, the story of "Timo- 
 thy's Quest," had an interesting beginning, 
 for it originated from the unsuspecting 
 remark of a little child, who, in speaking 
 of a certain house, quite wittily remarked, 
 "I think they need some babies there." 
 This Mrs. Wiggin remembered, and jotted 
 down in her notebook : " needing babies." 
 Soon afterwards the story of little Timothy 
 appeared. It is a favorite in Denmark, has 
 found its way into a Swedish edition, and has 
 also been published in the Tauchnitz series. 
 " Polly Oliver's Problem" was next writ- 
 ten, and has been highly praised by Rudyard 
 Kipling, who considers Polly Oliver the 
 most delightful heroine in English fiction. 
 It has likewise been translated into several 
 198 
 
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN 
 
 foreign languages, and is one of a collec- 
 tion of her books, with unique illustrations, 
 corresponding to the life of the country in 
 which they have been published. 
 
 Mr. Wiggin died soon after leaving San 
 Francisco, and his wife, who was separated 
 from her interesting employment in Cali- 
 fornia, threw herself with great energy into 
 the kindergarten movement in the city, 
 which, at the time, was absorbing much 
 popular attention, and was the subject of 
 considerable agitation in the newspapers. 
 In order to further the interests of her 
 work, she was eventually enticed to read 
 from her own books, and at this was most 
 successful. Her interpretation of her own 
 characters is full of taste and feeling, and 
 her reading has always been for purposes 
 of a purely philanthropic nature, and espe- 
 cially for her own pet cause, the introduc- 
 tion of kindergartens ; an object for which 
 
 199 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 she still works with untiring zeal and con- 
 tinued interest. Apropos of her affection 
 for literature, she has characteristically re- 
 marked that she would rather write a story 
 for the mere love of the creative work 
 than for the most exorbitant pay. 
 
 When a very young child she was brought 
 up at the quiet and secluded little hamlet 
 of Hollis, Maine, and since her return to 
 the East has completed most of her literary 
 work at a rambling old-fashioned house 
 called "Quilleote," — for those summers 
 which have not been passed in foreign 
 travel, have been spent in the seclusion of 
 this quaint family mansion. The house 
 itself is similar to many New England 
 homesteads, for it is of colonial architecture, 
 with broad eaves, and surrounded by grace- 
 ful elms. Its situation is upon a slight emi- 
 nence, from which one can well view the fer- 
 tile valleys that stretch in front, and, in the 
 200 
 
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN 
 
 distance, the undulating foot-hills of Mt. 
 Washington. 
 
 A glance into her sanctum upon the 
 second floor shows that here is a literary 
 workman who dearly loves order, for every 
 detail shows neatness and exactitude. In- 
 teresting gifts and souvenirs are scattered 
 about, together with many tributes 
 from admirers in various and far- distant 
 lands. The windows overlook a broad 
 plot of grass, studded with graceful trees, 
 where, from May till after nesting time, 
 robins, orioles, blue-birds, and many other 
 songsters, hold high and joyous carnival. 
 But a short distance away, at the foot of a 
 precipitous bank, the Saco river flows 
 quietly towards the sea — an ideal spot, 
 in fact, for delicate creations of the imagi- 
 nation. The " Pleasant River " in " Tim- 
 othy's Quest" is this winding stream, and 
 many of the scenes and descriptions in "The 
 
 201 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 Village Watch Tower" were taken from 
 this quiet neighborhood. 
 
 Since her marriage to Mr. George Chris- 
 topher Riggs, in 1895, Mrs. Riggs has spent 
 much time abroad, and has become closely 
 associated with the British Isles, for, al- 
 though no Anglomaniac, she is very fond 
 of the English people, and has many warm 
 friends across the Atlantic. "Penelope's 
 English Experiences " was an excellent 
 portrayal of her own impressions among 
 them; and from life in Edinburgh, spring- 
 times in the Highlands, and summer in the 
 fertile Lowlands, grew " Penelope's Pro- 
 gress," a book widely read and as much 
 appreciated and laughed over as heartily 
 in the land o' the heather as it has been in 
 America. During this time, Ireland had 
 only now and again received a flying visit, 
 and at rare intervals, but as the public 
 began to clamor for an Irish " Penelope," 
 202 
 
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN 
 
 to complete the series, in the summer of 
 1900 Mrs. Wiggin made a long journey to 
 the Isle of Erin, and as a result we had 
 the extraordinary and humorous " Penel- 
 ope's Irish Experiences." It is said that 
 when an English author heard of the pro- 
 posed visit he expressed his hearty approval 
 upon patriotic grounds, with the witty re- 
 mark that, if the projected book remained 
 unwritten, Ireland would for once have a 
 real grievance, and questions would be 
 asked in the House which Mr. Balfour 
 would find it difficult to answer. 
 
 203 
 
-:% 
 
 
 GERTRUDE ATHERTON. 
 
GERTRUDE ATHERTON 
 
 ^^^-*EN years ago the name of Ger- 
 m trade Atherton had a remote place 
 -*- in American literature. What 
 place does the name occupy to-day ? 
 
 It is really hard to say. One critic has 
 boldly likened her to George Eliot ; an- 
 other has spoken of her as a " literary 
 experimenter on generally unfortunate 
 subjects." Of one thing we are certain : 
 the reading public takes a lively interest 
 in her books. 
 
 Probably Mrs. Atherton would wish to be 
 judged by " Senator North." That story, to 
 be sure, appeared during a period of flamboy- 
 ant advertising, when many books were 
 expanded balloon-like — some of them to 
 explode ignominiously. Let us see what 
 
 205 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 sort of judgment was passed on the author 
 of " Senator North." 
 
 The critic who saw in her another George 
 Eliot said : " Mrs. Atherton ... is a real 
 writer in every sense of the word. She is 
 as born to tell stories as the men who 
 made the 'Arabian Nights,' and she has 
 that rare power of evoking a living human 
 being with a stroke or two, — with almost 
 the mere mention of a name. However she 
 may elaborate a character later on, we have 
 never to wait for that elaboration to realize 
 her heroes and heroines. Like a clever 
 hostess she has a gift for making them 
 really 'known' to the reader by little 
 more than saying Miss So-and-So, or she 
 will start off with a bit of dialogue that 
 subtly sets two people before you in less 
 than a page. Then she has command of 
 a spontaneous, direct, supple and pointed 
 prose style, which is entirely free from 
 206 
 
GERTRUDE ATHERTON 
 
 affectation . . . She is one of the wittiest of 
 modern writers, but the wit is the crack- 
 ling of the superabundant electricity of her 
 brain and not that paradoxical jigging of 
 the mind which is one of the warnings 
 of cerebral paralysis. She is 'smart,' of 
 course, at times, but all wit is sometimes 
 that. More than any living writer I can 
 think of, her wit reminds me, in its essen- 
 tial quality, of Mr. George Meredith — 
 though superficially, it lacks the manner- 
 isms which occasionally obscure the calm 
 spaces of that great wisdom. Real wit 
 flashes out of the full conquering mind, as 
 real laughter ripples from a full happy 
 heart, like wine out of a bottle." 
 
 Another opinion — possibly a minority 
 opinion — handed down, characterized 
 " Senator North " as " a somewhat hysteri- 
 cal study of Washington life." The judge 
 passed over the literary aspects of the case, 
 
 207 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 however, and differed with Mrs. Atherton 
 on sociological points. 
 
 It has been thus for the last six years. 
 We doubt that any other American roman- 
 cist divides the critics into two camps so 
 regularly and so resistlessly. Of the profit- 
 able faculty of exciting critical disputes Mrs. 
 Atherton is one of the largest possessors. 
 
 During the reign of " Senator North " 
 we met the suggestion that an Atherton 
 " birthday book " might be compiled. 
 
 Here are a few quotations, taken at ran- 
 dom from " Senator North," that illustrate 
 the author's wit and wisdom : 
 
 " Betty (the heroine — of course you re- 
 member Betty Madison) had been educated 
 by private tutors, then taken abroad for 
 two years to France, Germany and Italy, 
 in order, as she herself observed, to make 
 the foreign attache* feel more at ease when 
 he proposed." 
 208 
 
GERTRUDE ATHERTON 
 
 " We are none of us taken long for what 
 we are not." 
 
 " Betty thought the women very nice, 
 but less interesting than the men, possibly 
 because they were women." 
 
 " The good in human nature predomi- 
 nates." 
 
 " Washington had a brain of ice, and 
 his ideal of American propriety was frozen 
 within it." 
 
 " Women make a god of what they can- 
 not understand in a man. If he has a bad 
 temper they think of him as a dominant 
 personality." 
 
 " Her husband, brilliant and charming, 
 had possessed a set of affections too rest- 
 less and ardent to confine themselves 
 within the domestic limits. His wife had 
 buried him with sorrow, but with a deep 
 sigh of relief that for the future she could 
 mourn him without protest." 
 
 209 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 " You always have prided yourself," re- 
 marks Betty, " that I am intellectual, and 
 so I am in the flabby ' well-read ' fashion. I 
 feel as if my brain had been a mausoleum 
 for skeletons and mummies." 
 
 Frankly, we discover nothing in Mrs. 
 Atherton to warrant crowning her with 
 the laurels worn by George Eliot. As we 
 have already said, " Senator North " and 
 its predecessors all stirred up more or less 
 controversy, sometimes social, as in the 
 case of "American Men and English 
 Women," but more often literary. For 
 strictly within the limits of literary criti- 
 cism stands the matter of choice of a sub- 
 ject; and even her staunchest admirers 
 would not claim that the Calif ornian writer 
 has been very happy in the choice of sub- 
 jects. By subjects we mean especially, 
 characters, of which, perhaps, the most 
 unfortunate is the young woman in "A 
 210 
 
GERTRUDE ATHERTON 
 
 Daughter of the Vine." Admitted too by 
 some of her most enthusiastic adherents is 
 the fact that Mrs. Atherton's genius is a 
 variable quality. " She is unequal, of 
 course," remarks one, "but seeing that 
 every real writer that ever lived has been 
 * unequal,' and the greatest most unequal, 
 it is a weak concession to modern phases 
 of criticism even to mention that universal 
 limitation." 
 
 Yes, Mrs. Atherton is "unequal," indeed. 
 Inequality — if that be the word — is promi- 
 nent in her intellectual make-up. Her 
 writings fit the description of her move- 
 ments — uncertain, impetuous. One day 
 she is penning a chapter to fascinate her 
 friends and stagger the poor literary gen- 
 tly ; the next day she is airing her opinions 
 in the columns of a yellow journal. 
 
 Mrs. Atherton was born in the Rincon 
 Hill quarter of San Francisco in 1857. 
 
 211 
 
LITTLE PILGRI MAGES 
 
 Her mother was the daughter of Stephen 
 Franklin, a descendant of the immortal 
 Benjamin's youngest brother, John. Ste- 
 phen Franklin left Oxford, N. Y., when he 
 was a young man and went to New Or- 
 leans, where, after having amassed a large 
 fortune, he was almost ruined by a false 
 partner. He then moved from New Or- 
 leans to Central America and later to 
 California, where before long he became 
 influential. When his daughter, who had 
 been educated at Spingler Institute, in 
 New York City, arrived in California, she 
 was hailed as the most beautiful girl in 
 the country. She married Thomas L. 
 Horn, a native of Stonington, Conn., who 
 was a prominent citizen of San Francisco 
 and a member of the historical Vigilant 
 Committee. 
 
 Gertrude attended various small private 
 schools for a time ; afterwards she was a 
 212 
 
GERTRUDE ATHERTON 
 
 pupil at St. Mary's Hall, Benicia, Cali- 
 fornia, and at Sayre Institute, Lexington, 
 Ky. But delicate health kept her away 
 from school a great deal, and thus she 
 came to enjoy the tutelage of her grand- 
 parents. At the age of four she was 
 taught reading and spelling by her grand- 
 mother. Her grandfather, Mr. Franklin, 
 who meantime had established the first 
 newspaper of San Francisco, The Golden 
 Era, possessed the largest private library 
 in the State, and therein Gertrude was free 
 to browse before she entered her 'teens. 
 It is not to be wondered at that her mind 
 had an early development ; that it acquired 
 some masculinity and considerable origi- 
 nality ; that it formed a taste for strange- 
 flavored literature. And there was an 
 abundance of that kind of literature in 
 the library — books that had come down 
 from generation to generation. We can 
 
 213 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 trace back to this juvenile independence, 
 this mingling of youth with old age, many 
 of the author's idiosyncrasies. Although 
 the Greek and Latin classics were in the 
 library, we have been informed that Ger- 
 trude derived her knowledge of ancient lit- 
 erature mostly from translations. For this 
 Emerson would have applauded her — and 
 Gladstone scolded her. 
 
 Gertrude still had two years of school 
 before her when she married George Henry 
 Bowen Atherton, of Menlo Park, Califor- 
 nia, a Chilean by birth, as was his mother, 
 but an American on his father's side. At 
 the time of the marriage the Athertons, 
 socially, were the leading family of Cali- 
 fornia. 
 
 Of the beginning of her literary career 
 
 Mrs. Atherton has informed us : "I began 
 
 to write, or rather to compose, which took 
 
 then the form of spinning astonishing 
 
 214 
 
GERTRUDE ATHERTON 
 
 yarns about my daily doings, when I was 
 at some tender age, and when I went to 
 school I remember the big girls gave me 
 blank books in which to write stories for 
 them. The first story I published, shortly 
 after I married, was called l The Ran- 
 dolphs of Redwoods,' and was the same 
 fundamentally as 'A Daughter of the Vine.' 
 It was published in the San Francisco Ar- 
 gonaut. The name of my first published 
 book — although I should like all my an- 
 cient and amateur efforts to rest decently 
 in their graves — was ' What Dreams May 
 Come,' which came out in 1888. Then 
 came ' Hermia Suydam,' < Los Cerritos,' 
 4 The Doomswoman,' ' A Whirl Asun- 
 der,' 'Patience Sparhawk and Her Times,' 
 4 His Fortunate Grace,' <• American Wives 
 and English Husbands,' 'The Calif or- 
 nians,' 'A Daughter of the Vine,' and 
 < Senator North.' " 
 
 215 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 At the age of fifteen, we are told, she 
 wrote a play, which was acted at St. Mary's 
 Hall, Benicia, Cal. 
 
