LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS P/e, /v- C J LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Little Pilgrimages Series Little Pilgrimages Among the Men Who Have Written Famous Books By E. F. Uarkins Little Pilgrimages Among theWomen Who Have Written Famous Books By E. F. Harkins and C. H. L. Johnston Literary Boston of To-Day By Helen M. Winslow The Romance of Old New England Eooftrees By Mary C. Crawford L. C. PAGE & COMPANY New England Building Boston, Mass. JULIA WARD HOWE ia >*)\iS/~\ 4* 4* * * * * LITTLE PILGRIMAGES Boston *? "Salome ^fjeparti, Bcformer," " doncerntng Catg," "ffioncerntng ^ollg," tc. Boston . (St. *P &* T. T* "T^l Ti A Copyright, 1902 BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) All rights reserved Published, August, 1902 Colonial Press Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Slmonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U.S.A. TO Ib. Clement WHO NOT ONLY HAS RENDERED THE CAUSE OP LETTERS LONG AND EFFI- CIENT SERVICE AS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF OUR LITERARY NEWSPAPER, THE BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT ; BUT TO WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT AND AP- PRECIATION, DURING MANY YEARS, THE ATHOR OWES HER CLAIM TO BE A SMALL FRACTION OF "LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY" ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author wishes to acknowledge her indebtedness to those who have helped her in preparing this little volume. Thanks are due to Mr. J. L. Harbour and Mrs. Sallie Joy White for editorial assistance; and also to many of the authors who have contributed data and photographs in re- sponse to requests for the same; and more especially and heartily for the cordial spirit of cooperation and messages of in- terest which accompanied them. Special thanks should be accorded, too, to James Pott & Co., publishers, New York City, for permission to use extracts from the chapter on Mr. Aldrich in their " American Authors and Their Homes," and also to Mr. Erving Winsloiv for ma- terial gleaned from " Time and the Hour/' CONTENTS Chapter Page I. Thomas Bailey Aldrich and Thomas Wentworth Hig- ginson 11 II. Edward Everett Hale and Julia Ward Howe and Her Family 31 III. Mrs. James T. Fields, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Alice Brown 56 IV. Louise Chandler Moulton, Helen Choate Prince, and Edna Dean Proctor 77 Y. Margaret Deland, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Her- bert D. Ward, Harriet Pres- cott Spofford 94 YI. John Townsend Trowbridge and Hezekiah Butterworth 118 YII. James Jeffrey Roche, Thomas Russell Sullivan, John T. Wheelwright, Frederic J. Stimson, and Robert Grant 143 YIII. Arlo Bates, Percival Lowell, Justin H. Smith, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Torrey Morse, and Bradford Tor- rey 171 iz CONTENTS Chapter Page IX. Eliza Orne White, Agnes Blake Poor, Anna Fuller, Helen Leah Reed, and Evelyn Greenleaf Suther- land 190 X. Josephine Preston Peabody, Beulah Marie Dix, Caro- line Ticknor, Elizabeth Phipps Train, Mary Tap- pan Wright, Lilian Shu- man, and Geraldine Brooks 206 XI. Mary A. Livermore, Adeline D. T. Whitney, Edna Dow Cheney, Abby Morton Diaz, and Kate Tannatt Woods 226 XII. The Cambridge Set : Charles Eliot Norton, President Eliot, and other Authors Connected with Harvard University, Wellesley Col- lege, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, etc. 258 XIII. Charlotte Porter and Helen Archibald Clarke, Editors of Poet-Lore, Louise Imo- CONTENTS Chapter Page gen Guiney, May Alden Ward, and William G. Ward 276 XIV. Nathan Haskell Dole, Charles F. Dole, George Willis Cooke, Sam Wal- ter Foss, Charles Follen Adams, and Edward Pay- son Jackson 292 XY. J. L. Harbour, James Buck- ham, Oscar Fay Adams, Ash ton R. Willard, Charles Felton Pidgin, and Willis Boyd Allen 317 XVI. Kate Sanborn, Alice Free- man Palmer, Mary E. Blake, Sophie Swett, Florence Converse, Anna Farquhar, Lilian Whit- ing, and Katharine E. Conway 337 XVII. Frank P. Stearns, Henry D. Lloyd, and the Lead- ers of the New Thought Movement 368 XVIIL Journalist Authors, Edward H. Clement, Henry Aus- xi CONTENTS Chapter Page tin Clapp, Bliss Perry, Ed- win D. Mead, Curtis Guild, Charles E. L. Wingate, Sylvester Baxter, and Ed- mund Noble 395 XIX. Literary Boston of the Future 428 xn LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Julia Ward Howe Frontispiece Thomas Bailey Aldrich 16 Thomas Wentworth Higginson 28 Edward Everett Hale 34 Mrs. Fields's Library 58 Sarah Orne Jewett 64 Mrs. Moul ton's Drawing-Room 78 Louise Chandler Moulton 84 Interior of Margaret Deland's Boston Home Jonquil Sale 99 Homes of Mr. and Mrs. Ward 113 Home of John T. Trowbridge, Arling- ton 120 Hezekiah Butterworth 134 James Jeffrey Roche 145 Thomas Russell Sullivan 154 Arlo Bates 172 Henry Cabot Lodge 182 Home of Eliza Orne White, Brookline 191 Josephine Preston Peabody 206 Beulah Marie Dix 210 Mary A; Livermore 226 Charles W. Eliot 264 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Helen Archibald Clarke 284 Sam Walter Foss 306 Charles Follen Adams 310 James Buckham 324 Kate Sanborn 339 Alice Freeman Palmer 344 Anna Farquhar 354 Frank Preston Stearns 369 Henry Demarest Lloyd 378 Edward H. Clement 397 Bliss Perry 426 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY CHAPTER I. THOMAS BAILEY ALDKICH AND THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSOIT rHE rest of the world will tell you there is no literary Boston of to- day. Nothing delights the average New Yorker or Chicagoan more than to point to our past glories and cry, " Boston is no longer the Hub of the Universe." And yet, Mr. Roswell Field, loaned us for two years from the literary purlieus of Chicago, wrote back to the Evening Post of that city : " Merely as a matter of gen- eral statistics and possibly of general 11 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY interest, it may be set down that every family in Middlesex County, Massachu- setts, boasts a rubber-tree and an author. In certain instances there are two or three rubber-trees and an author, and in others two or three authors and a rubber-tree, but the average holds good, and we are all very happy and contented ; " - a statement that made him the recipient of a small forest of rubber-trees from sympathetic Bostonians, since the Field family had possessed two authors and none of the evergreen tree. Again the attitude of the Chicagoan among us is expressed as follows : " Back in Cook County, where culture is believed to make thirty revolutions a minute, we were accustomed to think that the amal- gamated poets and concatenated laureates were tolerably plentiful; but, bless you, their mobilised force would not make a 12 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY respectable escort for the men and women of Boston who have not only written books, but have had them published. However, we do not talk about these things in Bos- ton; we accept them as the logical out- come of the strenuous intellectual life, and if, perchance, a forlorn and ship- wrecked brother has not utilised the ad- vantages environment has given him, he can look at our footprints and take heart again. The Boston author impresses me as much less self-assertive than his Western brother. This is probably due to the fact that there are so many more of him. By the same token the Boston terrier is not nearly so arrogant and presumptuous in the Back Bay as in Chicago. I suppose it takes some of the starch cut of the author and the terrier to reflect that they are very numerous, and at the most must divide the attention of the family with the 13 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY rubber-tree and the never-failing picture of Phillips Brooks. So he, the author, not the terrier, is usually a charming gentleman, not wholly unconscious of his individual purpose, but ready to concede that there are others. The whole problem of authorial self-abnegation and renuncia- tion of the crown is solved by the phrase ' there are others.' ' Those were, indeed, halcyon days in Boston literature when its exponents were such men as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Na- thaniel Hawthorne. John Greenleaf Whit- tier, and James T. Fields. That was a literary epoch the like of which has scarcely been known since the Elizabethan age. But these men, who established the reputation for Boston as a literary centre, have all passed on to unknown glories, and 14 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the world says truly that Boston has none to fill their place. But, we ask, has any- other city in America, or in the world, men, a group of men, like them ? In what country will you find to-day a match for that delicate and genial hu- mourist, Doctor Holmes ? Where a phi- losopher like Emerson ? What town can show us another Hawthorne, or Lowell, or Whittier ? Then let not other cities sneer at Boston until they can hold up such citi- zens of their own, and say, " Behold, we are the people ! " No; that is an age past and gone; and we do not claim that Boston can produce it again to-day, nor perhaps ever ; and yet we can show cause for our claim that lit- erature is not yet a bygone art in conserv- ative, Puritanic, beloved old Boston. We may not have our great men, our literary 15 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY geniuses of the past, but " there are oth- ers/' and of them let us speak. There is still Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who, although no longer editor of the At- lantic, is yet a resident of Boston and his beloved Ponkapog. From the day when his " Story of a Bad Boy " made its ap- pearance, he has ranked among the leading men of letters. He was the personal friend of each of the galaxy that made Boston famous between 1850 and 1875. Whether it was in story or in verse, his writings were eagerly watched for, and unquestion- ingly accepted as the best in American literature. Mr. Aldrich is a charming man to meet. Contrary to the general impression, he is small, rather boyish in build, and beardless, except for a slight moustache, which is kept waxed with as tender care as any bestowed on the hirsute adornments of our " jeunesse doree" He 16 THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY has lived for many years in a famous old house on Mt. Vernon Street, with his wife and his twin boys, and when the owner of the house died a few years ago, and left not only the establishment, but a for- tune as well, to the Aldrich family, all Boston rejoiced in the good fortune of the "Poet of Ponkapog." He was born November second, 1836, at Portsmouth, N. H., and, although he passed most of his boyhood in Louisiana, he returned to Portsmouth in 1850, and prepared for Harvard. Two years later his father died, and he went into a bank- ing-house in New York. This position he