 It was Mrs. Atherton's early purpose to 
 exploit the romance of the juvenile age of 
 the far West. She went about her task 
 wisely and energetically. There was a 
 temptation to depend upon the more or less 
 mythical tradition which from time to 
 time found its way into the San Francisco 
 newspapers, but Mrs. Atherton put this 
 aside and went straight to headquarters. 
 They say that she made her residence in 
 the old adobe settlements, and with sharp- 
 ened eyes and ears, mixed with the sur- 
 viving Spanish pioneers. For they, too, 
 were pioneers, those hardy, brownfaced 
 men and women from over the sea — 
 pioneers no less than the Americans who 
 pushed on farther north, even to the shores 
 of the Columbia. And though their his- 
 216 
 
GERTRUDE ATHERTON 
 
 tory has less of the strenuous in it than 
 that of the resolute state-makers who fol- 
 lowed Lewis and Clark, still it has as much 
 of the picturesque and of the romantic. 
 Out of these experiences Mrs. Atherton 
 wrote " Before the Gringo Came," which 
 was published in 1893. Her first books 
 were as rounds of the ladder. " Patience 
 Sparhawk" finally brought her into promi- 
 nence. We mean literary prominence. 
 Her sharp comments on Anglo-American 
 society had elevated her to the distinction 
 of a subject of public controversy. 
 
 Naturally enough, Mrs. Atherton's popu- 
 larity was first established in the West ; 
 and it is the West that up to to-day has been 
 truest to her. It is in the West that one 
 still meets such a remark as this, for in- 
 stance : " But, whatever her shortcomings, 
 Mrs. Atherton is the buoyant possessor of 
 three important qualities of the novelist — 
 
 217 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 the novelist, that is, pure and simple : 
 She compels one to read on, she can tell a 
 story, and she creates characters — and all 
 these things she does, not because she 
 tries, but because she cannot help it." 
 
 We still meet readers — and many readers, 
 by the way, are persons of superlatively 
 fine judgment — who prefer " Patience 
 Sparhawk and Her Times, " which was 
 published in 1897, to all the other Ather- 
 ton books. Certainly, previous to " Sena- 
 tor North," it was the novelist's most 
 ambitious and most praiseworthy effort. 
 It came within an ace of being a literary 
 phenomenon. For it must be remembered 
 that in her youth, Mrs. Atherton missed 
 many of the advantages enjoyed by the 
 average girl. San Francisco, to be sure, 
 was not without a strong literary atmos- 
 phere ; nor was it without the appearances 
 of polite society (vide Bret Harte's "Under 
 218 
 
GERTRUDE ATHERTON 
 
 the Redwoods "). But Gertrude had been 
 pent-up, immured, and she had been fed 
 mostly at the old-fashioned classical table. 
 We have been informed that, until her 
 marriage, she had only the barest acquaint- 
 ance with modern fiction, that is, we pre- 
 sume, with American novels. This is 
 much the same as if Claude Monet had in 
 his youth been acquainted only with Peru- 
 gino and Fra Angelico. Fancy an impres- 
 sionist reared on such a diet ! 
 
 But it was in Mrs. Atherton to write 
 powerfully and originally — almost as pow- 
 erfully and originally, sometimes, as any 
 other woman among her contemporaries. 
 
 After her husband's death, Mrs. Ather- 
 ton crossed the continent to New York; 
 then she spent some years abroad. She 
 went abroad, she declares, rather bitterly, 
 " to make my reputation, for the press and 
 the literary powers here fought me per- 
 
 219 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 sistently — I suppose because I was not a 
 child of the regiment. Now a great many 
 American publishers ask for my books." 
 
 The press and the literary powers of the 
 country may have fought her persistently, 
 but they could not have fought her mali- 
 ciously. She also declares that she thinks 
 " with the advanced minority — which is 
 precious small in this country." Such a 
 declaration, coming from a woman, com- 
 pels silence. Mrs. Atherton, by the way, 
 is to return to Europe very soon. 
 
 During the greater part of the year she 
 has been engaged on a dramatized biog- 
 raphy — as she calls it — of Alexander 
 Hamilton. She says of it: "A novel is a 
 pivotal thing. This is written with the 
 sequence of biography, nothing omitted, 
 not even funding, taxes and finance ! but 
 the personalities carry off the tiresome sub- 
 jects — to the average reader — and there 
 220 
 
GERTRUDE ATHERTON 
 
 is no great amount of detail." She will 
 also edit a volume of Hamilton's letters ! 
 The dramatized biography is due to appear 
 early this season under the title of " The 
 Conqueror." 
 
 221 
 

Photo by Chancellor, Dublin. 
 
 JOHN OLIVER HOBBES. 
 
JOHN OLIVER HOBBES 
 (MRS. CRAIGIE) 
 
 £^*OHN OLIVER HOBBES is the 
 
 # pseudonym of Mrs. Pearl Mary 
 I Teresa Craigie. It appeared first in 
 1891, in the Pseudonym Library, over the 
 study entitled " Some Emotions and a 
 Moral." It is related that the first publisher 
 to whom that story was offered accepted it 
 on condition that the author find another 
 title and make other lesser changes. She 
 refused to make a single change, and the 
 work finally went to a more courageous 
 — and, we may say, — longer-headed pub- 
 lisher. "The author proposes and the 
 publisher disposes," is not an e very-day 
 maxim. 
 
 Mrs. Craigie (doubtless many readers 
 
 223 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 will be surprised to learn it) was born in 
 Boston, Mass., on Nov. 3, 1867. Her 
 mother's maiden name was Laura Hor- 
 tense Arnold. Her father, John Morgan 
 Richards, is the son of the Rev. James 
 Richards, D.D., the founder of Auburn 
 Theological Seminary, New York. Pearl 
 was educated first privately, by tutors, 
 then in Paris, and then in London, where, 
 for a good many years, her father has 
 chosen to reside. In London she was a pu- 
 pil at University College. There she stud- 
 ied the ancient classics enthusiastically; 
 and there she attracted the attention of 
 the well-known Professor Goodwin, by 
 whose advice, later, she took up literature 
 as a profession. 
 
 In 1887, at the age of nineteen, she was 
 
 married to Mr. Reginald Walpole Craigie, 
 
 a member of a well-established English 
 
 family. Four years after the marriage she 
 
 224 
 
JOHN OLIVER HOBBES 
 
 left her husband, taking with her their 
 child, John Churchill Craigie, who was 
 born in August, 1890; and in 1895 the 
 separation culminated in a divorce. Since 
 then Mrs. Craigie and her son have lived 
 with her parents at 56 Lancaster Gate, W., 
 London. Her amusements are music and 
 chess. 
 
 This, in brief, is the biography of one of 
 the most brilliant figures in contemporary 
 English literature. And we hasten to claim 
 her for America, for, notwithstanding her 
 long residence abroad, notwithstanding her 
 English interests and associations, she is at 
 heart, we hear, " a very staunch American." 
 But, in the first place, she is an intellec- 
 tual cosmopolite. Her gifts have brought 
 back to her a welcome from wherever men 
 and women read English; and to-day 
 English is the language of the four corners 
 of the globe. 
 
 225 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 In one respect, Mrs. Craigie reminds us 
 of her greatest hero, Robert Orange. We 
 do not need to lift the veil of domesticity 
 to form the opinion that married life half- 
 stifled her ambition. She was not born to 
 serve two masters. Orange was too sin- 
 cere a man to take advantage of Parflete's 
 death. His heart said "Rome," and to 
 Rome he went ; and we can see him going, 
 tranquilly yet determinedly. In some 
 such manner, we fancy, Mrs. Craigie must 
 have gone back to her father's house. 
 Literally, too, she went to Rome, for she 
 became a Roman Catholic in 1892, the 
 year following the separation from her 
 husband. 
 
 The year 1891 was doubly momentous. 
 It saw not only her departure from under 
 her husband's roof, but also the publica- 
 tion of her first book, "Some Emotions 
 and a Moral." We have been informed 
 226 
 
JOHN OLIVER HOBBES 
 
 that eighty thousand copies were sold in a 
 few weeks ; anyhow, it is a positive fact 
 that the book was one of the sensations of 
 the day. For a long while the reading 
 public remained incredulous over the an- 
 nouncement that the author was a woman. 
 It was not merely the pseudonym, John 
 Oliver Hobbes, that excited the incredu- 
 lity ; it was also the form and the style of 
 the book itself. 
 
 Mrs. Craigie once remarked that women 
 are at a disadvantage in picturing men in 
 their relations one to the other, particu- 
 larly in the intimate relations of the mess- 
 room and the smoking-room, and she cited 
 Jane Austen's consummate tact in eluding 
 the difficulty by keeping men apart, or, 
 rather, by keeping them in the society of 
 women. It oftentimes demands consum- 
 mate tact to enforce the realization of a 
 limitation ; and in an artist the inability 
 
 227 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 to paint things as they are seen is certainly 
 a grave limitation. Of such a limitation the 
 author of " Robert Orange " — we mention 
 her most notable book — betrays no con- 
 sciousness, for it is not in her. She affords us 
 the enjoyment rather of consummate skill 
 than of consummate tact. Therein she re- 
 sembles, not Jane Austen, but George Eliot. 
 At the same time, we remember that 
 when " Robert Orange " was the rage, 
 some critics charged Mrs. Craigie with a 
 lack of the power of convincing. " This 
 is a fanciful hero," they declared. " Can 
 a man love a woman so humanly, so de- 
 liriously as is herein depicted," asked one 
 of them, " while being simultaneously 
 drawn toward the monastic life ? " The 
 novelist gave the best of answers — that 
 Robert Orange was no mere production of 
 the imagination, no embodiment of an idea, 
 but a study from life. 
 228 
 
JOHN OLIVER HOBBES 
 
 The fact is, to make use of the novelist's 
 expression, " Character is infinitely vari- 
 ous, and the possibilities of action are in- 
 exhaustible. When a fictitious personage 
 does or says an incredible thing — of course 
 I am not speaking of fairy tales, but of fic- 
 tion that bears some relation to fact — it 
 is incredible, not in the abstract, as it were, 
 but because it is wrongly correlated to the 
 individual character. Speaking for my- 
 self, I hate and distrust plausibility. No 
 writer is so little plausible as Balzac. His 
 people are as full of surprises as our own 
 most intimate friends ! " 
 
 We recall the comment that Mrs. 
 Craigie's pages are filled with such subtle 
 observations, straight philosophy and shin- 
 ing epigrams that they must be read slowly 
 to be enjoyed. They are indeed, as a rule, 
 pages relishable to the last word. Their 
 psychology is always interesting and some- 
 
 229 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 times deeply affecting. They are pages 
 not made to snit Marion Crawford's dictum, 
 that a novel should be mere entertainment 
 — assuming that his definition of enter- 
 tainment goes no further than shivers and 
 laughs. They who have found Mr. Craw- 
 ford's " In the Palace of the King " the 
 best of entertainment may have gone to 
 sleep over Mrs. Craigie's " The School for 
 Saints." Plausibility is not always to be 
 distrusted. How prolix to such persons 
 must have seemed the pages describing the 
 journey of the hero and the heroine of 
 ''Robert Orange" to St. Malo. Orange 
 had suddenly plunged from irresolution 
 into marriage, and, as he looked down on 
 Brigit's face in the starlight, his secret 
 ideals returned to trouble him. The 
 author suddenly plunges into the philoso- 
 phy of the situation : 
 
 "Men's designs are never so indefinite 
 230 
 
JOHN OLIVER HOBBES 
 
 and confused as when they meet with no 
 outward resistance. A close attack has 
 proved the salvation of most human wills 
 and roused the energy of many drooping 
 convictions. It is seldom good that one 
 should enter into any vocation very easily, 
 sweetly, and without strife. The best 
 apprenticeships, whether ecclesiastical or 
 religious, or civil or military, or political 
 or artistic, are never the most calm. 
 Whether we study the lives of saints or the 
 lives of those distinguished in any walk of 
 human endeavor where perfection, in some 
 degree or other, has been at least the goal, 
 we always find that the first years of the 
 pursuit have been one bitter history of 
 temptations, doubts, despondencies, strug- 
 gles, and agonizing inconsistencies of vo- 
 lition. To natures cold originally, or 
 extinguished by a false asceticism, many 
 seeming acts of sacrifice are but the subtle 
 
 231 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 indulgence of that curious selfishness which 
 is not the more spiritual because it is inde- 
 pendent of others, or the less repulsive 
 because it is most contented in its isolation 
 from every responsibility. A renunciation 
 means the deliberate putting away of some- 
 thing keenly loved, anxiously desired, or 
 actually possessed; it does not mean a 
 well-weighed acceptance of the lesser, 
 rather than the greater, trials of life." 
 
 All this in a breath, we may say ; and yet, a 
 dozen lines further on, begins another page 
 of philosophical speculations. Mrs. Craigie 
 is not content to paint the body : she must 
 paint the soul also. For the most part 
 they are the speculations met on the road 
 from Aristotle to Cardinal Newman; but, 
 for the most part, too, they have been 
 freshened and garnished in the novelist's 
 analytical mind. Her analytical faculties 
 seem to have undergone a large development 
 232 
 
JOHN OLIVER HOBBES 
 
 during the period of her domestic trouble 
 and religious doubts. It was then, for the 
 first time, that her mind came into contact 
 with the minds of the great Christian psy- 
 chologists. " Has it ever struck you," she 
 asked a visitor casually, " that the Church 
 of Rome, which alone among the churches 
 of Western Europe enjoins and enforces con- 
 tinual examinations of conscience, is the real 
 creator of modern analytical fiction ? The 
 Fathers of the Church are the fathers of 
 psychology. St. Augustine, St. Thomas 
 Aquinas, St. Bernard, and Abelard — where 
 will you find subtler soul-searching than in 
 their writings?" 
 
 In soul-searching, the author of "Love 
 and the Soul-Hunters" — an appropriate 
 title for the moment — is not excelled by 
 any of her contemporaries, not even by the 
 chirurgical dare-devil, Gabriele d' Annunzio. 
 Yet she has also written passages of heart- 
 
 233 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 touching tenderness, nor is she above 
 smiles and little satires. Indeed, to men- 
 tion love, who that ever reads it can soon 
 forget the impassioned confession of Lady 
 Sara-Louise-Tatiana- Valerie De Treverell : 
 " . . . I never say my prayers, because I 
 cannot say them, but I love somebody, too. 
 Whenever I hear his name I could faint. 
 When I see him I could sink into the 
 ground. At the sight of his handwriting 
 I grow cold from head to foot, I tremble, 
 my heart aches so that it seems breaking 
 in two. I long to be with him, yet when 
 I am with him I have nothing to say. I 
 have to escape and be miserable all alone. 
 He is my thought all day : the last before 
 I sleep, the first when I awake. I could 
 cry, and cry, and cry. I try to read, and I 
 remember not a word. I like playing best, 
 for then I can almost imagine that he is 
 listening. But when I stop playing and 
 234 
 
JOHN OLIVER HOBBES 
 
 look round, I find myself in an empty 
 room. It is awful ! I call his name ; no 
 one answers. I whisper it; still no an- 
 swer. I throw myself on the ground, and 
 I say, ' Think of me ! think of me ! you 
 shall, you must, you do think of me ! ' It 
 is great torture and a great despair. Per- 
 haps it is a madness, too. But it is my 
 way of loving. I want to live while I 
 live. If I knew for certain that he loved 
 me — me only — the joy, I think, would 
 kill me. Love ! Do you know, poor little 
 angel, what it means? Sometimes it is a 
 curse." 
 
 It is more than plausible that Pensee, 
 who had to listen to this, was really " shak- 
 ing like some small flower in a violent 
 gale." 
 
 Lately Mrs. Craigie has done some writ- 
 ing for the stage. Without question the 
 best of her plays is " The Ambassador," 
 
 235 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 which fulfils Mr. Howells's ideal, for like 
 one of the best of Oscar Wilde's plays or 
 Mr. Pinero's, it is as lustrous between 
 covers as in the theatre. But all in all, our 
 heroine's career as a playwright has not 
 been a flattering experience, and we were 
 not unprepared for her recent statement 
 that " the public does not want to think in 
 the theatre, or to have the serious aspects of 
 life forced upon its attention. What it 
 chiefly wants is flattery," and so on, in the 
 traditional manner of the fallen idol. 
 Fortunately, perhaps, for the reputation of 
 Alexander, he had no other worlds to 
 conquer. 
 
 " Love and the Soul-Hunters " is the 
 novel on which Mrs. Craigie has been 
 working lately. She writes us that she 
 also has in mind a serial story for Harper's 
 and a play. 
 
 The novelist is described as " a slender 
 236 
 
JOHN OLIVER HOBBES 
 
 woman, not very tall, but very well built. 
 Her face, eyes and hair are dark, and she 
 has a wonderful sort of personal magnetism 
 which, her friends believe, would have 
 served her well had she gone on the stage." 
 She has occasionally gone to a convent to 
 write, for her temperament demands tran- 
 quillity. When in London she writes in 
 the library, which is on the first floor of 
 the Richards house. In the summer most 
 of her work is done at Steephill Castle, 
 Isle of Wight. 
 
 She sits for hours ruminating on her 
 plots, then she writes, rapidly, accurately. 
 Literally she transfers the story chapter by 
 chapter from her mind to the paper on the 
 table before her. In society she is said to 
 have been admired — mostly for her intel- 
 lectual charms — since her school days. 
 Although not robust in health — she gen- 
 erally spends the winter in the south of 
 
 237 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 Europe or in Egypt — she does an amount 
 of work that quite nullifies the effect of 
 her remark to Mr. Archer (" Real Conver- 
 sations," in the Critic) that "in all our 
 speculations upon the differences of faculty 
 in the two sexes, we are rather apt to for- 
 get the effect of the fundamental difference 
 in mere bodily power of endurance." 
 
 238 
 
"op right. 1890, by G. W. Varney, Chicago. 
 
 LILIAN BELL. 
 
ELIZABETH STUAKT PHELPS. 
 
LILIAN BELL 
 (MRS. BOGUE) 
 
 LILIAN BELL (Mrs. Arthur Hoyt 
 Bogue) may justly take pride in 
 her originality and her enthusiasm. 
 She is one of the most forceful figures 
 in American literature. What she writes 
 is as far from conventionality, as the sun is 
 distant from the earth. She is young, and, 
 like every other original and enthusiastic 
 person, she has her faults — faults technical 
 as well as temperamental. But we must 
 credit her with the purpose of living to 
 learn, and though, as in her best work, 
 " The Expatriates," there is some dross 
 mingled with the gold, the dross will all be 
 smelted out some day. Then she will move 
 a round higher on the ladder. 
 
 Her writings largely reflect her own ex- 
 
 239 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 periences and her own opinions. For in- 
 stance, two years ago, in Boston, speaking 
 of the United States army, she said : 
 
 " The men are splendidly brave, intelli- 
 gent and efficient so far as the little force 
 goes ; but the minute an army officer gets 
 away from the barracks he puts on civilian's 
 dress, and that, to my mind, is entirely 
 wrong. There ought to be a rule compel- 
 ling officers and men in our army to wear 
 their uniforms at all times. This would 
 keep the army in the people's minds, and 
 make them realize that it is a real thing and 
 a part of the nation that they can be proud 
 of . . . . You never see army officers on the 
 streets or in public places in uniform ; they 
 act as if they were ashamed of it. I am 
 proud of our army and I think we ought 
 to make more of it than we do. If I were a 
 man there 'd be no other career on earth for 
 me. My brother is an officer, and it is the 
 240 
 
LILIAN BELL 
 
 delight of my heart that he is permanently 
 in the service, and employed in the defence 
 of my beautiful America, and that he will 
 live his whole life under the shadow of the 
 flag." (Her brother, to whom, by the way, 
 her latest story, "Sir John and the Ameri- 
 can Girl," is dedicated, is a lieutenant in 
 the 17th Infantry, U. S. A., now stationed 
 in the Philippines.) 
 
 Rose Hollenden expresses virtually the 
 same sentiments in " The Expatriates." 
 Indeed, in that singularly interesting and 
 strangely abused novel you will find many 
 traces of the author's experiences and opin- 
 ions. You may remember the episode at the 
 reception given by the American ambassa- 
 dor to France, Mr. Sharp : 
 
 " But suddenly Rose saw the tall, bent 
 figure of the American ambassador ap- 
 proaching. As he neared the Marquise 
 d'Auteil, she turned from Prince Orion , 
 
 241 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 and, mistaking Mr. Sharp for a servant, 
 she said, in a distinct tone which everybody 
 heard : 
 
 " Garc,on, call the carriage of the Mar- 
 quise d'Auteil ! " 
 
 The incident took us back to what Lil- 
 ian Bell had said in an interview, long be- 
 fore the publication of the book, — when 
 she was at work on it, no doubt, — that "our 
 ambassadors ought to have a uniform or 
 some sort of dress to distinguish them from 
 the common herd." Superficially the sen- 
 timent is not democratic ; but it was the 
 author's sense of dignity that spoke. She 
 related how she attended an important ball 
 at the French capital. " The ambassadors 
 from other nations appeared in splendid 
 uniforms. They looked like somebodies. 
 Even little Portugal, and Brazil, and Peru, 
 and Mexico, were represented by men who 
 kept up the dignity and the importance of 
 242 
 
LILIAN BELL 
 
 their states ; while the ambassador of the 
 United States could not be told from the 
 waiters, except that they were better 
 dressed. It is outrageous. No wonder they 
 despise us abroad." 
 
 Times have changed, and European tem- 
 pers, too, we may be permitted to remark. 
 But a comparison of Mrs. Bogue's writings 
 and sayings is forced upon the critic who 
 would do justice to her work, inasmuch as 
 it generally shows her to be consistent. 
 We sincerely believe that she is a woman 
 who practices what she preaches. She is 
 not frivolous and imaginative ; she is decid- 
 edly serious and intellectual. 
 
 She inherits her lively patriotism. Her 
 father, Maj. William W. Bell, served his 
 country gallantly during the Civil War, 
 and so did her grandfather, Gen. Joseph 
 Warren Bell, who, though a Southerner, 
 sold and freed his slaves before the war, 
 
 243 
 
LITTLE PILGKIMAGES 
 
 brought his family North, and organized 
 the 13th Illinois Cavalry. Among the 
 Virginian patriots at the time of the Revo- 
 lution was her great - great - grandfather, 
 Captain Thomas Bell. 
 
 Lilian Bell was born in Chicago in 1867, 
 but she was brought up in Atlanta. At an 
 early age she took pleasure in writing. 
 She once said : 
 
 " I wrote my first story at the age of eight. 
 Later, when I was in school, there was a 
 certain girl whom I loved, and still love, 
 devotedly. She so detested writing essays 
 that she would let her general average drop 
 twenty per cent., for she always got zero for 
 being unprepared. She was older than I 
 by two years, but a little mite of a thing, 
 and I worshiped her so much that I used 
 to write the essays for her. Usually I 'd 
 ask her, about two hours before they had 
 to be handed in, 'Written your essay?' 
 244 
 
LILIAN BELL 
 
 No, she couldn 't write it. ' What's your 
 subject? ' Then I would write it for her; 
 and I used to take the keenest enjoyment 
 in writing it as she would have written it, 
 in looking at it from her point of view, and 
 making the thing sound like her. It used 
 to be a source of great glee to me that I 
 could get her a hundred every time, though 
 I couldn 't always get that much for myself ; 
 they marked according to supposed ability. 
 Later I wrote various novels of interminably 
 long chapters, and read them to four or five 
 wondering girls who used to come to my 
 house Fridays to stay over Sunday. No, 
 those were never published. My mother 
 burned them, together with a voluminous 
 diary I thought I was keeping. She 's been 
 ever so good to me in heaps of ways! 
 Still later I began writing for a newspaper. 
 I was getting the magnificent sum of eight 
 dollars a column, and was n't spending a cent 
 
 245 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 of it — just saving it to look at. One day 
 an old friend said to me : * Are you writing 
 much now ? ' I said : ' Yes, and every line 
 I write gets printed.' < That 's too bad,' said 
 he ; ' I 'm very sorry.' < Why, what do you 
 mean?' said I. 'If everything you write 
 gets printed, it shows you 're not advancing.' 
 That was startling. I stopped writing en- 
 tirely after that, and read — oh, how I de- 
 voured books and magazines, trying to see 
 how people that could write did things, try- 
 ing to get hold of the elements of style, 
 trying, in short, to master English. 
 
 " I began to write things and sent them 
 out, and they always came back promptly. I 
 did n't care ; I sent them out again and kept on 
 writing. . . . One day an idea for a story 
 occurred to me, and I wrote ' The Heart of 
 Brier Rose' and sent it to the Harpers, who 
 accepted it and asked for more. Soon after 
 that I wrote ' The Love Affairs,' and sent 
 246 
 
LILIAN BELL 
 
 that to them. They accepted it, and since 
 then everything I 've written has been en- 
 gaged beforehand. But don't imagine I 
 work by contract. I never could and never 
 will engage to do a certain piece of work in 
 a given time. There 's merely an under- 
 standing that if I write a story and send it 
 along they '11 take it." 
 
 Zola himself could not desire a more flat- 
 tering arrangement. 
 
 Mrs. Bogue was twenty-six when, in 1893, 
 " The Love Affairs of an Old Maid " was 
 published. Her wit was green then, but her 
 uncommon sense of humor was ripe. She is 
 too serious, too objective, to be a first-water 
 humorist; nor has she ever had a desire to 
 be one, we understand. 
 
 A Chicago writer has given us a story 
 illustrating Lilian Bell's characteristic sense 
 of humor. It seems that soon after her grad- 
 uation from Dearborn Seminary, Chicago, 
 
 247 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 she was invited to read an essay on " Literary 
 Women of Germany in the Middle Ages " at 
 an alumnae entertainment. Lilian discovered 
 a scarcity of material, and she so reported. 
 u y er y well, Miss Bell, I see you do not care 
 to accommodate me," said the principal, " I 
 shall have to disappoint our guests." " No, 
 no," protested the young graduate. " If you 
 insist upon it I will do the best I can." The 
 story goes on: 
 
 " So Miss Bell wrote a most remarkable 
 account of the literary women of Germany 
 in the Middle Ages. There was a score of 
 them, all of surprising brilliancy. They 
 guided not only the culture of the country, 
 but the politics, and the social life of the 
 court. Nothing of importance happened 
 without their participation. The most re- 
 nowned of the group, after passing through 
 all sorts of adventures, jumped through an 
 open window, four stories up, attempting to 
 248 
 
LILIAN BELL 
 
 descend safely by using her umbrella as a 
 parachute. The parachute failed to work. 
 She was dashed to bits, and the miserable 
 prince whose attentions had driven her to 
 the fatal step, went away to war, threw him- 
 self in the forefront of the battle and was 
 killed. At judicious intervals in her essay 
 Miss Bell inserted the names and meagre 
 history of three literary women who had 
 really existed. The composition was a great 
 success. All the cultured guests, many of 
 them members of Chicago's literary set, 
 commended its erudition and its dramatic 
 interest. 
 
 "I knew you could give us something 
 good if you only tried, my dear," said 
 the lady principal, all smiles. Miss Bell 
 then coolly announced that she had been 
 trying her hand at romance, in the absence 
 of facts." 
 
 " Every book, that is, every real book," 
 
 249 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 says Mrs. Bogue, "has in it something 
 which the writer could not have helped 
 putting into it, and which no one else 
 could have put into it by main strength. 
 One of the things I have cared about par- 
 ticularly is to be an individual, not a mem- 
 ber of a group or of a class. I think it 
 is more worth while if your work is a thing 
 of its own kind — if, in it, you are your- 
 self, instead of being merely a woman 
 who has done good work in common with 
 others, along a certain line. I 'd rather 
 elude classification ; I should hate to be 
 pigeon-holed." 
 
 Yet some critics have had the poor judg- 
 ment to classify her as a writer of " light 
 fiction" and of "summer literature." 
 
 The reader will find an excellent sample 
 
 of her vehement satire in the description 
 
 in " The Expatriates " of the concert 
 
 aboard the St. Louis. There is a moral as 
 
 250 
 
LILIAN BELL 
 
 well as fun in the discomfiture of the 
 Americans that could not sing " The Star 
 Spangled Banner." 
 
 "It is queer," remarks the novelist, in 
 discussing her work, " how differently 
 books write themselves. The first chapter 
 of * The Love Affairs ' is exactly like the 
 first draft. It suited me. The first chap- 
 ter of 4 A Little Sister to the Wilderness,' 
 was written thirty-two times. That is the 
 only one of my books that has been written 
 from the outside, and it was the hardest to 
 write. For other good reasons, I '11 never 
 write another book except from the inside. 
 Nobody has ever yet found out what I wrote 
 <• The Under Side of Things ' for, not even 
 a single critic. I don't believe anybody 
 ever will, either. Probably I did not make 
 it plain enough." 
 