occupied three years, and then left for an editorial position on the New York Evening Mirror. He was editor after- ward of N. P. Willis's Home Journal and the Illustrated News, and in 1865 came to Boston to take charge of Every Saturday, 17 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY a popular periodical established by James T. Fields. In 1881 he became the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, succeeding Mr. William Dean Howells, a post which he kept until 1890, since when he has de- voted himself entirely to literature, al- though he has published little during the past few years. We may, however, expect a book of reminiscences from his pen, which is sure to be a valuable and inter- esting contribution to literature. Among his books are " The Ballad of 'Babie Bell and Other Poems," " The Story of a Bad Boy, 77 "Cloth of Gold, 77 " Flower and Thorn, 77 " Mercedes and Later Lyrics, 77 "Marjorie Daw and Other People, 77 "Pru- dence Palfry, 77 "The Queen of Sheba, 77 " The Stillwater Tragedy, 77 " From Pon- kapog to Pesth, 77 " Wyndham Towers," " The Sister's Tragedy, 77 " An Old Town by the Sea, 77 " Two Bites at a Cherry and 18 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Other Stories," " Judith and Holofernes," etc. Says a recent writer in " American Authors and Their Homes " : " From the very crest of Beacon Hill, where stands the almost painfully new marble of the straggling addition to the Bulfinch State-House, there slopes swiftly to the water's edge a street whose coun- terpart is not to be found in America. It is lined with the noblest houses of Boston, the most of them at least half a century old. They were built by the courtly gen- tlemen of that time, and many are still occupied by descendants of those merchant princes and statesmen who made Mt. Yernon Street a place of extraordinary vogue and exclusiveness ; but the butterflies of fashion have now taken wing to other regions. On the right, as you descend, is a group of eight or ten tall, bow-fronted mansions set considerably back from the 19 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY sidewalk, each with its grass plot and or- nate iron fence. This semi-retirement gives an indescribable air of dignity and richness, and strangers always gaze upon them with admiration. "Mr. Aldrich's house, ISTo. 59, is the second of this group. It is particularly noticeable by reason of its doorway of white marble framework and Grecian pil- lars set into the brick, a curious and strik- ing arrangement. From the steps, one can see the blue waters of the Charles, that omnipresent river in and around Boston, and the long curve of Back Bay houses, whose rear view is that of the water. A son of George Bancroft, the historian, is Mr. Aldrich's next-door neighbour, and beyond him recently has lived ex-Governor Claflin. On the other side of the street, and not quite so far down, is the house of the Honourable Eobert Treat Paine. It 20 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY will be seen, therefore, that the neighbour- hood still has distinction, even if the blaze of fashion has been extinguished. " The interior of this fine old mansion is entirely in keeping with its outside no- bility. If one enters on such an* errand as that which called the writer of this chronicle to it, he gets a moment's impres- sion of a richly furnished drawing-room, where a fire of logs is burning in a cheer- ful blaze, and a gray African parrot is en- joying a place of honour, a large hall, a great circular stairway sweeping its broad spiral to the very top of the house, vistas of beautiful rooms at each landing, and, at last, on the fourth floor, the ' den ' of the poet, the true abiding-place of an au- thor at home. " This room is large, but not too much so to be inviting and comfortable, and it has its fireplace, like all the others. From 21 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY its bow-windows a splendid panorama of the southwestern part of Boston, domi- nated by the campanile of the Providence Station, greets the eye. At night myriad lights give the view still greater beauty. From the roof of the house, the islands of the harbour can be seen, and even the sea beyond, for at this point one finds him- self as high as the dome of the capitol. " The noticeable feature of this snug- gery is its antique f urniture, escri- toires, chairs, and tables that would make a collector green with envy. Nothing here, with the exception of two immense modern, velvet-cushioned rockers and a large centre desk, is of later date than 1812. This furniture forms part of the valuable heritage its owner derived from his grandfather, who lived in Portsmouth, the veritable grandfather of the hero of that delightful classic, ' The Story of a 22 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Bad Boy/ which (and the reader may take ' Tom Bailey's ? word for it) is auto- biographic and true in its essential ele- ments. " The centre desk was once owned by Charles Sumner, and was used by him for many years. In various odd corners are half a hundred things picked up all over the world, such as Buddhist deities, Ara- bian gems, and a very valuable piece of Moorish tiling from the walls of Alham- bra. There are book-shelves in plenty, of course, and a semi-literary collection of pipes on a curious table at one of the windows. Good pictures hang on the red- toned walls, although to the bookman the most interesting object of that sort is an old print of Doctor Johnson, framed with an autograph letter of that worthy." To quote from Roswell Field once more : " I fancy that one of the pleasantest of 23 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the surprises that await the pilgrim in Boston is the appearance in the flesh of the poets, novelists, and story-writers whom he has long associated with the silent tomb. It gives you a little shock at first, but you are soon used to it, and I should not be surprised at any time to see old Ben Franklin come out of a bookstore, or to meet Anne Bradstreet at a literary bargain counter. Those of us w r ho are influenced by the sweet teachings of the- osophy, meeting certain authors on the streets of Boston, would be tempted to exclaim : ' What incarnation is this ? ' We remember that far back in the shadowy days of our childhood we read their printed words and exulted in the ebulli- tion of their fancy. The years have come and gone, the ancient elms have decayed and fallen, the friends of our youth have been ' tolled out ' by the village church, LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and our old authors have been mourned, if not forgotten. Now, to our amazement, down on Cornhill, or in the Old Corner Bookstore, or around the bargain street stalls prances the cheerful instructor of boyhood, a little disfigured, perhaps, by time, but good for half a dozen tomes at short notice." Among these older writers are Colonel Higginson, Mrs. Howe, John T. Trow- bridge, Edward Everett Hale, and Heze- kiah Butterworth. Colonel Higginson was born and nur- tured in the literary atmosphere of Cambridge. " My earliest documentary evidence of existence on this planet," says he, in " Cheerful Yesterdays," " is a note to my father in Edward Everett's exquisite handwriting, inquiring after the health of the babe, and saying that Mrs. Everett was putting up some tamarinds 25 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY to accompany the note. The precise ob- ject of the tamarinds I have never clearly understood, but it is pleasant to think that I was, at the tender age of seven months, assisted toward maturity by this benefaction by so eminent a man. Pro- fessor Andrews, Norton and George Tick- nor habitually gave their own writings; and I remember Doctor J. G. Palfrey bringing to the house a new book, Haw- thorne's ' Twice-Told Tales/ and reading aloud ' A Rill from the Town Pump.' Once, and once only, Washington Irving came there, while visiting a nephew who had married my cousin. Margaret Fmller, a plain, precocious, overgrown girl, but al- ready credited with unusual talents, used to visit my elder sister, and would some- times sit" at my mother's feet, gazing up at her with admiration. A younger sis- ter of Professor Longfellow was a fre- 26 LITERAKY BOSTON QF TO-DAY quent guest, and the young poet himself came in the dawning of yet undeveloped fame. My special playmate was Charles Parsons, and I often ' tumbled about in a library ' indeed, the very same library where the autocrat had himself performed the process he has recommended. Under these circumstances," adds Colonel Itig- ginson, and I am sure we all agree with him, " it seems very natural that a child thus moulded should have drifted into a literary career." Colonel Higginson has not always lived in Cambridge. He made a distinguished record in the Civil War, gaining the title of the " Fighting Parson." Before that, he was a clergyman, and preached in New- buryport, and presided over a parish in Worcester, but his mind is of too liberal frame to be satisfied with creed and dogma, and he left the ministry many 27 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY years ago, settling in Cambridge, where he owns a picturesque house on Bucking- ham Street, filled with books, and in neigh- bourly proximity to the best " University set " and the scenes where his happy boy- hood was passed. In the summer, he takes his wife and daughter (with whom he lives an exceptionally harmonious life) up to the beautiful town of Dublin, 1ST. H., where he owns another charming home. O Mrs. Higginson (who was a niece of Pro- fessor Longfellow's first wife) writes oc- casionally some excellent verses, which are printed in the leading magazines and have been published in two volumes; and the young daughter, just blossoming into young womanhood, is proving her title to be the intellectual successor of such a father and mother. Colonel Higginson's best literary work has been done in his later years, as he 28 THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY has had more leisure for it. His earlier life was filled with the duties peculiar to the philanthropist and reformer, and in the stress of this work there was little time or opportunity for cultivating the quieter art of letters. The form in which his writings have been presented is a fig- urative one, but his memoirs of early days, and his rambles in art, literature, and native lore have been mellow with ripe scholarship and a matured mind. His natural force has hardly abated, but the reminiscent mood is obviously passing upon him, and the gentle afterglow wins us to gather round " old tales to hear." " It is a long career, in our rapid times," writes one of Colonel Higginson, " this span of seventy-five years. The bi- ographer of Margaret Fuller Ossoli is the discreet and sympathetic critic of Kipling and Stephen Crane. The dreamy pas- 29 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY torals of t Oldport Days ' alternate with the passionate advocacy of woman's rights. Minister, soldier, legislator, lecturer, au- thor, historian, poet, philanthropist, it would be difficult to find in any great city of our great country a man whose leadership has been so potent for right- eousness, for beauty, for truth, as that of Thomas Went worth Higginson." 30 CHAPTER II. EDWARD EVERETT HALE AND JULIA WARD HOWE AND HER FAMILY survivor of the great literary epoch of the middle nine- teenth century is the venerable and well-beloved Reverend Doctor Edward Everett Hale, who, although an octogena- rian, is still mentally keen and active, with powers which give no sign of decadence, and with all the enthusiasm of youth. Erom his years and his wide, eclectic ex- periences, Doctor Hale may well be given the position of the dean of Boston's liter- ary set. And this not alone from the 31 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY length of life which has been accorded him, and his varied and important achieve- ments, but from the sincere and active in- terest which he takes in those who are making letters a profession, and his special kindness to beginners. There is no young literary worker, whose good fortune it has been to have Doctor Hale as counsellor and friend in the days when effort was new, and the path of endeavour almost untried, who does not owe a debt of gratitude to the man who never withheld merited en- couragement, who was always ready with needed advice, and who softened criticism with kindly suggestion. Time and the Hour, which, during its brilliant but all too short existence, was a component part of literary Boston, said of Doctor Hale: " His is a comfortable, bookish, thor- oughly New England home, with many LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY interesting family memorials and pictures, especially rich in the records of the life and work of the father whom he loved so reverently, and to whom he attributes so much of his power and resource. A pecu- liar genial hospitality not of the cere- monious kind, but the heart hospitality of an elder brother greets the guest at that household in old Roxbury, the name to which Doctor Hale has always clung, as indeed have most of the old residents, in spite of annexation, and the effort to make the locality known as ' Boston Highlands.' " No host could convey so cordially the sense that a visitor had a right to the de- mand which is made upon that valuable time, so valuable that it would be hedged about by most men with the barriers of transmitted cards and the formalities of servant's messages. One feels that shaggy royalty is condescending to his need or 33 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY his desire, yet most unconscious of it, simple, loving, wistfully entreating almost. There is a childish heart under that fine presence which is so leonine, compelling, and impressive. 77 April third, 1822, was the birthday of Edward Everett Hale, Boston boy, Latin School boy, Harvard graduate of 1839. He was no prodigy, but was warmly sand- wiched between six brothers and sisters; having the middle place, he was protected from those external influences which may affect the oldest or the youngest, pro- tected, yet set in keen competition with a bright family, and having to keep his end up or go under. In his class he kept a similar middle place, ninth among fifteen, and, though he mastered his paradigms at six, and put " Robinson Crusoe 77 into Latin at nine, he was a healthy boy among boys, leaning 34 EDWARD EVERETT HALE LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY 011 others, and drawing from others, as he always has done, the child in the middle reaching out on both sides, having no liking for extremes, mingling the hot Hale blood and the calm Everett strain in a tide which has flowed full and strong, but never boisterous, through its brim- ming banks. Doctor Hale served in the ministry in Washington for a year or two, choosing that profession because it offered so much of active moral and philanthropic oppor- tunity ; then he was stationed in Worcester for ten years, where he is still gratefully and affectionately remembered in many ways, but particularly as the founder of its public library. It is almost half a century since he was installed pastor of the South Congregational Church of Bos- ton, and he is still pastor emeritus, al- though the parochial duties are performed 35 LITEEAEY BOSTOK OF TO-DAY by his successor in active work, and as the recognised incumbent, the Reverend Doc- tor Edward Cummings. But he has not belonged exclusively to the South Congregational Society. He has always stoutly maintained that to give one's self fully to any particular work, to make the gift really great, one must enlarge one's self by the widest service which intensifies the man and makes him able to present a worthy offering. So he has had a planetary influence through his institution of " Ten Times One is Ten," of Wadsworth Clubs and Lend a Hand Clubs all over the world, in every sort of philanthropic work, economic, social, and industrial. Developing a broad humanity through environment, heredity, and training, and animated by the spurring spirit of an in- tense moral enthusiasm, it was natural LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY that Doctor Hale should be a patriot, and that he should write " A Man Without a Country. 77 He has won international reputation for breadth of view, simplicity of doctrine, and for rare qualities as an organiser and a preacher. Underlying and permeating his varied labours has glowed an intense patriotism which com- pletes his merited distinction as a great American. Tested by any standard by which we are accustomed to measure men, Doctor Hale commands our respect and admiration. In his private life, personal character, and public services, he exem- plifies the very highesi: type of manhood. His literary work has been stupendous, reaching to fifty volumes, and ten times fifty volumes in uncollected articles, stud- ies, and sermons. He has caught the pop- ular fancy, as few purely literary men have done, with " My Double, and How 37 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY He Undid Me " and " The Man Without a Country," but these are only unconsid- ered trifles in the bibliography of the pro- lific author who is delighting everybody with the reminiscences of his rich ac- quaintance with men and things, the expression of a ripe mind, full without prolixity, liberal without garrulity, and instructive without pedantry. Previous to settling down to ministerial work, he served his father as secretary, and also an apprenticeship in his news- paper office, the old Boston Advertiser. - from the work of typesetting to editing. It was a question for a time which profes- sion he would choose, and he ultimately took the ministry. The journalistic in- stinct has been always strong within him, but he has had to keep it in check, or he would have been compelled to give up everything else for it. 38 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Before everything else Doctor Hale is a Bostonian of Bostonians, of full value lo- cally, a circumstance which makes him not alone the minister, the philanthropist, the author, but the good citizen. And it was as the citizen, beloved and revered, that Boston honoured him on the third of April, 1902, on the occasion of his eighti- eth birthday. If Doctor Hale is the dean of literary Boston, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe is the recognised leader and acknowledged sov- ereign. She reigns over her kingdom with an undisputed sway, and her subjects are all loyal and loving, giving willing homage to their uncrowned queen. And yet Boston cannot wholly claim her, any more than it can others of its famous ones. As one has said in writing of the group of immortals of whom Mrs. Howe is one : " In reckoning with the LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY famous people of Boston, it is striking to note that so many of them are not merely of local importance, but are recognised as leaders by the whole country. And there are few cities in the United States where, if the question were asked in a group of its most intelligent women, who was their representative champion, the reply would not be Julia Ward Howe." Although Mrs. Howe has reached the ripe age of eighty-three, there is none of the suggestion of the decay which years are supposed to bring. With her, youth is perennial, and it is no wonder that, living under the gracious influence of this rich life, her daughter so caught the spirit of it that she remarked, on the occasion of her mother's seventieth birthday, that she was " seventy years young." It was a happy phrase, and it has clung to her ever since, and when any one speaks of Mrs. 40 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Howe's age, they always count the years by youth and not by age. And so while Mrs. Julia Ward Howe is now eighty-three years " young/' she is by no means out of the activities of life, but it still a power and an inspiration, and is an earnest, zealous worker in the great movements of the day. Whether she is holding meetings at her house in the in- terest of universal peace, or writing books, she is the same busy, active woman of years ago. Everybody knows something about Mrs. Howe in a general way, for her " Battle Hymn of the Kepublic " has made her name a household word in America. Thousands have seen her on the platform, and heard her speak on some of the subjects connected with philanthropy or reform, with which she is so closely iden- tified. As many more have seen her oc- 41 LITER AEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY cupying that position familiarly known as " the chair " ; but only the compara- tively favoured few know her as she is in private life. Only those who know her well are familiar with that delightful spirit of delicate, sparkling humour, and the flashes of pure, kindly, genuine wit, which characterise her intercourse with friends. There is nothing more delightful than to listen to a tilt of words between Mrs. Howe and her old friend, Colonel Higginson, a treat that is now and then vouchsafed to their associates of the Au- thors' Club, of which Mrs. Howe is pres- ident and Colonel Higginson first vice- president. The members of the famous New Eng- land Woman's Club know, too, an alto- gether different side of her from that which the general public know. In her capacity as president of that club, she 42 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY feels as perfectly at home as in her own parlour; and those who are to be trusted say that in no other place does her woman- liness, her ready tact, her brilliant wit, and her versatility of talent shine forth so conspicuously. In her Boston home, Mrs. Howe has welcomed