 In regard to her daily work Mrs. Bogue 
 writes us : "I work every morning and 
 
 251 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 generally manage to read one book a day 
 — biographies and books of philosophy, 
 which I often reread if they throw partic- 
 ular light on characters. In my writing 
 I am not so rapid. I sometimes rewrite a 
 paragraph or chapter twenty or more 
 times." She spent two years on " The 
 Expatriates," her most noteworthy book, 
 visiting Europe twice during that time and 
 reviewing her work with men and women 
 of trustworthy judgment. " The * white 
 heat ' I am accused of," she says, "was 
 sober morning judgment and the purest of 
 motives, to instruct an American public 
 distinguished by its ignorance of the sub- 
 jects of which I wrote." 
 
 In May, 1900, Lilian Bell's marriage to 
 Mr. Arthur Hoyt Bogue of Chicago, gave 
 rise to many a joke. The jokers were 
 especially delighted to quote the blistering 
 witticisms in " From a Girl's Point of 
 252 
 
LILIAN BELL 
 
 View." Here is a specimen of the com- 
 ments that went the rounds of the press : 
 
 " In < From a Girl's Point of View ' Miss 
 Bell deplores and ridicules the man under 
 thirty-five. She calls him raw, crude, un- 
 formed, untrained, egotistical, and other 
 uncomplimentary names. The fact that 
 Mr. Bogue is several years under thirty- 
 five, gives her views added piquancy." 
 
 A short time ago Mr. and Mrs. Bogue 
 moved to New York. 
 
 From one who has met her we get this 
 glimpse of the author : " She is a tall, fine- 
 looking woman, with a superb carriage, 
 though not a strong physique ; and she 
 dresses stunningly, though a mere man 
 would discover only that she was perfectly 
 gowned." And she is said to have glorious 
 eyes. 
 
 Lilian Bell's readings have been enjoyed 
 West and East, North and South ; and, as 
 
 253 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 she wrote of Rose Hollenden, so we may 
 write of her, that she knows "her own 
 country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
 from Seattle to Tampa." 
 
 254 
 
RUTH McENERY STUART. 
 
KUTHMcENERY STUART 
 
 ^^T^^HE fact that a spirit of commer- 
 m cialism is creeping into the old 
 Latin or Creole quarter of New 
 Orleans was well exemplified by the sign 
 that a small bootmaker, who had evidently 
 been studying the up-to-date conversational 
 advertisements in the daily papers, re- 
 cently hung over his door. Translated 
 literally, it read: "Oh, my God! Shoes 
 half soled for fifty cents ! " 
 
 It is, however, the old, the picturesque, 
 and the thoroughly lazy New Orleans of 
 which Ruth McEnery Stuart has writ- 
 ten, and it is with the " yaller gals," the 
 Creoles, the plantation negroes, the " cun- 
 nels " and the " majahs," that she is thor- 
 oughly at home. It is true that she has 
 
 255 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 touched upon places that have been 
 thoroughly covered by others, for the 
 whole theme of the southern negro and 
 his surroundings has been well treated 
 by George W. Cable, with his " Cajians " 
 and Creoles ; by Thomas Nelson Page, 
 with "Marse Channins'" devoted body- 
 servant, and his Virginian field bards ; by 
 Joel Chandler Harris, with his chronicles 
 of "Brer Rabbit," "Brer Bar," and the 
 lesser animals, and by Virginia Frazer 
 Boyle, with her voudoo and devil tales ; 
 but Mrs. Stuart has given us glimpses of 
 this life that have been permeated with 
 her own personality, and the possibilities 
 among these archaic and most accessible 
 people have been many. 
 
 Perhaps the negro poet, Paul Lawrence 
 Dunbar, of recent years has given us better 
 and more sympathetic songs of the planta- 
 tion life, which is so rapidly disappearing, 
 256 
 
RUTH McENERY STUART 
 
 than other expositors of southern scenes 
 and scenery; but although Mrs. Stuart 
 has not written voluminously, those poems 
 and short stories which have, upon rare 
 occasions, drifted into the different news- 
 papers and periodicals, have shown an 
 appreciation of the curious rhythm of the 
 plantation song, and its innocent spirit and 
 childish repetitions, which stamp them as 
 truthful expositions of those unintellectual 
 and simple minds that few Americans 
 know well enough to interpret. 
 
 What, in truth, could more faithfully 
 exhibit the spirit of the ante-bellum darky 
 than the poem called " Daddy Do-Funny," 
 which only recently appeared in St. 
 Nicholas ? " Ole Daddy Do-Funny," with 
 his list of " miseries," is a typical planta- 
 tion daddy. 
 
 The author of such a truly valuable 
 addition to American folk-song was bred 
 
 257 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 in the very hotbed of negro superstition and 
 voudoo worship. She was born at Avoy- 
 elles parish, Louisiana, and was the 
 daughter of a wealthy family of planters 
 who had always been slaveholders, and 
 were life-long residents of the State. In 
 early childhood she was taken to New 
 Orleans, where her father was in business, 
 and there she was educated at public and 
 private schools, and there remained until 
 her marriage in 1879 to Alfred O. Stuart, 
 who owned large cotton plantations in 
 Arkansas. Of her married life she has re- 
 cently informed a newspaper paragrapher: 
 " During my married life I lived on my 
 husband's plantation in Arkansas, and most 
 of my negro character-studies have come 
 from my association with the negroes 
 while there. We lived right among them 
 — there were hundreds of negroes to one 
 white person. My Arkansas life covered 
 258 
 
 
RUTH McENERY STUART 
 
 about five years, from 1879 to late in 1883. 
 Two plantations were owned by my hus- 
 band, although we did not live on either of 
 them, but in a little town near by, and I 
 can see the darkies now, riding in on their 
 mules, hitching them to the mulberry trees 
 in our yard, sitting in rows upon our front 
 steps, 'restin' ' and ' foolin' roun' ' generally. 
 Some old 'aunty' would surely come walk- 
 ing in every morning with a battered tin 
 pail on her arm, filled with perfectly worth- 
 less berries, gathered up by the wayside, 
 not to sell, but ' ter swap fur jes a lee tie 
 flour, please ma'am, an' a pinch er butter, 
 honey, an' a couple er lumps er sugar, 
 please ma'am, Mis' Stuart.' Then there 
 was an old 'uncle,' who used to sit silently 
 fishing all day long in a shallow pool, with 
 his under lip stuck out phenomenally far, 
 even for a negro's, who, when anyone asked 
 him, < Say, uncle, what 's that you 've got 
 
 259 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 in your mouth ? ' would reply laconically, 
 * Wums,' and shut his tongue down upon 
 his imprisoned bait again." 
 
 Of her first literary endeavors she has 
 also said : " I was never a great reader, but 
 was more fond of people than books, 
 though, I had my favorite authors, as 
 every girl has — still, I was not a great 
 reader. I have always felt interested in 
 the common folk, but never thought seri- 
 ously about writing them up until after 
 my husband's death. It was in 1887 that 
 I first thought about writing, and in 1888 
 my first story was published. I sent two 
 stories to the Harpers. It was in this 
 way I wrote an anonymous letter to them, 
 and in reply received a very pleasant note 
 from Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, who 
 afterward sent one of my stories to Profes- 
 sor Sloane of the Princeton Review, and kept 
 one for Harper's Magazine. The Prince- 
 260 
 
RUTH McENERY STUART 
 
 ton Revieiv thus happened to be the first 
 magazine to print a story for me. 
 
 " As to my writing dialect, I did not do 
 it intentionally. I simply wrote dialect 
 stories because when I demanded of my- 
 self a story, it was the recollection of the 
 negroes which made it possible for me to 
 write it. I could not help writing dialect. 
 
 " My characters are all drawn from 
 imagination. I have found that in writing 
 stories, facts or bits taken from life intact, 
 hamper instead of help me. There is 
 always a question as to the real incidents 
 fitting naturally into a new situation. I 
 always fancy I can see the stitches around 
 the patch. Besides, is it not true that the 
 real incident that suggests itself for use is 
 apt to be attractive for its exceptional 
 character? Hence it is not true to life. 
 It was noticeable in life for this very rea- 
 son. When it is put into a story, since it 
 
 261 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 cannot be taken with its entire common- 
 place setting, it loses its relative value — 
 it 's out of drawing and false. 
 
 " I try to devote the first half of each 
 day to my desk, and this is my rule. My 
 favorite work hours are those of the early 
 morning, from about six to breakfast-time. 
 As to my favorite authors of fiction — I 
 might name George Eliot, George Mere- 
 dith, and Victor Hugo: and among our 
 own authors I esteem none more highly 
 than Mary E. Wilkins and James Lane 
 Allen; but it is difficult to select a few 
 lights from a galaxy so brilliant that each 
 of a score of names would be familiar to 
 everyone. As to my literary ambitions — 
 oh, don't ask me. I am now doing stories, 
 and am in arrears with my engagements." 
 
 Since the death of her husband, Mrs. 
 Stuart has resided in New York City 
 and here she has done most of her lite- 
 262 
 
RUTH McENERY STUART 
 
 rary work. A list of her books includes : 
 "Moriah's Mourning"; " In Simpkins- 
 ville " ; "A Golden "Wedding " ; » Carlot- 
 ta's Intended " ; " Solomon Crow's Christ- 
 mas Pockets " ; « The Story of Babette " ; 
 " Sonny," and " Holly and Pizen." She 
 is not only an indefatigable worker, but 
 also a reader of considerable reputation, 
 and, although not a professional elocution- 
 ist or one of the modern " reciters," inter- 
 prets her own writings with great vivacity 
 and effect. " Her pictures of Louisiana 
 life, both white and colored, are indeed the 
 best we have," Charles Dudley Warner 
 has said, " — truthful, humorous, and not 
 seldom pathetic, but never overdrawn or 
 sentimental. Not a little of her success in 
 presenting them to an audience lies in her 
 power to reproduce her characters in accent 
 and dialect, and in such a manner that we 
 see them as they really are." 
 
 263 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 She is slender and graceful, and wears 
 her dark-brown hair thrown softly back 
 from her face in half-pompadour style, and 
 has the delightful accent of the southland. 
 Her hobby is to study mycology, and 
 each year she finds several months' pleasure 
 in the difficult pursuit of the one-legged 
 mushroom. She is likewise engaged in the 
 collection of aboriginal baskets, which rep- 
 resent the feelings of both art and utility 
 of half-civilized peoples in various parts of 
 the world. A great many paragraphers 
 have been pleased to comment upon her as 
 being a " normal domestic woman," which 
 is indeed what she really is, as she is an 
 excellent housekeeper and likes to dabble 
 in cookery and other arts of the household. 
 
 Perhaps she has written nothing more 
 
 thoroughly "coon" than "Uncle Ephe's 
 
 Advice to Brer Rabbit," which faithfully 
 
 demonstrates her ability as a chronicler 
 
 264 
 
RUTH McENERY STUART 
 
 of plantation echoes, and well exemplifies 
 the poetic mind of the dense, but tuneful, 
 negro of the cotton-field and the cane- 
 brake. 
 
 The lilt of 
 
 Hoppit — lippit ! Bull-frog gait ! 
 Hoppit — lippit — lippit — hoppit ! 
 Goodness me, why don't you stop it? 
 
 has in it the onomatopoetic quality of genu- 
 ine barbaric verse. 
 
 Mrs. Stuart's self-confessed lack of 
 " bookish " traits is perhaps one secret 
 of her success in her own field. She is 
 versed in the study of the simple characters 
 into whose lives she has so fully entered 
 as no student of mere letters could be. 
 The author of " Sonny " and the Simpkins- 
 ville stories well deserves her creditable 
 rank among the American writers of genre 
 fiction. 
 
 265 
 
1 
 
 ANNA FARQUHAR. 
 
ANNA FARQUHAR 
 (MRS. BERGENGREN) 
 
 /" WAS twenty-two years old when I 
 first went to Boston to visit the fam- 
 ily of my father's eldest brother, Mr. 
 John Allston, who at an early age there 
 settled into business prosperity." 
 
 Thus did a comparatively unknown 
 writer, who passed by the name of Mar- 
 garet Allston, introduce herself to the 
 readers of the Ladies' Home Journal in a 
 series of chapters called " Her Boston 
 Experiences." She had something to say — 
 something witty, something satirical, some- 
 thing caustic. It was about baked beans, 
 Beacon Hill, and the people who live 
 near by ; and she said it under a name of 
 gentle and truly puritanic simplicity, and 
 quite in accord with the honest shafts of 
 
 267 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 sarcasm she not only aimed at the dwellers 
 of the Hub, but had before plunged, with 
 satire quite as delicate and sharp, into that 
 cosmopolitan assemblage of notables known 
 as Washington society. 
 
 "The Inner Experiences of a Cabinet 
 Officer's Wife " had been a faithful picture 
 of the complexity of ambitions, which the 
 outsider who has eyes to see, ears to hear, 
 and wit to appreciate, would be astonished 
 to meet with at the Capital. It had been 
 so true to life, in fact, that certain per- 
 sonages began to remove the beam in their 
 own eyes, and, with delicate introspection, 
 to question themselves and wonder if some 
 of the characters were not within their own 
 lives, and, as nothing interests the world 
 (especially the feminine world) more than 
 gossip or than skeleton-in-the-closet his- 
 tory, it became immediately essential to 
 that great assemblage which is directly 
 268 
 
ANNA FAEQUHAR 
 
 answerable to the movement of govern- 
 mental cog-wheels, to find out what a cer- 
 tain person who had more keenness of 
 perception and more literary ability than 
 they, was saying about them. That is 
 what made this author an interrogation 
 point which many desired to have ex- 
 plained. And that is the reason why 
 " The Inner Experiences of a Cabinet Offi- 
 cer's Wife" was a story that found itself 
 beside the glimmer of an unusual number 
 of lamps upon an unusual number of lib- 
 rary tables. 
 
 There are certain characteristics which 
 men admire in each other above all others. 
 There are certainly some characteristics 
 w T hich they do not expect to find in women, 
 or, if they do expect to find them, they 
 always imagine them to be far less devel- 
 oped than in one of their own sex. That 
 is the reason why the answer to the inter- 
 
 269 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 rogation point above is, in many respects, a 
 remarkable individual. 
 
 Margaret Allston's real name, until Janu- 
 ary, 1900, was Anna Farquhar, and as 
 Anna Farquhar and as Anna Farquhar 
 Bergengren she has possessed the quality 
 of perseverance in an extraordinary meas- 
 ure. 
 
 Of Scotch-English ancestry, the forebears 
 of Anna Farquhar first came to America in 
 Lord Baltimore's time and were ceded 
 property of considerable extent at a dis- 
 tance of some forty miles from Baltimore, 
 in Maryland. To this blood may perhaps 
 be traced her ardent affiliation with Eng- 
 lish friends and sympathy with English 
 thinkers. She was born December 23, 1865, 
 at Brookville, Indiana, her father being law- 
 yer and congressman. Thus the author of 
 certain phases of Washington life was early 
 associated with diplomacy and diplomatic 
 2T0 
 
ANNA FARQUHAR 
 
 ideas. After a short residence in Cincin- 
 nati, Ohio, her family moved to Indianap- 
 olis, where Mr. Farquhar became president 
 of one of the foremost city banks. Here 
 the daughter received the usual education 
 that falls to the lot of an American girl 
 whose family are in the best of circum- 
 stances. Similar to James Russell Lowell 
 and other persons who left names of merit 
 in literature or in art, her particular aver- 
 sion was the study of mathematics. While 
 still quite young she showed a distinct in- 
 clination toward languages and history, and 
 an overwhelming love for music. At six- 
 teen she attended a boarding-school in 
 Maryland, but soon returned to a life of 
 the gayest society, "educating her heels 
 far better than her head will ever be edu- 
 cated." 
 
 But this life soon palled upon the girl 
 with ambition, for she had now determined 
 
 271 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 upon a career and to obtain for herself a 
 musical education. In order to realize the 
 money for its pursuit, the family property 
 was mortgaged and she left her native 
 town for Boston. The death of her father 
 several years before had made this a possi- 
 bility. Here she struggled nobly to culti- 
 vate her voice and soon received recognition 
 of her growing musical powers by appoint- 
 ment to a position in a church choir. But 
 the raw east winds of New England had 
 already begun to undermine a constitution 
 never very robust, and her throat was so 
 affected that further study was useless. 
 
 The next few years of life were a gallant 
 fight to attain sufficient strength to warrant 
 a strenuous application to the musical 
 career she was so bent upon, and a resi- 
 dence in the genial Maryland climate and 
 in New York and Washington stimulated 
 the hope that, in the end, she might accom- 
 272 
 
ANNA FARQUHAR 
 
 plish the longed-for results of her pains 
 and energy. 
 
 It was now she first applied herself to 
 literary work, for, not being able to sing, 
 she found in this an outlet for artistic ex- 
 pression. The next years were a period of 
 toil, of sickness, and of renewed literary 
 endeavor. 
 
 As a teacher of singing she was still able 
 to keep in touch with music, and, under 
 the skillful treatment of a New York phy- 
 sician the lost voice gradually returned, 
 but it was very unstable. A visit to Eng- 
 land shortly after a short residence in 
 Boston, where she had held an editorship 
 on a periodical devoted to music, decided 
 her future career. The years of patient 
 endeavor to be a musician had unfortu- 
 nately been wasted as far as permanent 
 results were concerned, for, said London's 
 foremost teacher of music, "Your phys- 
 
 273 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 ique and temperament can never stand 
 the strain of the musical life." This was 
 indeed a sad blow, but the many disap- 
 pointments which had come in years gone 
 by had perhaps prepared her for the ac- 
 knowledgment of failure — not in will- 
 ingness, or in fortitude, or in bravery, but 
 in physical strength to stand the wear and 
 tear of an exacting and strenuous profes- 
 sion. It is for this grit and determination 
 that Anna Farquhar is admired by her 
 friends, and it is for this reason that 
 her literary career has been a succession 
 of upward steps upon the rungs of the 
 ladder of literary fame. 
 
 She herself says that hers is the gospel 
 of work, that for years her life has been 
 one of unremitting hard labor and struggle 
 for very existence. A motto which hung 
 in her room during her years of fierce 
 combat bore the words " All things come 
 274 
 
ANNA FARQUHAR 
 
 round to those who will but wait." " And," 
 she says, " to this I added out of my own 
 belief, 'and work.' Work is the highest 
 privilege and hope of mankind. And of late 
 years I have taken to myself the beautiful 
 Italian proverb ' When God shuts a door 
 he opens a window.' " These are incidents 
 which but prove her indomitable spirit of 
 perseverance. 
 
 "A Singer's Heart," published in Boston, 
 was her first literary endeavor, and to 
 some extent expressed the professional 
 ambitions which she herself had experi- 
 enced in her musical career. Although it 
 was not a " popular " production, its notices 
 were most flattering, and when a certain 
 Philadelphia paper of distinct literary con- 
 servatism bought twelve copies for its edi- 
 torial staff, her spirits were naturally 
 raised and stimulated to renewed endeavor. 
 
 " The Inner Experiences of a Cabinet 
 
 275 
 
LITTLE PILGEIMAGES 
 
 Officer's Wife " she was well qualified to 
 pen, for the associations she had formed 
 with the life of the Capital were those 
 which eminently fitted her for a description 
 of the inside political and social workings of 
 its complexities. A host of personal letters 
 which crowded her mail showed that some 
 shafts had struck dangerous ground, but 
 the story swung gracefully on, through 
 threatened libel suits and denunciations of 
 every description. " There was not a 
 single specific and living character in city 
 life that was intentionally put down," she 
 says, " with perhaps one exception, and 
 that was of a woman, and by her permis- 
 sion." 
 
 "The Professor's Daughter" first ap- 
 peared in the Saturday Evening Post, when 
 it had its great expansion, a few years ago. 
 It was the story of simple people in a 
 simple Rhode Island country neighbor- 
 276 
 
ANNA FARQUHAR 
 
 hood, whose characteristics she well knew, 
 for among them she has lived a qniet, stu- 
 dious life for many summers. It contained 
 that human element which has made both 
 Shakespeare and Mark Twain immortal, 
 and it was very popular. 
 
 " Her Boston Experiences," which first 
 appeared in a magazine, ran through 
 many editions in book form. As some 
 worthy New Englander has said : " Any 
 good Bostonian who doesn 't mind a bit of 
 satire at his own expense may send this 
 description of his beloved city to strangers 
 and foreigners with the serene conviction 
 that they will thus gain a better idea of 
 the place and society than any number 
 of guide-books could afford. " It was 
 trenchant, frank and comic, and gave an 
 excellent picture of many sides of Boston 
 life. It stopped at least one sale of real 
 estate by a satirical slap at a part of town 
 
 277 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 the reputation of which was morally ques- 
 tionable, and it is said that a Cambridge 
 professor has permanently annexed it to 
 his lectures, to be read to the students as 
 an antidote for some of his dryest hours. 
 
 But this was not art of the highest type, 
 and a woman who had studied the lives 
 of Carlyle, Huxley, Darwin, Spencer, and 
 other great thinkers of the middle nineteenth 
 century, in order to imbibe their spirit of 
 work and energy, was naturally desirous 
 of accomplishing something of greater and 
 more lasting artistic excellence. 
 
 As a result of a sympathetic acquaint- 
 ance with the territory occupied by the 
 French Jesuits at the earliest period of 
 their missionary efforts in North America, 
 and also with Mr. Parkman's history of 
 their vigorous lives, she received a vivid 
 impression of the romantic possibilities of 
 that period. This led to a rapid devel- 
 278 
 
ANNA FARQUHAR 
 
 opment of the romantic complications 
 surrounding the hero of "The Devil's 
 Plough," but the study of the French char- 
 acteristics and habits of the seventeenth 
 century required the painstaking investi- 
 gation of several months before the plot 
 could be expanded into a book. The 
 material once at her command, the writing 
 took but a short time. When the book 
 had been completed she was temporarily 
 exhausted; too much dramatic force had 
 been expended in the preparation. As a 
 play, in fact, it was first conceived, and 
 that is why it found such immediate favor 
 with the dramatic profession when it ap- 
 peared in book form. The story is of a 
 struggle between pure ideals and the baser 
 emotions, in which the higher impulse 
 eventually triumphs. It is not strange then 
 that her feelings were similar to that of a 
 great — perhaps the greatest — American 
 
 279 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 sculptor, who, after completing a statue 
 of marvelous spirit and expression, was 
 forced to retire to the quiet of a country 
 life for full six months. 
 
 In January, 1900, Anna Farquhar was 
 married to Ralph Bergengren, a talented 
 Boston journalist. The marriage took 
 place under circumstances of unusual ro- 
 mance, for they were wedded at the side 
 of her bed of illness, with only two or 
 three witnesses present. 
 
 As a type of Anglo-Saxon womanhood 
 Mrs. Bergengren well exhibits her English 
 ancestry. Above the medium height, with 
 light hair, blue eyes, high color, and 
 regular features, her personal appearance 
 distinctly announces the land of her 
 forefathers. That peculiar look of high 
 intellectuality which is so marked in many 
 literary women of our own country, is very 
 prominent in the expression of her face. 
 280 
 
ANNA FARQUHAR 
 
 As a conversationalist she is brilliant, and 
 is consequently much sought after as an 
 addition to society. " But I seldom go," 
 she says, " because I am here to work, and 
 work and society are fatal and absolute 
 enemies." 
 
 Her literary method is to " walk miles 
 and miles when a story comes to me, and 
 when my story-people begin to talk, I sit 
 and stitch on some hand sewing (when a 
 man would smoke) until everything is 
 ready to go down, then it goes like* an 
 explosion of ideas, so to speak, followed by 
 careful modelling and severe, searching 
 criticism." With an individual who is so 
 eager in the endeavor to perfect her art, it 
 is indeed to be expected that the master- 
 piece will yet come, although in her own 
 words she tells us that " I cannot say that 
 I have a conquest of the world in view ; my 
 ambition always is simply to do my best." 
 
 281 
 

 
 -. • 
 
 PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE. 
 
PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE 
 (MRS. HOPKINS) 
 
 j-v AULINE BRADFORD MACKIE 
 
 r~^ has distinguished herself as a writer 
 • of historical fiction, and for this her 
 work is worthy of close consideration. 
 
 Upon the question of the merits and de- 
 merits of the historical novel has been 
 spilled a vast amount of good ink. It has 
 been a bitter and long-drawn quarrel and 
 much argument has been used to further 
 the pet opinions of partisans of either side. 
 Yet, when everything is taken into consid- 
 eration the weight of argument seems to be 
 in the affirmative ; for, as an educational 
 factor, is not the historical novel of real 
 value? The hurry and rush in the life of 
 the every-day American is, for the most 
 part, an expenditure of energy towards the 
 
 283 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 accumulation of riches. The present-day 
 Yankee is more essentially a trader than 
 were his ancient Dutch progenitors, and 
 although the education of the average citi- 
 zen is high, it has usually been in some 
 specific channel, and to the neglect of that 
 knowledge which has been considered of a 
 superficial character. History is a branch 
 of learning in which the average business 
 mind has not been especially well-grounded 
 in the course of its preliminary training, 
 and that is the reason why the historical 
 novel fills a needed gap in the lives of a 
 busy people. 
 
 Dealing honestly with ourselves, we are 
 obliged to acknowledge that there are 
 many and wide breaches in our knowledge 
 of history, and even in the knowledge of 
 the history of our own country. Perhaps 
 the most trivial historical romance that we 
 meet with, may fill a gap that we are 
 284 
 
PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE 
 
 ashamed to acknowledge. It may even 
 stimulate our interest to such an extent 
 that we are desirous of getting the facts 
 first-hand, and search the library shelves for 
 the volume of reference that bears directly 
 upon our subject, and in this way accumu- 
 late a number of facts that are certainly of 
 cultivating and broadening influence. The 
 novels of Miss Johnston have done much to 
 foster a concern in the annals of early 
 Colonial Virginia; and two works, the 
 "Life of John Paul Jones" and that of 
 Charles James Fox, were directly de- 
 pendent upon the popularity of " Richard 
 Carvel." Is it possible to point to a novel 
 of the realistic school which set people to 
 profitable employment of their intellects, 
 and to the discussion of events which have 
 helped to make world history? 
 
 The work of Pauline Bradford Mackie 
 does not exhibit the early influences of her 
 
 285 
 
LITTLE PILGKIMAGES 
 
 literary career as do the creations of some 
 other authors who have passed through a 
 similar period of apprenticeship. For two 
 years after graduation from the Toledo 
 High School, she was engaged in writing 
 for the Toledo Blade, but perhaps with not 
 sufficient seriousness, for, at the time, she 
 was anxious to become an artist, and was 
 almost as busy with the brush and pencil as 
 with the pen. 
 
 This career, however, she soon aban- 
 doned for that of literature, and although 
 her early contributions to magazines (be- 
 sides the work upon the paper) were very 
 numerous, she frankly admits that they 
 were so seldom accepted that she has lost 
 all track of them. 
 
 Although born in Connecticut, at Fair- 
 field, in 1873, her life has been spent 
 in Ohio. Her father, the Rev. Andrew 
 Mackie, an Episcopal clergyman and grad- 
 286 
 
PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE 
 
 uate of Brown University, was a scholar of 
 repute, and from him she inherits her love 
 for writing and for good literature. 
 
 Perhaps no embryo writer of romance, 
 who eventually has made a reputation of 
 worth, had more trying experiences than 
 fell to her when first she essayed the task 
 of authorship. The old Peterson Magazine 
 published two of her early ventures, but 
 never paid for them, and the first story for 
 which she was ever paid appeared in Worth- 
 ingtorfs Magazine, which issued only one 
 number subsequent to that in which her 
 article was published. Her first long story, 
 " Mademoiselle de Berny," had a conflict- 
 ing career with the second, "Ye Lyttle 
 Salem Maide," which possesses a distinctly 
 humorous side. The first had been re- 
 fused by a Philadelphia house, but, as they 
 wished a girl's story of considerable length, 
 " Ye Lyttle Salem Maide " was written and 
 
 287 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 sent to them. Again they were dissatis- 
 fied, and sent it back with the statement 
 that it was of but forty thousand words in 
 length, and they wished it to be extended 
 to sixty. So it was conscientiously re- 
 written, and, when the task was completed, 
 word was despatched the critical publishers. 
 Again they were dissatisfied, this time with 
 some point of trivial importance, so the 
 manuscript was promptly forwarded to a 
 New York house, which accepted it under 
 the proviso that it be cut down to thirty 
 thousand words, or ten thousand below the 
 original number. Its patient author once 
 more rewrote the tale from the very begin- 
 ning, and sent it back. Meanwhile " Made- 
 moiselle de Berny," the first manuscript, 
 had been accepted by the head of a Boston 
 firm, and had appeared upon the book- 
 stands. To its publisher was depatched 
 word of the acceptance of the second manu- 
 288 
 
PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE 
 i 
 
 script, and a telegram from him the day fol- 
 lowing was to the effect that, as the pub- 
 lisher who had risked a venture upon the 
 first book, it was certainly right that he 
 should have the second. The book was 
 accordingly withdrawn from the New York 
 firm, as no contract had yet been signed, 
 and was immediately mailed the second 
 house; but again arose a complication. The 
 head of the firm, who had made all nego- 
 tiations, seriously objected to the character 
 of Cotton Mather, and likewise wished 
 fifteen thousand words added to the book. 
 So the greater part of the entire manuscript 
 was for the third time rewritten, and in 
 this form it appeared in print. " Since its 
 publication," she tells us, " I have never had 
 the courage to read it through." 
 