the most noted men and women of the day, both of this and of foreign countries, and her recep- tions have always been the meeting-place of the choicest spirits, literary, musical, artistic, and scientific. Outside, her house on Beacon Street, numbered 241, presents a plain, unosten- tatious front, like all its neighbours; but once ushered into the little reception-room at the left of the front door, the visitor realises that he is in the home of rare culture and refinement, the residence of one who has travelled much, and who has brought something of value and interest 43 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY from all parts of the world. The atmos- phere of plain, almost severe intellectual- ity, the fine etchings, rare curios, antique busts and artistic statuettes, the replicas of famous marbles, all testify to this. And if he is fortunate enough to be bidden to the drawing-room up-stairs, or, better yet, to the " den " or music-room back of it, his first impression is deepened. In this room, besides all the treasures gath- ered in a lifetime of travel, is a fine bust of Doctor Howe, and Porter's superb painting of Mrs. Howe's youngest daugh- ter, Maud Howe, at eighteen. But the charm of this house is the mis- tress, and when, presently, the visitor is greeted by the small but self -poised, white- haired woman, who advances with cordial hospitality to meet him, he, like all the rest of those who are privileged to meet her in this intimate,, unconventional fash- 44 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ion, succumbs to the rare personal charm of this world-famous woman; so that he goes away with one vital impression, that of a serenely gracious personality endowed with a mellow, musical voice, and a rare charm of manner, an impression which crystallises into a cherished memory. Julia Ward, daughter of Samuel and Julia Rusk (Cutler) Ward, was born on May twenty-seventh, 1819, at her parents' house in the Bowling Green, New York City, a place which carries one back in mind to the old Knickerbocker days, and the rule of gruff old Peter Stuyvesant. Later her father built an elegant and spa- cious house at the corner of Broadway and Bond Street, a long way up-town at that time, and there her youth was passed. This delightful home was frequented by the best people in the metropolis, and 45 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY there were three beautiful girls in the family to make its hospitality irresistible. In April, 1843, when she was twenty- four years of age, she was married to Doc- tor Samuel Gridley Howe, whom she had met during frequent visits to Boston, where she was warmly welcomed into the literary and artistic circle, of which Doc- tor Howe was a member. With him she shortly visited Europe. Doctor Howe was at that time the head of the famous Mas- sachusetts School for the Blind at South Boston, and his success in teaching Laura Bridgman had made his name well known all over the world, so that, when the young couple arrived in London, they found the doors of the best houses open to them. On the Continent it was the same, for there his fame as a worker among the unfor- tunate ones of the world was supplemented 46 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY by his efforts for Greece and the liberties of its people. They passed the winter on the Conti- nent, mostly in Rome, where, the next spring, their first child, Julia Romana, was born. This child was baptised by Theodore Parker, who was the warm friend of both Doctor and Mrs. Howe, and she grew up to be a sympathiser with her father in his work for the blind, and, in time, she became a teacher at the insti- tution. Later she became a student of philosophy, and was the founder of the Metaphysical Club, of which she was the president, and whose meetings ceased at her death, in March, 1884. She was the author of a volume of poems entitled " Stray Chords," and of a sketch of the Summer School of Philosophy at Concord, Mass., entitled " Quaestor Philosophise." She was married, on the thirtieth of De- 47 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY cember, 1870, to Michael Aiiagnos, for- merly of Greece, who succeeded Doctor Howe as superintendent of the Perkins School for the Blind. When she died, there was universal mourning all through Boston, where she was especially beloved. She was a rarely beautiful woman, with a face from which a pure soul seemed ever shining. On the return of the Howes to Amer- ica, they made a home at South Boston, and there the other four of their children were born. But, later, when the eldest of the children were old enough to enter society, they removed to Boston, living for some years at 17 Boylston Place, when that little no-thoroughfare was noted for the famous and brilliant coterie which was found within its pocket-like limits. From there they removed to Mount Vernon Street, when the character 48 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of the place began to change, but since the death of Doctor Howe, Mrs. Howe has made her winter home at her present residence in Beacon Street, of which the equity was given her by her brother, the late Samuel Ward, of New York. She spends her summers at " Oak Grove," near Newport, where far from the bustle and fuss of the ultra fashionable crowd she lives a genuine country life, and rules with a firm hand, as gentle, however, as it is firm, the unique " Town and Coun- try Club," which is as delightful a mix- ture of swells and idealists as was ever gotten together, and which could only be assimilated by Mrs. Howe. Mrs. Howe's literary work has been constant, and she is still busy with her pen. She has published four volumes of poems, a life of Margaret Fuller, two or three volumes of essays, two of travel, 49 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY " From the Oak to the Olive " and " A Trip to Cuba/ 7 a play, " Leonora/' and, latest of all, her delightful " Reminis- cences." Her " Battle Hymn of the Re- public " is the most widely known of all that she has written, and is one of the few American classics. Those persons who have been so fortunate as to hear her recite it in her clear, exquisitely modu- lated voice, and with her absorbed, ear- nest, almost inspired air, always feel that they have gained an insight into its pa- triotic and religious sentiments not vouch- safed to the readers of it. Mrs. Howe was one of the founders of the New England Women's Club in 1868, and has been its president ever since its first ruler, Mrs. Caroline Severance, left Massachusetts for California, early in the seventies. No one else will hold the office so long as Mrs. Howe lives. She was 50 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY one of the first officers for the Association for the Advancement of Women, and has been for a long time its president. She is the honorary president of the Massachu- setts Federation of Women's Clubs, and was its first active president. She is also president of the Boston Authors' Club. Her continuous good health she attributes, in part, to her habits of study, and daily, yet never excessive, brain labour. She has visited Europe six times, Cal- ifornia and the Pacific coast twice, and made several journeys to the West Indies, and even now she thinks nothing of start- ing off West or South on a lecture engage- ment, making less fuss over it than many a younger woman would do. Taken as a whole, Mrs. Howe's family is a remarkable one. Her four daughters have all proven literary workers of more than average ability, while her only son 51 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY is a distinguished scientist, and also a clever writer on special lines upon which he is an acknowledged authority. Mention has already been made of her oldest daughter, Mrs. Anagnos. Her sec- ond daughter was Florence Marion Howe, now Mrs. Hall, known in literature and club work as Florence Howe Hall. She is the author of " Social Customs " and " The Correct Thing," and she is a prom- inent speaker before women's clubs. She was married November fifteenth, 1871, to David Prescott Hall, a man noted for his public spirit, and a member of the New York Bar. Mrs. Howe's only son was born in 1848, and is named Henry Marion. He grad- uated from Harvard University in 1869, and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1871. He then studied abroad, and lived in Europe, South Amer- 52 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ica, and in various mining districts in North America before settling down in New York, where he holds a professorship in the School of Mines of Columbia Uni- versity. In his profession of mining en- gineer and expert, he has won high honours, and has an international repu- tation. His book on " The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel " is an exhaustive work, which has received the highest praise from the scientific world, and is accepted as authoritative. There are few families where there are children in which " Captain January " has not been read and loved, but not every one knows that the author, Laura E. Rich- ards, is the third daughter of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Mrs. Richards has written some of the most delightful nonsense verses for children that have ever seen light on a printed page, and it is no won- 53 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY der that her name is a household word in many families. She was married June seventeenth, 1871, to Henry Richards, and the young couple went to live in Gar- diner, Maine, a town named for the fam- ily of Mr. Richards' s mother. The youngest, by some years, of Mrs. Howe's daughters is Mrs. Maud Howe Elliott, who inherits, to a marked degree, her mother's wit, graciousness of manner, and social gifts, as well as much of her genius of expression. She was, in her girlhood, regarded as a beauty and a belle, and she is a rarely beautiful woman, more than fulfilling the promise of her girl- hood. Society did not satisfy her, any more than it had satisfied her mother, and she soon turned her attention to more seri- ous pursuits. After studying art for some time, she adopted literature as a career. Her published works are " A Newport 54 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Aquarelle/' " Atalanta in the South, " "San Eosario Kanch," Phyllida," and " Mammon." She has for several seasons given parlour readings with marked suc- cess, talking chiefly upon art and litera- ture. She was married in February,18S7, to ]\fr. John Elliott, an Englishman and an artist. Their home is in Rome, al- though they spend much time in Boston with Mrs. Howe. And so Mrs. Howe is not only the fa- mous woman of letters, the accomplished speaker, the leader among women, but she is also the happy, proud mother of a group of children who put to naught the old saying that the children of famous parents never amount to much in themselves; and besides these children, she has a number of promising young grandchildren, who are sure, in time, to do honour to their illustrious ancestress. 