 In spite of the trials and tribulations of 
 "Ye Lyttle Salem Maide" before her final 
 bow to society, the criticisms of the press 
 
 289 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 were most favorable to her general appear- 
 ance, and there was an unnsual number of 
 people who made her acquaintance, and did 
 so with pleasurable interest. The scenes of 
 the various fortunes which were her lot 
 took place within the ancient town of 
 Salem, at a time when the narrow-minded 
 and bigoted inhabitants were in the height 
 of the semi-religious frenzy over the crime of 
 witchcraft. The fact that Miss Mackie's 
 grandmother was Mehitable Bradford, a 
 direct descendant of the governor of Massa- 
 chusetts, is what first turned her fancy to 
 the events she here described, and following 
 the advice of Louisa M. Alcott, who was of 
 the opinion that, to write a book of interest, 
 one must "plunge into the heart of a story 
 and open it with a conversation, allowing 
 the actors to unfold the plot and themselves 
 dramatically," she had produced a story 
 that had unquestioned merit. " Mademoi- 
 290 
 
PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE 
 
 selle de Berny," a romance of Valley Forge 
 and of George Washington, as has been 
 shown, had outdistanced " Ye Lyttle Salem 
 Maide" in a somewhat complicated race 
 for publication. 
 
 Perhaps, as an eminent reviewer has re- 
 marked, this taste for the historical novel has 
 been greatly stimulated by the war with 
 Spain, for although we, as a nation, have al- 
 ways been patriotic, there has been nothing 
 actively exciting to our patriotism for a 
 whole generation. The battles in Cuba 
 stirred up an endless amount of enthusiasm, 
 and the pleasant consciousness that we were 
 a world power and a great and powerful 
 nation that came to us after the battle of 
 Manila Bay, was something almost new, 
 and something that it took some time to 
 realize. For twenty years or more the 
 patriotic societies had been trying to 
 make us fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, 
 
 291 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 nephews, nieces and cousins of Colonial 
 and Revolutionary heroes, but with ill suc- 
 cess. Now everyone was sure that his 
 ancestors had been sterling heroes with 
 musket and sword, and it was but natural 
 that all should be interested in the times 
 of those who had made the beginnings of 
 the country's greatness. This is a perfect- 
 ly reasonable argument, but the fact that 
 the realistic school had flooded the great 
 literary sea with a mass of miserable mate- 
 rial which people were expected to read 
 and enjoy, yet could not, on account of 
 its absolute worthlessness, is perhaps an- 
 other reason. The same critic spoken of 
 above has put the matter very tersely. He 
 says: 
 
 "We found the workmanship (of the 
 realistic novel) on a par with the hurried 
 stuff that the reporters for the daily news- 
 papers turn out at breakneck speed while 
 292 
 
PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE 
 
 the presses and the newsboys wait. "We 
 do not read the novels to be instructed. 
 We are not hungry for sociological facts 
 and conclusions when we take up a book 
 for an evening's entertainment. No, we 
 want to be entertained by being removed 
 out of ourselves. But I would rather be 
 myself and bear with my own infirmities 
 and perplexities than to spend a whole 
 evening with a lot of very dull people in 
 my neighbor's kitchen. Now, your realist 
 of the second or third class takes you into 
 a kitchen through the area door, and he 
 does his very best to make you feel that 
 you are one of that circle of domestics. I 
 have no objection to kitchens and none to 
 domestics. Both, in our present scheme 
 of economy, are necessary. But if I go to 
 a kitchen or am taken there, I want it 
 to be worth while." 
 
 In "A Georgian Actress," which ap- 
 
 293 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 peared in 1900, there was sufficient his- 
 torical background to appeal to the most 
 disinterested respecter of American history, 
 and a story of considerable interest, told 
 with naive freshness that was certainly in- 
 vigorating. The " Georgian Actress " was 
 Mistress Anne Johnson, daughter of Sir 
 William Johnson, agent of King George 
 III. among the Indians, and residing at 
 Johnson Hall on the Mohawk, in the years 
 preceding the Revolution. Here she was 
 brought up in strict seclusion with her 
 younger sister Mary — here called Peggy 
 — and under the tutelage of Madame Van 
 Vrankin, a personage who in youth had 
 jilted Sir William and then married a 
 young Dutch soldier. But the frontier life 
 had not interested her as had the frivolities 
 of social London, and there she spent a gay 
 and joyous existence until the death of her 
 husband in a battle with the Indians. Feel- 
 294 
 
PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE 
 
 ings of the deepest remorse no doubt 
 prompted her to take upon herself the 
 education of Sir William's children, and to 
 leave to them her fortune. A young 
 hunter, Daniel Claus, who subsequently 
 turned out to be Madame Van Vrankin's 
 son, and the heir to her estate, now entered 
 the story, and with him Anne fell desper- 
 ately in love, but a journey to England 
 which she soon took with her younger 
 sister, temporarily separated the lovers. In 
 London she became the protege of the 
 immortal Garrick, with whom she appeared 
 upon the stage, but the frontier lover 
 eventually appeared and claimed her as his 
 own. The scenes in London were an ex- 
 cellent portrait of the times of King George 
 the Third, "snuffy old drone from the Ger- 
 man hive," and the view of Garrick, who 
 " damned America with polysyllabic oro- 
 tundity and thoroughness," was quite true 
 
 295 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 to the conception of him one gathers from 
 histories of the time. The effeminate 
 Horace Walpole and gruff Dr. Johnson 
 were likewise present. The book, in fact, 
 showed genuine good workmanship and 
 study, and gave the reader some valuable 
 knowledge, instead of smearing a homely 
 subject with dirt and other filth, and serv- 
 ing it up with the plea that this was realism 
 and hence should be pleasing to the palate. 
 
 One descriptive paragraph is worthy of 
 quotation for the delicate, almost Steven- 
 sonian, treatment of the landscape : 
 
 " 4 It is smoke from old Maushape's pipe,' 
 said the Indian, as the hazy air grew bluer, 
 filling the gaps with purple. Morning 
 after morning the sun came up and the 
 delicate hoar-frost vanished like a breath. 
 Each moment of the magic days seemed de- 
 liciously prolonged. The tangled branches 
 of the blackberry and the sumac's velvet 
 296 
 
PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE 
 
 plumes flamed along the byways and the 
 outskirts of the forest." 
 
 Although it would seem that such a 
 fragile bit of prose must have been written 
 in the very atmosphere of the land in which 
 the scenes of the story were laid, such was 
 not the case. " A Georgian Actress " was 
 written at Berkeley, California, where Mrs. 
 Hopkins had gone with her husband, Dr. 
 Herbert Miiller Hopkins, who was a profes- 
 sor at the University, and who now occupies 
 the chair of Latin at Trinity College, Hart- 
 ford, Conn. Here, too, her latest novel, 
 dealing with Washington life during the 
 Civil War, was written. It is called " The 
 Washingtonians," and in it she has forsaken 
 the Colonial period of American history, in 
 which she has been so successful, for that 
 of a later date, and one that is better known 
 to the readers of the present day. For this 
 reason, it will be more difficult to please. 
 
 297 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 Mrs. Hopkins is fond of gardening, of 
 flowers, and of long walks. She is likewise 
 fond of animals and has several beautiful 
 Irish setters. One handsome dog she re- 
 cently lost was named Shamrock, and was 
 of such a noble nature that she has in mind 
 a story to write of him. Perhaps it will be 
 her next venture. 
 
 298 
 
MARY JOHNSTON, 
 
MARTJOHNSTON 
 
 T ^AKLY in 1898 the manuscript of a 
 g^ Virginian romance came to the 
 
 Boston office of Houghton, Mif- 
 flin & Co. bearing a new name — Mary 
 Johnston. In time the manuscript passed 
 through the hands of half a dozen readers, 
 who approved it unanimously, and it was 
 published under the title of " Prisoners of 
 Hope." That was not its original title, by 
 the way; but it was the title finally agreed 
 upon by the author and the publishers. 
 The instantaneous success of " Prisoners of 
 Hope," and the quick bound of its writer to 
 a place among the literary celebrities of the 
 country, are facts too well known to dilate 
 upon. 
 
 We may at this point pardonably remark 
 
 299 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 upon the readiness with which Miss John- 
 ston was admitted into the company of 
 novelists related to one of our foremost pub- 
 lishing houses. Her case is not an exception: 
 it is the rule. The notion that the young 
 author must sail against contrary winds is 
 still, apparently, as prevalent as ever. To 
 be sure, now and then, it seems to be a 
 very substantial notion. We know that 
 Stephen Crane's "Maggie" was first re- 
 jected, and afterward — when it became 
 popular — claimed by a certain publisher. 
 "Helen's Babies," another book notable for 
 its popularity, was ragged from travel when 
 accepted. There are other noteworthy 
 instances of publishers' hindsight or unwis- 
 dom ; but, even taken collectively, they do 
 not constitute the rule. So, we mention the 
 fate of the "Prisoners of Hope," the first 
 work of a writer with neither name nor 
 influence, as an example of the general 
 300 
 
MARY JOHNSTON 
 
 recognition of talent by American pub- 
 lishers. 
 
 Miss Johnston, at the time of the publi- 
 cation of her first novel, was twenty-eight. 
 She was born in Buchanan, Virginia, just 
 where the winding James pushes its way 
 through the Blue Ridge, on November 21, 
 1870. Her great-great-great-grandfather, 
 Peter Johnston, came to Virginia by way 
 of Holland early in the eighteenth century. 
 He brought with him wealth and influence. 
 One of the memorials of his beneficence is 
 the land on which stands the college of 
 Hampden-Sidney. He had three sons, Peter, 
 Andrew and Charles. Peter, the eldest, 
 who rode in Light Horse Harry Lee's legion, 
 was the father of General Joseph E. John- 
 ston. The second son, Andrew, was the 
 author's great-great-grandfather. He mar- 
 ried Anna Nash, through whom Miss John- 
 ston is descended from Colonel John Nash, 
 
 301 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 a valiant figure in the French and Indian 
 wars, and, during the Revolution, the mem- 
 ber from Prince Edward County in the 
 Virginia House of Delegates. There 
 were other distinguished Nashes — John, of 
 Templeton Manor, in 1738, Justice of Hen- 
 rico County, Virginia ; Abner, a member 
 of the Continental Congress, and at one 
 time governor of North Carolina ; Francis, 
 — General Nash, — who fell at German- 
 town. On her mother's side, the author of 
 " Prisoners of Hope " is strongly Scotch- 
 Irish — a lineage which runs back to one of 
 the thirteen apprentices that closed the 
 gates of Londonderry during the siege of 
 1680. Thirty years ago her mother was 
 described as a " gentle, shy young creature," 
 with a " dowry of sweet, feminine traits." 
 
 The father of the author, John William 
 Johnston, started life humbly in the village 
 of Buchanan. His mother, too, was Scotch. 
 302 
 
MARY JOHNSTON 
 
 During the War of the Rebellion he served 
 as a major of artillery in the Confederate 
 army. It is related that in 1864 — the 
 year in which, by the way, Hunter's raiders 
 destroyed that part of Buchanan in which 
 his house stood — Major Johnston was sent 
 from Chattanooga to Atlanta for medical 
 treatment. There he was the guest of 
 Mr. John Paul Jones, whose sister, Mrs. 
 Ballard, later established a school for girls. 
 Naturally enough, when Mary, the oldest of 
 the six Johnston children, and Eloise, her 
 sister, grew up, they were put in Mrs. 
 Ballard's care. 
 
 Miss Johnston has from her birth gener- 
 ally been in poor health. This physical 
 weakness early developed in her a taste for 
 books. Besides, her imagination was dili- 
 gently cultivated by her father's mother, 
 said to have been a woman of rare force 
 and beauty of character, and of strong intel- 
 
 303 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 ligence, who, until her death, which hap- 
 pened when her granddaughter was eight, 
 taught Mary much more than the average 
 child ever learns. For several years after- 
 ward, Mary's aunt was her teacher; and 
 later the child had a governess. " It was all 
 very easy, desultory schooling," writes to us 
 one who is exceptionally familiar with the 
 author's career. " Her health was always 
 frail, and there were many interruptions, 
 but whether sick or well she was continu- 
 ally reading. There was no restriction 
 laid upon her in this respect, and she read 
 what she pleased — poetry, history, fiction 
 — whatever came to her hand. Scott and 
 Dickens she read and reread, and she early 
 acquired a love for Shakespeare." 
 
 Indeed, after she had discovered some 
 old documents in an out-of-the-way closet, 
 and had constituted herself a sort of libra- 
 rian, reading and arranging the writings 
 304 
 
MARY JOHNSTON 
 
 from morning to evening, it was pre- 
 dicted that she would yet write a book. 
 A safe prediction, it proved to be ; a much 
 safer prediction than to say that a little 
 girl who says her morning and evening 
 prayers fervently will yet be a nun. 
 
 She was a self-reliant child, too. There 
 is a story that runs : 
 
 " Once, when only six years old, happen- 
 ing to go too near an open grate, her dress 
 took fire, and she was soon in a light blaze. 
 She was alone ; but, rolling herself in the 
 hearth rug, she extinguished the flames, 
 saying, when asked why she adopted such 
 a method, that her grandmother had told 
 her of a little girl who had wrapped her- 
 self up in a blanket on a similar occasion, 
 and that she thought the rug would do as 
 well." 
 
 " The distinguishing characteristic of 
 the future author at this period," says the 
 
 305 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 one who tells the fire story, "was an 
 unusual quantity of closely-curled yellow 
 hair, a lock of which was clipped from her 
 tiny head soon after her birth and sent as 
 a sample to her maternal grandparents in 
 West Virginia." 
 
 Meantime, since the close of the war, 
 Major Johnston, a civil engineer by pro- 
 fession, had become interested in several 
 railways in the South, and in 1885 his 
 pressing business caused the removal of 
 the family from Buchanan to Birming- 
 ham, Ala., where for the most part the 
 Johnstons have since made their home. 
 The year following the settlement in Bir- 
 mingham Mary and her sister were sent to 
 the Ballard school in Atlanta ; but three 
 months at school hurt Mary's health so 
 severely that she returned to Birmingham, 
 thenceforth to educate herself according 
 to her own disposition. However, when, 
 306 
 
MARY JOHNSTON 
 
 in 1887, her mother died, Miss Johnston, 
 notwithstanding her poor health, under- 
 took the management of the household — 
 a management which she exercises up to 
 the present time. 
 
 The year after her mother's death Mary 
 and her father visited Europe. This visit 
 may be spoken of as a turning-point in her 
 life, for notes on it, contributed to a little 
 Virginia newspaper, made up her first 
 literary offering. But, although she has 
 moved hither and thither, Miss Johnston 
 has spent at least a part of every year in 
 Virginia — lately on Cobb's Island, a small 
 spot just off the eastern shore. The hills 
 and mountains of which she is so fond are 
 prominent in the landscapes in " Prisoners 
 of Hope," while the shores and marshes 
 described in " To Have and to Hold " have 
 familiarized themselves to the author during 
 her periodical sojourns on Cobb's Island. 
 
 307 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 It is said that when Miss Johnston was 
 a young girl she drew a crayon portrait of 
 her father's brother, which " indicates the 
 force with which her talents might have 
 flowed in that channel had not another 
 been cut for them by nature." We men- 
 tion the portrait incident merely to empha- 
 size the early rise of her independence and 
 ambition. She was an uncommon child in 
 many respects ; but they who predicted 
 that some day she would write a book 
 judged her best. The prediction was 
 realized during the winter of 1896. 
 
 For three years previously the Johnstons 
 had gone to New York after leaving Vir- 
 ginia. In 189-4 Mary virtually became an 
 invalid. Forced to lie still, she read and 
 studied until her mind craved recreation ; 
 then she took up her pencil. It will 
 hardly surprise any reader to learn that 
 her sentiments at first found expression in 
 308 
 
MARY JOHNSTON 
 
 verse, but metre and rhyme were driven 
 away when the scheme of " Prisoners of 
 Hope " presented itself. She wrote the 
 story literally page by page. She was 
 inexperienced in the art of constructing 
 a story, and felt her way slowly, sensi- 
 tively ; besides, her health was frailer than 
 ever, and the cares of the household still 
 devolved upon her. So, the writing of 
 her first novel occupied more than a year 
 and a half. It was her secret. Surprise 
 struck every member of the family when 
 she exhibited the letter informing her that 
 the story was acceptable. " Prisoners of 
 Hope " was indeed successful, but it was 
 its successor, "To Have and to Hold," 
 that emblazoned Mary Johnston's name. 
 
 " To Have and to Hold " established a 
 record in sales among books written lately 
 by American women — a fact not to be de^ 
 predated by the extraordinary popularity 
 
 309 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 of Miss Runkle's " Helmet of Navarre." 
 "To Have and to Hold" appeared in a field 
 of unprecedentedly strong competitors. 
 The work of virtually a new writer, it 
 would have done well to finish inside the 
 distance flag, to use the horseman's par- 
 lance ; instead, however, of finishing thus 
 modestly, it challenged the leader, and 
 rightfully enough, for it had all the char- 
 acteristics of a popular favorite. It is — 
 we may still speak of it in the present 
 tense — an extremely enjoyable story. The 
 characters are vividly portrayed ; the scenes 
 fit together smoothly and naturally; the 
 spirit of the times with which the story 
 deals is well sustained. " To Have and to 
 Hold," in short, is the work of a born 
 story-teller. If we are to give assent to 
 the opinion that a novel should be mere 
 entertainment, then each of Miss John- 
 ston's novels may be included in the best 
 310 
 
MARY JOHNSTON 
 
 of modern fiction, and, by the same token, 
 the Virginian lady may be regarded as a 
 very successful novelist. Her latest story, 
 " Audrey," has been interesting as a serial. 
 What it will prove to be as a book, shown 
 among hundreds of other books seeking the 
 favor of the public, is only to be conjectured. 
 
 We are indebted to a Southern friend for 
 the following information : 
 
 "Miss Johnston's home in Birmingham 
 is, in some respects, typical of the old 
 homes of the South, without, however, 
 suggesting the Colonial. It is set well back 
 from the street, and the balconies and the 
 exterior are decidedly attractive, and the 
 filmy draperies at the long French windows 
 suggest the charming sunlit apartments of 
 a well-regulated home. The library where 
 Miss Johnston does her work is fined with 
 books. It is a long, attractive apartment, 
 through the windows of which one gets a 
 
 311 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 broad view of the sky. Her desk lies 
 open, and the morning's mail is scattered 
 around. 
 
 •• A black and gold clock ticks away on 
 the mantel shelf. Above the bookcases are 
 a number of marble busts. It is a room with 
 the atmosphere of books and pictures. . . . 
 The author is not very tall, and her figure 
 is slender and fragile. She carries herself 
 well and has that high-bred air that gives 
 her a distinctive charm in any assembly. 
 Her eyes are large and brown, with little 
 necks of gold. Her light brown hair is 
 soft and wavy and she wears it simply. 
 She dresses quietly and fashionably. Her 
 tastes are those of a charming woman, who, 
 although unconventional, res ects every 
 propriety. Briefly, her life is that of any 
 high-bred, aristocratic girl of the South."' 
 
 Miss Johnston's remarks to interviewers 
 usually take this form: M I am glad to 
 312 
 
MARY JOHNSTON 
 
 talk of my work. I am, of course, gratified 
 at its success and I appreciate all that is 
 said, but I have made it a rule not to talk 
 for publication.'" 
 
 313 
 
^ii^y axders s - -i -.- 
 
ELLEN ANDERSON G. GLASGOW 
 
 > ■ *HE majority of readers uncon- 
 m sciously associate ever}?- author who 
 
 - - "- has been born and bred south of 
 Mason and Dixon's line with the depiction 
 of life and character of the Southern peo- 
 ple. It was, consequently, rather startling 
 when there appeared a Virginian who knew 
 northern life — even metropolitan life — as 
 intimately as those who had been bred to 
 it ; a Virginian author who did not write of 
 gay and valorous colonial cavaliers — who 
 did unheard-of deeds of bravery and courted 
 unquestionably beautiful, bepowdered, be- 
 quilted, and " Beshrew-me-gentle-Sir "-con- 
 versing damsels, — or of molly-cotton-tails, 
 of foxes, and of other shy, retiring animals, 
 who held as brilliant and intellectual con- 
 
 315 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 versation with each other as do the members 
 of The Players. For this reason Miss Ellen 
 Glasgow first drew attention to herself. 
 
 " The Descendant," a rather morbid ex- 
 position of the development and life of an 
 intellectual hybrid, the offspring of a low 
 woman and a highly intellectual man, was 
 a story of distinct strength and character, 
 in which there were touches of Stephen 
 Crane, linked with biting sarcasm and with 
 pessimistic wit. It appeared in 1899 and 
 was the herald of more brilliancy to come. 
 When we read that " Over the meadows 
 the amber light of the afterglow fell like 
 rain," there was something that reminded 
 one quite forcibly of Crane's famous 
 " amber-tinted river that purled along in 
 whispering splendor," but there were other 
 passages — in fact, many of them — which 
 showed a depth of thought that was un- 
 usual and also the most pleasing of all 
 316 
 
ELLEN ANDERSON G. GLASGOW 
 
 literary traits, that of deep scientific and 
 philosophic reflection. 
 
 Although a Virginian, Miss Glasgow 
 knew the atmosphere of New York literary 
 Bohemia which pervaded " The Descend- 
 ant " and likewise " The Phases of an Infe- 
 rior Planet," her second venture, for she had 
 frequently come and gone on its easy-going 
 tide. The fact that her forebears upon 
 her father's side were all lawyers, judges, 
 and the like, is accountable for her love of 
 literature and of the literary life. She 
 was born in Richmond, Virginia, and has 
 lived a great deal at a country home near by, 
 where she developed a love for the coun- 
 try and for such natural things as earth 
 and sky and the lesser animals, which is in 
 great evidence in all her Avritings. As a 
 child she was delicate, a fact that kept her 
 from attending school with the other chil- 
 dren, and perhaps accounted for the philo- 
 
 317 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 sophic manner in which she quite earl}' 
 regarded the progress of human events. 
 Such learning as she received was won 
 almost entirely by her own individual effort. 
 The first simple step in reading and in -writ- 
 ing she took unaided, and reading was not 
 learned from school-books, but from long 
 days spent over Scott's novels, when, 
 spurred on by her delight in the stories 
 which on wiuter evenings she had heard in 
 the firelight from the lips of an elderly and 
 affectionate aunt, she would spell out the 
 words one by one. As she grew older, 
 this love for books increased, and every- 
 thing that she could lay her hands upon 
 was absorbed with a greed that was insa- 
 tiable. Of course, much fell into her hands 
 that was unadulterated trash, but likewise 
 much that had intrinsic merit. By the time 
 she was thirteen she had learned to enjoy 
 Robert Browning, and he has never lost the 
 318 
 
ELLEN ANDERSON G. GLASGOW 
 
 first place among the poets, in her heart, 
 although Swinburne is likewise a favorite. 
 Perhaps many children of unusual intel- 
 lectuality have displayed an equal love for 
 books, but in Miss Glasgow, the imagina- 
 tive development soon took a scientific- 
 trend, which is quite unusual. At eight- 
 een she began a systematic study of politi- 
 cal economy and of socialism, which brought 
 her mind to a serious point, where the 
 imaginative flights, stimulated by fairs* 
 stories and by writers of romance, were 
 held in check by the ponderous thoughts 
 of the world's greatest men of science. 
 One who is well qualified to speak says 
 that " law, and the evolution of phenomena 
 by means of law now became her point of 
 view, and a viewpoint froni which she 
 has never sweiwed. In spite of this love 
 and absorption of abstract sciences, her 
 inborn love of stories has remained." 
 
 319 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 The most prominent characteristic of 
 Miss Glasgow's personality is well shown 
 by the following incident : In response to 
 a request for her biography from a literary 
 periodical, she wrote : "I remember once 
 trying to write a sketch of my life and 
 getting as far as 4 1 was born.' To this 
 day I have found nothing more to add; 
 and surely to be born is no difficult accom- 
 plishment. Apart from this I have made 
 it a rule never to publish personal things ; 
 — not that I am peculiarly modest or 
 even painfully dull, but, if the truth must 
 be told, even my friends admit that I never 
 say anything interesting about myself." 
 This modesty is paramount, and it is for 
 this reason that she is seldom seen in so- 
 ciety. Society does not attract the major- 
 ity of literary people, — some, perhaps, 
 as a means for the study of human eccen- 
 tricities, — for there is much else for them 
 320 
 
ELLEN ANDERSON G. GLASGOW 
 
 to be thinking about. Miss Glasgow is no 
 exception to the rule. She is quiet and 
 reserved in the company of others, although 
 when her interest or sympathy is awak- 
 ened, the ready Southern cordiality warms 
 her manner. 
 
 The knowledge of the law of evolution 
 and the study of Spencer, of Darwin and 
 the other great scientists, she says, has been 
 one of the greatest pleasures of her exist- 
 ence. Long before she fully grasped the 
 significance of the law of evolution, she 
 felt, rather than realized, the close relation- 
 ship between man and beast. Her love of 
 animals is paramount. Even the birds of the 
 air are her pets; and their clamor at her 
 window often sends her flying from her 
 desk to the pantry, to secure the supply of 
 crumbs they have learned to expect from 
 her hands. This love of hers is combined 
 with an interest that is all-absorbing. The 
 
 321 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 habits, the actions, the different character- 
 istics of this lower animal world interest 
 her beyond measure, on account of their 
 analogies to the higher life of man, here 
 paralleled in miniature. 
 
 She had begun to scribble verses by the 
 time she could read in words of two sylla- 
 bles, and while yet a mere girl wrote an 
 entire novel which she had good judgment 
 and tact enough not to afflict upon some 
 struggling publisher's literary advisor. Al- 
 though her first success came with " The 
 Descendant " (finished before her twenty- 
 second birthday ) she had written other 
 articles before and they had been published 
 in magazines. Success did not come easily ; 
 she had always worked hard, both with 
 brain and with pen, and she still writes 
 with care — and continually. 
 
 From her very soul, she has remarked, she 
 believes that " the true success is to labor." 
 322 
 
ELLEN ANDERSON G. GLASGOW 
 
 This infinite care and painstaking en- 
 deavor was well evinced in certain passages 
 of her third book, " The Voice of the 
 People," a story of her own Virginia and 
 its curious class distinctions. The famil- 
 iarity and accuracy with which the working 
 of party machinery was given in minute 
 detail, exhibited a careful and conscientious 
 study of political ways and means. We 
 are told that as early as 1897, when the 
 plot for the story was first beginning to 
 take shape in her mind, she drove more than 
 twenty miles over the mountains, and in the 
 hottest of August weather, in order to sit 
 through two days of a Democratic conven- 
 tion which had been called in order to nom- 
 inate a governor. She was smuggled in at 
 the stage door of the opera house, where 
 the convention was held, through friendly 
 influence, and sat upon the stage surrounded 
 by delegates from all parts of the State. 
 
 323 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 She and her companion were the only 
 women in the building. By close observa- 
 tion she was thus able to give an inside 
 view of political life, the truth and con- 
 sistency of which could be vouched for by 
 actual facts. 
 