55 CHAPTER III. MRS. JAMES T. FIELDS, SARAH OR^E JEWETT, AND ALICE BROWN X^vNE of the houses that often shel- f M tered that rare group of men who made literary Boston famous dur- ing the early part of the last half of the century just passed is still the resort of the favoured few, and it is to-day consid- ered a mark of high esteem, and an hon- our, to be asked to the home of Mrs. James T. Fields. " When the social quarter of Boston was squeezed and pressed upon by the growth of business," said Time and the 56 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Hour, " so that Summer Street and Frank- lin Street, West and Bedford, Winter and Tremont Streets were no longer tolerable for dwelling-places, it was a problem where it should find a new development. At this time, the water-front on the Charles offered itself as a pleasant place for a fresh start, and fine rows of stately mansions were soon built, with a quiet street for a frontage and the river in the rear. Doctor Holmes occupied one of them, and not far away Mr. James T. Fields, his friend and publisher, set up his household gods. " The old settlers, or their children, have almost all migrated to the newer Back Bay now, the district with accom- modations for stepping westward to the sunset, and Charles Street has become a thoroughfare for the most heavy, creak- ing, rattling traffic of the town, while a 57 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY part of the water view has been cut off by stealing a further strip of land from the river, and interposing Brimmer Street. Not so at 148 Charles Street, however. The uproar and the jangle rage before this house front as well as before all the others in the street, but, when one is admitted into Mrs. James T. Fields's home, and passing up the stairs, is seated in the drawing-room, with its westward windows, he looks over a calm expanse of water be- yond a quiet garden, which might be the neighbour of an outlying rural wilder- ness. In later spring, perhaps after the evening meal, the company may ramble through its walks and shrubberies, or seek the benches along the water's edge, and quite forget that only a few rods separate them from the sordid sounds and sights of a busy town. Boccaccio's garden scarcely echoed to more wit and wisdom 58 LITEKARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY than has that pretty plot of ground, pressed by the feet of Dickens, Thackeray, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, Hawthorne, Emerson, and all the immor- tals of the last generation." In the midst of treasures of every kind, pictures, autographs, mementoes of fa- mous singers and writers, speakers 'and actors of the time; in the midst of mem- ories far more varied and infinitely richer, lives the votaress of this sacred shrine, and ministers to the favoured few who are its intimates with delicate grace. One of the red-letter days of the au- thor's own life was marked by a simple luncheon at 148 Charles Street, when the only other guest was Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, and they were served by Mrs. Fields with the rare grace of an old-time gentlewoman. She is as quiet in dress as she is in manner and speech, and with 59 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY smoothly banded hair half concealing her ears, in the fashion which our grand- mothers followed half a century ago, she dispenses tea and hospitality, seasoned with conversation that has a flavour unex- celled. Gentle, quiet, and reserved as are the motions of her daily life, there is no power in Boston to-day like that of Mrs. Fields; for influence is still not altogether a matter of shouting, or of fonts of type, but goes out with a power to leaven all things, which will not be understood until, from the other side of the warp and woof, the pattern woven into the life fabric is seen. Mrs. Fields was the wife of James T. Fields, the famous Boston publisher, who was the medium of communication and even of introduction between the galaxy of literary stars in Boston between 1850 and 1880, and who established and pub- 60 LITEBAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY lished The Atlantic Monthly. She is still continuing her literary work, which has always been of ft high order, though not at all prolific. She has written " A Shelf of Old Books," " How to Help the Poor," " Memoirs of James T. Fields," " Whit- tier: Notes of His Life and Friendship," "Authors and Friends," "Under the Olive," " The Sighing Shepherd and Other Poems." But it is in the world of philanthropic work that she finds her highest pleasure. At the council-table in " Ward Seven's " office in the Chardon Street Charity Build- ing of Boston Mrs. Fields has sat since the organisation of the Associated Char- ities, and has borne a large part in the general directorship, besides, from the be- ginning. If, as has been said, Mr. Robert Treat Paine is the head, so is Mrs. Fields the heart of the great movement, for, in- 61 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY deed, it has a heart, and a warm one. Do the critics, who fancy there is no personal quality left in the statistical development of the Associated Charities, know of the personal family work that is done that never finds a place in formal reports? How surprised those persons who fancy there is only a tabulating engine in Char- don Street would be to know what num- bers of personal exigencies by day and by night call for assistance, sympathy, and advice, which is never denied. And all through the long summer, Mrs. Fields takes the long journey to the heated town almost daily from her Manchester-by-the- Sea cottage, in order that she may be al- ways ready for the needs of her poor friends. It is a delightful part of this task to recognise that so much of the best work 62 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY in the world is unheralded and unnoted, and yet that the workers will grow " fa- mous " while shunning publicity, and fol- lowing the path of duty with unconscious steps and a singleheartedness of purpose. One cannot think of Mrs. Fields with- out remembering her most intimate f riend, Sarah Orne Jewett, whose winters are, for the most part, passed in the Charles Street home. Sometimes in the spring the two go off together in search of a spot not favoured with so many kinds of cli- mate as Mark Twain ascribed to E"ew England during one twenty-four hours. And in the summer Miss Jewett is found for some portion of the time at Mrs. Fields's home at Manchester-by-the-Sea. Boston may surely be pardoned for count- ing Miss Jewett as belonging to her, since her winter residence is in the classic LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Fields home in Charles Street, while her big dog gives his dumb but sympathetic companionship to the two gentlewomen. Miss Jewett is a woman of the most charming personality. She has a bright, piquant face that lights up wonderfully as she talks, making her positively beau- tiful, and a low, pleasant voice that gives the listener the sense of being quiet at night, and listening to the rustle of aspen leaves, soothing and restful. Her black hair shows just the faintest tinge of gray, but the colour in the cheeks and the sparkle of the eye tell the tale of youth. Her friendship with the Fields began when she was a young girl, and is a vital part of her life's history. During her girlhood she met Mr. and Mrs. Fields at a friend's house, where they were visit- ing, and then began the intimacy which has grown into such a rare and close 64 SARAH ORXK JK \VETT. LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY friendship. As the years went on, and the demand for Miss Jewett's work increased, she found so much visiting and writing incompatible. And so when the invita- tions came which made her stay with the Fields less like visiting, and more like being at home, she very gladly accepted the arrangement. Indeed, she would have been most unappreciative had she not ; for to be the favoured guest of a woman like Mrs. Fields is a privilege that can be accorded but to few. Miss Jewett's working hours are in the afternoon, and when she has anything in hand she writes from one until about five. She says that she thinks best in the waning of the day, and finds work easier. She writes on an average between three and four thousand words daily, although she has sometimes gone as high as eight and even nine thousand words in one day. 65 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY She usually thinks out her stories quite carefully before beginning to write, so that when it comes to transcribing them she can do it easily and without much rewrit- ing, although, of course, some of her sto- ries she works at quite laboriously. " There are," she says, " stories that you write, and stories that write them- selves in spite of you. And I find that these are the ones that do not need much working over." Fond as she is of her pleasant relations in the Charles Street home, she loves her country life with a true devotion that only a genuine nature worshipper can appre- ciate. Says she: " I never feel prouder, or have more the sense of owning and being owned, than when some old resident of Berwick meets me, and says, ' You're one of the doctor's girls, ain't ye ? ' It makes me feel as 66 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY though that were really my place in the world." Miss Jewett was born in a fine old colonial mansion that was built in 1740. It is situated in the village of Berwick, Maine, not far from Portsmouth, N". H., and is still her home. Her father, " The Country Doctor," died some years since, and her mother followed him a few years later. She and one sister continue to oc- cupy the homestead during most of the year, while a married sister lives close by. Sarah Orne Jewett always lived an out-of-door life, riding, driving, and row- ing. When her father was living she went about with him a great deal, and that was the way in which, without realising what the experience was to prove to her, she got her marvellous insight into the lives of the country people of a quarter of a century ago. Before Miss Jewett' s day, 67 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY no writer could exactly picture the phases of country life which she depicts without making a burlesque of the attempt. It has taken Miss Jewett to show the world that the country dialect and country ways hide some of the noblest hearts. " When I was, perhaps, fifteen/' said Miss Jewett, " the first city boarders be- gan to make their appearance near Ber- wick; and they so misunderstood the country people, and made such game of their peculiarities, that I was fired with indignation. I determined to teach the world that country people were not the awkward, ignorant set that those persons seemed to think. I wanted the world to know their grand, simple lives; and so far as I had a mission, when I first began to write, I think that was it. But now, when every village has its city visitors in the summer, and the relations between 68 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the city and country are so much closer than they used to be, there is no need of my ' mission.' ' Miss Jewett's paternal ancestors were Tories " mistaken but honest," she says. Her grandfather was an old sea- captain, and, as she quaintly puts it, " seemed to me a citizen of the whole geography." Her mother was a Oilman of Exeter, notable people in the neigh- bourhood, and with an honourable record in the Revolution. The town of Berwick had plenty of sea-captains when she was a little girl, and, in seeing them, and hear- ing them discuss with her grandfather the world in general, she laid up material for many of her delightful character sketches. Her first story for the Atlantic was ac- cepted before she was twenty. She had no literary friends at court, and it was her own inimitable work which won for 69 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY her the success which has been so marked. She was a delicate child, and could never endure the confinement of the schoolroom, so her education was, for the most part, obtained at home under the wise direction of her father. Miss Jewett says that she has missed a certain logical directness that comes only with training at good schools; but she would not have lost the outdoor life and the close association with her father for anything. Probably her success as a writer was due to her father's advice, constantly repeated, and which she has closely followed, " Don't try to write about people and things; tell of them as they are." A recent reviewer in the Boston Tran- script says of her New England idyls: " Who can forget her marsh meadows, her sand-dunes, her pine-grown seashore ? Her people are mostly thriving, unper- 70 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY plexed, cheerful New England people. Somehow the New England type has come to be as novel and conventional as is the figment of ' Uncle Sam/ which has long ceased to have any significance whatever. Nobody ever saw these dreary lunatics, who are said to drag out hard and narrow lives, set to a perpetual minor key, as typ- ical of New England villages. Miss Jew- ett shows us youth and love and happiness under the pale blue skies of New England, with quaint peculiarities having the one touch of nature. After all, though we may laugh over sharp wit and droll situa- tions and pitiable, grotesque scrapes of all kinds, the sensation which is left on our minds is not happy. Miss Jewett is pro- foundly and uniformly cheerful, and makes the reader so. Is not the world, for most of us, too full of inharmonies to permit the mind to be burdened with more 71 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of them, with no compensating advan- tages? Let the artists answer each other with the ghastly products of art for art's sake. But let us be jolly, with Miss Jew- ett's pleasant companions, while we may." Of course, the contrasts referred to are the stories of Miss Wilkins, whose char- acters are so decidedly opposite to Miss Jewett's always lovable, sensible, and alto- gether natural ones. Miss Wilkins may be depended on to give us interesting peo- ple, but are they not exceptional types, odd, queer, unknown characters, the like of whom we seldom see ? For the average New Englander of the country is cheerful and hopeful, an optimist ever. Since, however, Miss Wilkins has now become Mrs. Freeman, and gone to live in New Jersey, Boston can no longer strain a point and claim her, even for pur- poses of comparison with Miss Jewett. 72 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY By the way, it is worthy of note that Miss Jewett keeps a sentence from Flaubert pinned up as a motto over her desk: " Ce n'est pas de f aire rire, ni de f aire pleurer, ni de vous metter en fureiir . . . mais d'agir a la f aon de la nature c'est a dire, de faire rever." Another writer along the same lines as Miss Jewett and Miss Wilkins is Miss Alice Brown, the daughter of Reverend Theron Brown, who for many years was one of the editors of the Youth's Compan- ion. Miss Brown's stories are mostly oc- cupied with New Hampshire life, and her " Meadow-Grass " was like a whiff of White Mountain air to the city dwellers of country origin. It is said of her that she does not write enough, and that the public buy eagerly what she does publish, and wait for more. Perhaps she is wise in her moderation. She is her own most 73 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY severe critic, and will not publish a story until she is satisfied with it herself. She is always sane and healthy, and, as she is yet of the age described by interviewers as " still young," we may expect many good things from her in future. Miss Brown lives on Pinckney Street, in a very quiet way, and only semi-occasionally does one meet her at social and public functions. She was fortunate in a childhood spent amid the rural beauty of the little New Hampshire town of Hampton Falls. Here she went daily to district school, with rapturous interludes of merry outdoor life ; and says a recent writer : " Those who hold like memories in their heart of hearts may open i Meadow-Grass ' at ' Number Five,' that a waft from Balm of Gilead leaves may return to them, and they may drink once more of fresh un- 74 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY speakable delight in the small and simple joys of a country child." Later she studied, and was graduated at the seminary in the neighbouring town of Exeter, taking the long walk to and from home lightly, as forerunner of the glorious English tramps of later days. Like many another New England girl, she first turned to school-teaching as the most natural occupation; but the call toward literary activities would have its way, and she has never wavered in her devotion to the beautiful profession. Miss Brown loves the old streets of Bos- ton as well as Madame de Stael did Paris, but there lingers always in her work the still spiciness of the woodland ways, the sympathy with soft-footed, bright-eyed, furry things. Especially is this present in the little book of poems called " The 75 LITEKAEY BOSTON" OF TO-DAY Eoad to Castaly." Witness " Pan," and the dewy-fresh " Morning in Camp." The famous Meadow-Grass stories are probably the best known of Miss Brown's books. " Tiverton Tales " are stories of the same region, humourous, spirited, read- able. " King's End " is a delightful story of New Hampshire village life. " By Oak and Thorn " is a pleasant record of leisurely gipsyish pilgrimages through rural England in company with her friend Louise Imogen Guiney. She has also written a life of Mercy Otis Warren, and a short novel called " The Day of His Youth." Her latest novel, " Margaret Warrener," is a story of Bohemian Bos- ton, and a marked departure from the lines laid down by her previous work. 76 CHAPTER IV. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON, HELEN CIIOATE PRINCE, AND EDNA DEAN PROCTOR { W ? HERE must of necessity be a cen- / tre, a focus, a point of radiation for every special group, whether of workers in civic affairs, in philan- thropy, in art, science, or literature; and for many years the centre of literary Bos- ton has been located in the drawing-room in Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton's house in Rutland Square. Rutland Square is in Boston's unfash- ionable South End, and is one of the quiet, shaded places, with the typical Bos- ' 77 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ton swell-front houses, ivy-clad, of which Matthew Arnold said : " Why should Fashion be permitted to wield such an insolent influence against the beautiful spaces with their lovely residences and air of repose and refinement? If these squares were in London, they would be the dwelling-places of the best people, those who would seek them for their beauty, and not be left to the tender mer- cies of the lodging-house keepers." Possibly the fact that she passes so much time in London, and in England generally, has brought Mrs. Moulton to the standpoint of the famous Englishman, so that she rises superior to Fashion and her dictates. At any event, she has re- mained steadfast in her loyalty to the home which she has occupied since the time when the South End was the fash- ionable quarter, before the Back Bay had 78 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY been reclaimed from water and marsh. Possibly, too, she still lingers there with- out giving much thought to the matter, because everybody comes to her, so that, as a friend once said : " She, in a manner, creates her own geography, and is more important in herself and her own power of attraction than any mere accident of residence could make her. In brief, a pole of such attraction exists in Mrs. Moulton's parlours that it must be very near the true magnet." Be that as it may, she has seen street after street built up in the section which Fashion now claims for her own, and friend after friend has taken the way westward, while she still remains at No. 28 Rutland Square, a house which is world-famous. Thither all the best of the town, those who have achieved any- thing worth while in letters, in art, in 79 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY science, those who are young in achieve- ment, but full of high courage and worthy ambitions, together with the literary or artistic " stranger within the gates/' turn their steps every Friday afternoon of the winter. For she keeps open house then, and the only invitation needed is the cor- dial " Come and see me any Friday after- noon; I'm always at home," spoken in a most convincing tone, and with an air of sincerity which plainly says : " I ask you because I really want you." And when the invitation is accepted, she greets the visitor with gracious wel- coming and a calm, serene, beaming benignity. But the chief charm, the irresistible attraction about her, is the strong personal interest which she shows to every guest. ~Not every one is asked to come; there are no indiscriminate invitations, and, 80 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY with all the cordial hospitality, there are also reserves. But to those who are of the elect, the hostess has always some special, personal token of consideration. In London, where Mrs. Moulton spends every summer, she receives as she does at home, and shares in the more sober gaie- ties of the few weeks of the fullest life on earth, to which everything interesting gravitates as by natural law. She is quite as fully appreciated over there as in