 The influence of her favorite book, " The 
 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius," a book 
 which she is never without, — for it accom- 
 panies her even upon her travels, — was 
 well shown in " The Voice of the People." 
 The characters — all of them contemporary 
 Virginians — were clearly delineated in a 
 pungently philosophical vein, that exhibited 
 the influence of the master mind which 
 looked at reasons and motives and at 
 broader questions than mere petty vain- 
 glory and personal ambition. Her powers 
 of observation were here at their maximum 
 of efficiency because this was her own native 
 heath; and the characters were those 
 324 
 
ELLEN ANDERSON G. GLASGOW 
 
 with, whom she was more at home than 
 with the over-educated and morbidly sensi- 
 tive men and women who lived and died 
 with " The Descendant " and drew breath 
 in her " Phases of an Inferior Planet." 
 
 The scene of the first half of the later 
 novel was laid at Kingsborough, — readily 
 recognized as Williamsburgh, Va., — a town 
 which " dozed through the present to dream 
 of the past, and found the future a night- 
 mare," and the latter half in Miss Glasgow's 
 native town of Richmond. The characters 
 too were those she knew from childhood. 
 There was the old Judge, a genuine and 
 noble Virginian gentleman, " from his clas- 
 sic head to his ill-fitting boots " ; General 
 Battle, " a colonel during the war but raised 
 to the rank of general by the unanimous 
 vote of his neighbors on his return home" ; 
 Miss Chris, his amiable sister, who had 
 never surrendered and was " happy for forty 
 
 325 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 years with a broken heart"; Eugenia, a 
 sweet and capable heroine ; and the hero, 
 Nick Burr, a rufus-headed son of the people, 
 a member of that well-known Southern 
 sect known as the " poh white trash," yet 
 with genuine ability and infinite persever- 
 ance. His progress from the shiftless 
 ranks in which he was born to the power- 
 ful upper class of the gentry, constituted 
 the motive and force of the tale. From 
 the time when he interrupted a conversa- 
 tion between the kind-hearted Judge and 
 his own tobacco-chewing father with the 
 remark that " There 's nothhY in farmin', 
 I 'd ruther be a judge,' to the moment when 
 he reached the governmental chair, by means 
 of his own sterling merit and indomitable 
 will, the progress of Nick Burr was replete 
 with those perfectly human and logical 
 events which belong to the life of the 
 individual who is determined to be in 
 326 
 
ELLEN ANDERSON G. GLASGOW 
 
 the front ranks of those who enter the 
 fierce political strife. It was "the survi- 
 val of the fittest " exemplified in present- 
 day Virginian life. 
 
 The negro element was of course subor- 
 dinate, but lent a picturesque background 
 and furnished some wit and still more 
 humor. There were Uncle Ish and Aunt 
 Verbeny, who gave vent to many delight- 
 ful bits of unintellectual philosophy. One 
 was that it was evident that it was a civil 
 war, because when the Yankees rode up 
 to the house and their hostess came out 
 smiling and giving them welcome, they 
 stood there bowing and scraping, and it 
 was " Es civil as if dey 'd come a' 
 cotin'." 
 
 With « The Voice of the People " Miss 
 Glasgow had remained at home, and it 
 was good that she had done so. She had 
 written the manuscript only when in the 
 
 327 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 mood for it, and it was therefore well done, 
 and thoroughly well done. Her method of 
 work is to write when the spirit is upon 
 her, and then to write as long as she feels 
 physically and mentally fit; thus her periods 
 of work vary from one to three, four and 
 often twelve hours a day, although the latter 
 is quite unusual. " The Descendant " was 
 written in a year, but she worked at it 
 fitfully, sometimes leaving off for a full 
 month. To each of the two subsequent 
 books she devoted two years of study and 
 of careful preparation. 
 
 At present she is engaged in the con- 
 struction of a novel dealing with the Civil 
 War and the Virginian life of that period. 
 It is to treat not only of the events which 
 transpired during the four years of conflict, 
 but also of those just previous to the out- 
 break of hostilities. From one who is such 
 a careful and exact reasoner it will be in- 
 328 
 
ELLEN ANDERSON G. GLASGOW 
 
 teresting to view the final resultant, and 
 see whether or not it will be colored with 
 partisan feeling or will give a broad and 
 unbiased opinion of those events which 
 are still fresh in the memories of many 
 Virginians. In view of the recent triumph 
 of " The Crisis," the outcome will be most 
 interesting to the world of letters. 
 
 329 
 
BERTHA RUNKLE 
 
 rHE "Helmet of Navarre" was a 
 remarkable book for many reasons, 
 but the fact that its author was 
 little over twenty years of age was not the 
 most remarkable. Biyant had written 
 " Thanatopsis " before he had reached that 
 age, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps composed 
 " The Gates Ajar " at nineteen. The most 
 interesting fact about the production of 
 "The Helmet of Navarre" is, that its 
 author has never even caught a glimpse 
 of the shores of France; indeed, she has 
 seldom been beyond the boundaries of 
 New York State. The castles in which 
 royalty here disported were true castles in 
 the air. In considering the book, there- 
 fore, we view what may be accomplished 
 
 331 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 by long-distance flights of the imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 Miss Bertha Runkle is a product of the 
 literary atmosphere of New York combined 
 with the healthy and muscle-giving proper- 
 ties of golf and of tennis ; thus disproving the 
 oft-quoted and quite prevalent theory that 
 literary minds and frail bodies are insepa- 
 rably linked together. Although the State 
 of New Jersey is associated in the minds 
 of most of us with sand-flats, mosquitoes 
 and malaria, it has the honor of claiming 
 the birthplace of the newest addition to 
 American expounders of historical romance. 
 The mind of Miss Bertha Runkle was first 
 stimulated to literary expression at Berkeley 
 Heights, New Jersey ; a small place, a quiet 
 place, and a distinctly suburban place; but 
 in 1888 she and her mother moved to New 
 York, where association with a more swiftly 
 moving environment than that of a back- 
 332 
 
BERTHA EUNKLE 
 
 country town, did much to brighten an 
 intellect which already showed signs of a 
 brilliancy quite out of the ordinary. Her 
 love of the good things in literature indeed 
 comes honestly, for her father, Cornelius 
 A. Runkle, who died when she was a young 
 girl, was a well-known New York lawyer 
 and for many years counsel for the New 
 York Tribune, and her mother was, pre- 
 vious to her marriage, an editorial writer 
 on the same paper ; the first American 
 woman, in fact, to be on the staff of a great 
 metropolitan daily. 
 
 When a very small child the author of 
 " The Helmet of Navarre " showed distinct 
 signs of romantic promise, for, while other 
 infants were cooing sweet words of wisdom 
 and of pseudo-love to dolls of paper and 
 of wax, she was amusing herself by com- 
 piling stories and by beginning to write 
 them down. 
 
 333 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 With, true Celtic genius, however, she 
 would tire of them about the third chapter, 
 and begin another one. Again, note the 
 early expression of the real, artistic nature. 
 
 Such education as it was her pleasure to 
 be subjected to was first received at home 
 and then at a fashionable New York board- 
 ing-school, where yellow-backed novels were 
 more popular than the works of Thackeray 
 and Carlyle. This story-writing trick of 
 hers, however, still remained, and in some 
 way offset the moral degeneracy into which 
 such dissipations as an over-indulgence in 
 five-pound boxes of Huyler's or Mallard's, 
 and in the matinee, threatened to plunge her. 
 In 1893 her mother purchased a small piece 
 of land at Onteora, Tannersville, N. Y., 
 and upon it built a house where she and her 
 daughter have lived every summer. It is 
 here that Miss Runkle has followed the life 
 of the typical American girl one sees in the 
 334 
 
BERTHA RUNKLE 
 
 centre pages in Life, and learned not only 
 how to write a successful novel, but also how 
 to swing a golf club, ride a wheel, drive a 
 cart, and, in spite of endless skirts, play an 
 excellent game of tennis. The virility which 
 infused the pages of her first book was but 
 the virility of her own nature. Spencer has 
 said, " The book is the man himself. " Here 
 is an excellent proof of the saying — only this 
 time it is a woman. 
 
 When Miss Runkle received a letter say- 
 ing that her story would first be published in 
 The Century Magazine and enclosing a check 
 for serial rights, a smile of intense satisfac- 
 tion passed over her face, as she held out the 
 check for her mother to see ; and the subse- 
 quent developments which the manuscript 
 evolved when it appeared in printed form, 
 have left that smile in possession of her 
 features. 
 
 One of the first things she did with her 
 
 335 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 newly-acquired wealth was to purchase a 
 pony and cart. The pony was "a very 
 little one," but she made him extremely 
 well acquainted with the mountain roads, 
 and when the summer was over and it 
 grew cold in Onteora, — too cold, in fact, 
 for comfort, — she drove her mother all 
 the way to New York. It took three whole 
 days and they both enjoyed it. The pony's 
 name is " Peggy," short for Pegasus. 
 
 There is nothing of the blue-stocking, 
 the Chautauquan assembly camp-stooler, 
 the W. C. T. U. woman, or the intellec- 
 tual hyena about Miss Runkle. In her 
 own words, she says she " dislikes ex- 
 tremely being looked at as a literary 
 freak." If you should see her driving 
 around Onteora in a short skirt, with her 
 hair hanging down her back in two thick 
 braids, you would never suspect that she 
 is the author of one of the most popular 
 336 
 
BERTHA RUNKLE 
 
 novels of the past year, nor would you 
 suspect it if you saw her dancing at one of 
 the Inn's informal hops. She is as simple, 
 as wholesome, as genuine, as any Ameri- 
 can girl. She has always been extremely 
 fond of history, biography, memoirs, and 
 the like, so the study of " The Helmet of 
 Navarre " was part of the fun. She had 
 the story in her mind for two years or so, 
 and the actual writing took about four 
 months ; but she did n't put all her time 
 upon it — the mornings only ; the after- 
 noons were spent out of doors. 
 
 The title of " The Helmet of Navarre " 
 was taken from a passage in Lord Macau- 
 lay's "Ivry," which its author adopted as 
 a motto : 
 
 Press where ye see my white plume shine 
 
 amidst the ranks of war, 
 And be your orinamme to-day, the helmet of 
 
 Navarre. 
 
 33T 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 The book came out with a great shout- 
 ing, a banging of drums, blaring of 
 trumpets, and tons of advertising, and it 
 was not a book that one could easily 
 ignore, for great black letters heralding 
 its power, its beauty, and its great worth 
 stared at one from the pages of every 
 newspaper and magazine. In fact, a line 
 in large letters upon the paper wrapper of 
 the very book itself, quoted a contem- 
 porary to the effect that "any writer of 
 any age might rejoice in its equal." For 
 this reason many read it who would not 
 have otherwise done so, and the effect, on 
 the whole, was very agreeable. 
 
 The reader began with expectation of 
 immediately seeing the king, or at least 
 catching a glimpse of his plume, or his 
 horse's heels, but such was not the case. 
 The author's restraint in not at once hurl- 
 ing this fiery meteor among the lesser con- 
 338 
 
BERTHA RUNKLE 
 
 stellations, inspired gratitude. Fictional 
 kings are extremely difficult things to 
 manage. Like the queen in "Alice in 
 Wonderland," they are either continually 
 in the way, or else are always thundering 
 " Off with his, or her, head ! " For this 
 reason Miss Runkle showed judicious fore- 
 sight and a sense of the artistic that was 
 very commendable, but his cause was at 
 the bottom of the events which were 
 primarily introduced. The power of the 
 League and of Monsieur de Mayenne was 
 dying and Henry was about to ascend the 
 throne, when the story began. The great 
 Due de St. Quentin was Henry's staunch 
 partisan and had come up to Paris to 
 flaunt his loyalty in the face of Mayenne. 
 Felix Broux, servitor of the aforesaid, was 
 the hero of the tale, and came to Paris at 
 the same time, and immediately became 
 involved in a number of plots, counter- 
 
 339 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 plots, escapades, fights and brawls, that 
 have happened to the innumerable fictional 
 heroes of the France of that period, from 
 the famous musketeers of Dumas to the 
 rollicking blades of Stanley Weyman. The 
 intrigue in which the youthful hero be- 
 came implicated, was as complicated as the 
 windings of the maze, from the looking- 
 glass intricacies of which the gullible visi- 
 tor pays a delicate sum to be extracted. 
 The Due de St. Quentin and his son, the 
 Comte de Mar, had become estranged 
 through the villainies of one Lucas, who 
 was employed as the Duke's secretary, but 
 was in reality a nephew of Mayenne 
 and a spy of the League. Felix Broux and 
 the Comte de Mar became warm friends 
 and moved from one peril to another with 
 a cheerful indifference to sudden death 
 that gladdened the heart. The former 
 was the means of bringing about a recon- 
 340 
 
BERTHA BUNKLE 
 
 ciliation and understanding between father 
 and son, and of exposing the evil machina- 
 tions of Lucas, and thereafter served de 
 Mar with unfailing loyalty and unswerv- 
 ing purpose. Lucas, who was the evil 
 genius of the tale, time and time again 
 wove plot after plot with trigonometrical 
 precision, but the St. Quentins, who were 
 ever upon the brink of destruction, always 
 managed to extricate themselves with the 
 dexterity of a Sherlock Holmes. 
 
 The love episodes were furnished by 
 the Comte de Mar and a ward of the Due 
 de Mayenne, Lorance de Montluc. Lorance 
 eventually escaped from her guardian's 
 house, and made a journey on foot to her 
 lover in the camp of the Beamais at St. 
 Denis, and the book ended with the cus- 
 tomary union of two fond and loving 
 hearts. There were the usual number of 
 snares, secret passages, mysterious inns, 
 
 341 
 
LITTLE PILGRIMAGES 
 
 and rascally landlords, and, of course,^ many 
 sparks from whizzing swords. The fact 
 that the author eschewed the local color 
 that is generally supposed to exist in turns 
 of speech, in " characteristic " oaths and 
 exclamations, such as, " By the second lit- 
 tle finger of the Knight of Saint Madrid," 
 M Ventre Saint Gris," etc., was decidedly a 
 point in her favor. The few that were 
 used had no taint of artifice, and the merit 
 was everywhere in evidence. 
 
 Considered, then, as an entity, " The 
 Helmet of Navarre" was not "the most 
 remarkable work of present-day fiction," 
 as its publishers would have us believe, 
 but a very creditable bit of writing, espe- 
 cially for an author who had not yet reached 
 the quarter-century mark ; and one which 
 was read by a great many people simply 
 from the fact of its having been vigorously 
 brought to their attention. But the fact that 
 342 
 
BERTHA RUNKLE 
 
 it was the product of the American girl that 
 we are so proud of, the American girl who 
 can fish, and shoot, and do and dare, is its 
 greatest merit. Vive lafemme Americaine! 
 
 343