her own Boston, and from a literary stand- point, even more highly rated if that be possible than she is in her native land. The English magazines are always eagerly in competition with those of America for her exquisite poems and her graceful and kindly, but just and compelling, criti- cisms. Her weekly receptions in Gros- venor Square call together all the great literary world of London, the famous 81 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Americans who are by chance in the city, and many members of England's nobility as well. It is said of her that she has maintained on both sides of the water the nearest approach to the literary salon that is now in existence. Although Boston claims her as a resi- dent, and has done so for many years, she is from Connecticut by birth. Among the hills of Eastern Connecticut, in the lovely little town of Pomfret, was one day born, in a pleasant farmhouse, a sweet girl baby, with wonderful blue eyes and golden hair. There was no other baby there ; she had no rival, and she reigned supreme over the home. By and by the baby grew into a girl, dreamy, enthusiastic, and ambitious. She knew that there was a future before her somewhere outside the country home, and she determined to find it. While still a schoolgirl, she was busy with her 82 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY pen, writing little scraps of prose and bits of verse, which found their way into the columns of a little Connecticut paper, published in a town near Pomfret, of which Edmund C. Stedman, then a very young man, giving promise of what he lias since attained, was the editor. He took a lively interest in this blue-eyed girl's welfare, and encouraged her to con- tinue her literary work, and advised her concerning her future. The friendship thus begun between the young editor and his schoolgirl contributor has always con- tinued, and no one has been more pleased with her success and the position which she has attained than this early friend and adviser. Even as a schoolgirl of thirteen, she wrote so delightfully that, on one occasion, her master asked her if the idea, as well as the verse, was really all her own, and 83 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY on her replying, " I can't tell from where I got it. I never knew there was any- thing like it in the world. Surely it came from my own mind/ 7 his face brightened, as he replied : " Then I sincerely congrat- ulate you." At fourteen her first poem was accepted and printed, and she recalls her sensations in first seeing something of her own in print : " I remember how secretly, and al- most as if it were a crime, I sent it in; and when I found the paper one evening, upon calling at the post-office on my way home from school, and saw my lines, - my very own lines, it seemed to me a much more wonderful and glorious event than has anything since that time." The name by which the public first knew her was not Louise Chandler Moul- ton, but Ellen Louise Chandler, although the name under which her poems and 84 LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY stories appeared was simply " Ellen Lou- ise.' 7 Possessed of a wonderful imagina- tion and a delicate yet vivid power of description, before long she began weaving her fancies into romances that were pub- lished in many of the popular magazines and weekly story papers. People read those stories, and wondered who " Ellen Louise " was, but it was not until her first book was published that the world was told. This book, a volume of short stories gathered together by the young writer at the suggestion of friends, was called "This, That, and the Other," and was heralded by her publishers with a loud blast of trumpets. " See what a girl of eighteen can do," was the heading of all their advertisements, and so many persons wanted to see that eighteen thousand copies were speedily disposed of. The 85 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY popular verdict was favourable. To be sure there were extravagances, and a lack of finish due to the youth of the writer, but it was written with all a girl's exu- berance and fancy, and was a success, perhaps not so much for what it was, as for what it promised. Soon after its appearance, she was mar- ried to Mr. William U. Moulton, the editor and publisher of a Boston paper to which she was a frequent contributor, and after her marriage Boston became her home. She did not lay her pen by, how- ever, but continued steadily at work, im- proving constantly in her work. She was a careful writer, and a thorough worker; she was annoyed at any seeming awkward- ness of expression, and did not rest until she had made it smooth and finished in every particular. With all this pains 86 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY backing up her ability, it is no wonder that she was recognised as one of the lead- ing poets of the country. But she was the critic as well as the poet and story-writer. For several years she was the literary correspondent from Boston for the New York Tribune, and her dictum of a book settled its fate. Her opinion was widely quoted, and it was con- sidered final. She was the kindliest of critics, for when she could not praise, she was so gentle in her dispraise that it did not hurt, although it might grieve the un- lucky writer. At the time she was send- ing her brilliant letters to the Tribune, Boston was furnishing her ample material. The " Atlantic group " were all living and active, the famous Radical Club was flourishing, the Lyceum was in the height of its glory, making a centre for all the men and women who made the lecture 87 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY platform one of the most brilliant places in existence. Anna Dickinson was in the full floodtide of her wonderful career. Mrs. Livermore, just from her work in the Sanitary Commission, was talking about the war. Wendell Phillips, Gough, Henry Ward Beecher, Charles Sumner, were all before the public as speakers, and Boston was headquarters for all of them. And nearly all found their way to the pleasant drawing-room in Rutland Square. Later, Mrs. Moulton transferred her work of criticism to the Boston Herald, in which paper her article was for a long time a marked feature. For a few years past she has devoted herself almost entirely to poetry, and has had several volumes pub- lished. But there is another side to Mrs. Moul- ton from that which she gives to the public. She is a loyal and devoted friend, 88 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and one of the kindest and most helpful women in all the world of letters. Free from everything which savours in the least of jealousy, she is most hospitable in her welcome to young people who are entering with timid, untried steps the field of literary endeavour. Some years ago a young woman came to Boston to enter upon a life of literary activity. She brought a letter of introduc- tion to Mrs. Moulton from a relative of the latter, and presented it with a good deal of timidity. Her reception was most cor- dial. Not only did the distinguished woman accord her a warm personal wel- come, but she arranged that she should meet others who would be of service to her. She examined her work, and gave her the suggestions and advice which proved of the greatest possible service to the ambitious young country girl. Un- 89 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY doubtedly all this has passed from the mind of Mrs. Moulton, but the woman has never forgotten, and regards her with a feeling of affection and reverence that she accords to no other. This is only one instance out of many. She has met discouragement with cheer, has averted threatened failure, by showing the way which pointed to success. Her purse has been open to those who needed, and her heart has never been closed to the call for sympathy. She has given her service and her substance to all sorts of charity. And so the world not only ad- mires her as the graceful story-teller, the keen but kindly critic, the genuine poet, but loves her as the woman, and regards it an honour as well as a pleasure to be bidden to her home, where in her dainty drawing-room she is surrounded with the souvenirs of travel, and the autographed 90 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY photographs of the distinguished persons who are proud to call her friend. We have, too, a granddaughter of a famous ancestor in whom Boston takes pride, although she sends us her books from over the sea, Mrs. Helen Choate Prince. Rufus Choate, who contained within his intense being fire and fancy enough to transmit to a hundred genera- tions, had a fine romantic vein, and in the third generation, the Boston maiden, who grew up like the other girls of her circle, and passed on to marriage, and to reside in France, as any of them might have done, bore in her brain an inheritance which was to be developed amidst great conditions, and strengthened and enliv- ened by stimulating surroundings to de- light a large number of readers. Mrs. Prince's novels have not been merely sketches of character and incident, 91 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY smart dialogue, epigrams, the play of sec- ondary or tertiary motives, elaborate efforts to analyse insignificant things. She writes with an old-fashioned motif, but not a moral, which is a different thing. Mrs. Prince brings the American and French types, which she understands so well, into interesting contrast. As some- body has said : " It is not the Cook's tour- ist and the Parisian cockney whom she sets over against one another. Mrs. Prince's Americans are only Europeans of the same class, vivified and ardent." Mrs. Prince was born in Dorchester in 1857, and educated at private schools in Boston. For the past ten years she has lived in France, with occasional visits to America, extending over several months. Her most famous books have been " A Trans- Atlantic Chatelaine," " The Story 92 LITEBARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of Christine Kochefort," and " At the Sign of the Silver Crescent." Although Miss Edna Dean Proctor lives in South Framingham, when she is not travelling abroad, she belongs to the Boston Authors' Club, and is considered a part of literary Boston. Miss Proctor's poems, of which she has published several volumes, have placed her in the very front rank of American poets. Personally she is a charming woman of great beauty and a winning friendliness of manner. It is an honour to know Miss Proctor, and es- pecially so to be counted her friend. 93 CHAPTEE V. MARGARET DELAND, ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD, HERBERT D. WARD, HAR- RIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD ^NOTHEK name of which the Bos- yy ton of to-day is very proud is that of Margaret Deland. She is a na- tive of Pennsylvania, but came to Boston as a bride in 1880, and has done all her literary work here. So many romantic stories have been told of the way she came to take up literary work that it may be well to give the tale as the author herself tells it. Just previous to a Christmas in the early eighties, Mrs. Deland went shopping 94 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY one morning, and during her expedition purchased a unique trifle to send to a dis- tant friend, carrying it with her from the shop to the market, for she has always " looked well to the ways of her house- hold," and is a notable housekeeper as well as writer. On the horse-car she fell a-thinking of this friend and of the gift she proposed sending, and thus musing, thought out a little verse to her own astonishment, as she had never attempted to write a rhyme before. Lest she forget it, she scribbled the verse on the bundle she was carrying. On her way to her house, she stopped for a few minutes' chat with her friend, Miss Lucy Derby (now Mrs. Fuller), whose eye happened to fall on the scribbled words on the parcel. "What is this?" asked Miss Derby. Mrs. Deland, in some confusion, con- fessed to having perpetrated her first 95 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY poem, whereupon Miss Derby insisted upon reading the verse, and immediately became enthusiastic over this evidence of talent in her friend. She spoke so en- couragingly that she fired the young writer with a new purpose, and Mrs. De- land went home to try her hand at verse- making. When she showed her more serious attempts, a few days later, to Miss Derby, the latter felt justified in her ex- travagant praise, and, borrowing the poems, carried them home and surrep- titiously submitted them to several pub- lishers. When, after a few weeks, a check came for fifteen dollars from a prominent New York publisher, Mrs. Deland could scarcely credit her senses, and she would not cash the check for some time, her pride in it was so great. So there you have the whole romantic story in a nutshell. An appreciative publisher, a budding genius, 96 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY a generous press and success. Her book of poems, " An Old Garden and Other Verses," sold very rapidly, and en- couraged the young author to set about the serious business of novel-writing. How well she succeeded in this everybody knows, for " John Ward, Preacher/' was the result. Whether the sales of this book would have been so great if " Robert Els- mere " had not just made its appearance and aroused a storm of criticism and controversy all over the world, is an open question ; but it is sure that Mrs. Deland's book was distinguished by a thoughtful and earnest spirit and the skilful treat- ment of religious subjects that was rather new at the time. The criticism sometimes made that the book was an echo of Mrs. Ward's was unworthy of notice for two reasons: one, that the book was published almost at the same time as the English 97 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY novel, and another that Mrs. Deland had been two years in writing it, never dream- ing that, on the other side of the Atlantic, another woman was struggling with the same great question of freedom of relig- ious thought. " Old Chester Tales " has been one of the most widely read of her later books. Mrs. Deland takes an active interest in current affairs, especially such as concern Boston and Massachusetts. Although of good Presbyterian stock, she is an Episcopalian, and a constant attend- ant at one of the prominent Back Bay churches. Personally she is a charming woman to meet. Of attractive personality and good taste in dress, she is a direct contra- diction of the old idea that a literary woman must necessarily be a frump, and in her two houses one sees evidence on every hand of exquisite taste. Her winter LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY residence is an old-fashioned, spacious house on Mt. Vernon Street, numbered 76, a street replete with historical inter- est and literary association. General Washington himself named the street after his own home in Virginia, and every foot of its surroundings is connected with some incident of colonial days. Mrs. Deland's house combines the old and the new in a way that is possible only to the cultivated modern who has the power of putting the historical into the proper perspective. At the front, a long window extends the whole width of the house, except for the entrance, and here in the winter are grown many pots of jonquils that eager buyers are glad to take away from the sale she holds in February for a pet charity. The writer of " An Old Garden " is essentially a flower lover, and this passion of Mrs. Deland is on evi- LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY dence on all sides. In the front vestibule, one is confronted by a gate, or Dutch door, on which is the veritable knocker that was once on the library door at Wendell Phil- lips's, and was grasped by him when he fled from the mob. This Dutch door opens directly into a large reception-room that reminds the caller of a garden, so bright and cheery is it, and so bedecked with flowers. Hospitality, comfort, and noble simplicity of taste are the qualities that are impressed on the mind of the caller, which are emphasised by the great open fireplace and its smouldering wood fire. The furniture is massive and colonial, and, as you go up a winding staircase, you notice dainty little nooks filled with books. At the back of the house, on the second floor, is Mrs. Deland's workroom. Here is another wide window with its blooming pots of hyacinths and jonquils. 100 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Amidst her flowers and in a flood of sun- shine she writes, and their sunny spirit is reflected, even in the serious life of "John Ward." Indeed, Mrs. Deland's friends now claim that her writing is done with a jon-quill. Perhaps it is this bright, cheerful atmosphere, reflected in her own mind, that gives her that horror of relig- ious fanaticism for which she is noted. Down at picturesque old Kennebunk- port, Mrs. Deland's flower-embowered cot- tage is pointed out to the visitor as one of the features of that summer place. It is an ideal retreat, surrounded by a blaze of colour, for the same riotous love of flowers is shown here, massed in effect- ive colours and picturesque arrangement. She attends to all her own gardening, and may often be seen in the early dawn among her posy-beds. Her husband is Mr. Lorin F. Deland, and they lead a singu- 101 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY larly harmonious and happy life together. Doubtless the story that Mrs. Deland started her literary career by writing ad- vertisements for a well-known furniture house came from the fact of Mr. Deland' s connection with the advertising agency of which he is the famous head. Mrs. Deland's books, in addition to those mentioned, have been " Philip and His Wife," " Sydney: The Story of a Child," "Florida Days," "The Wisdom of Fools," and " Mr. Tommy Dove and Other Stories." Says one writer in Time and the Hour: " Full of light, through the long, high range of panes, which has superseded the common pair of parlour windows, is the great, square room occupying the whole front house-space. And perhaps a glow of flame from logs in the ample fireplace, which fills almost one side of it, mingles 102 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY with the sun's illumination. Low book- cases, a table strewn with books, one or two choice pictures, a long, embrasured settle, a few low chairs, and an open staircase rising to the next floor on the side opposite the fireplace complete the detail of this apartment, hall and par- lour and reception-room, the heart of the home. It is clear, free, daintily yet delicately furnished, like the mind of the hostess, who greets you there; hospitable like it, too, in frank and easy access to every genuine approach. But it is flower- like to shrink from unsympathetic touch, and those who know Mrs. Deland have heard her say, ' I hate a fool ' (or a sham) as emphatically as ' Mr. F's aunt.' Posi- tive and vigorous is she in feeling and ex- pression, as even all her readers must know. " Mrs. Deland is purposeful in her art 103 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY as in her life. ' John Ward ' and ' Philip and His Wife ' are no mere stories, such as some popular novelists turn out by the gross, having acquired the fatal mechan- ical facility of the craft. In lighter vein, the authoress might, had she chosen, have taken up the mantle dropped by Mrs. Gaskell so untimely, but she has elected to use her great gifts of observation and expression to enforce burning themes, and to throw herself into the thrilling tide of modern thought. Before Mrs. Deland came to Boston, she had given some years to personal work, even under her own roof, to reform the lives of sinful girls. She has sounded the depths of what is, humanly speaking, hopeless human de- pravity, and looks upon evil without sen- timentality, as involving a penalty as inevitable in the moral as in the physical sphere. Poet and novelist, yet her truth- 104 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ful temper cannot palter with the inevi- table, and she recognises that real charity has its scientific principles and economic laws. " Bishop Brooks was one of Mrs. De- land's closest friends, yet it is said that her own convictions led her to shape those writings which were submitted to him during his life for his advice, quite inde- pendently of his criticism, where it did not coincide with her own strong convic- tions. And it is easy to recognise, in a manner which is perfectly considerate, even teachable, the underlying calmness of very positive assurance. I should say, for counsel, for direction, for inspiration, no woman could lean, in any kind of trouble, upon a surer rock than Margaret Deland. Yet the authoress of < The Old Garden/ if not sentimental, has a fund of deep sentiment. Perhaps she will tell 105 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY you, as you sit before the deep fireplace, adorned on the mantel with several por- traits of Bishop Brooks, that the great bed of ashes contains all those which had gathered on the hearth of her former home. i They were so much of a part of the as- sociation with him and the other dear friends who had watched the embers glow and crumble, as they sat about the house- place, that one could not bear to have them cast out, so they were brought to the new domestic altar here.' " Early in the summer ' life and thought no longer dwell ' in the Mt. Vernon Street house, and the cottage at Kennebunkport wakes up and becomes animate. As the pressure of city engagements becomes greater, a greater proportion of the au- thoress's literary work is done in this retirement. For, though there is the usual hotel life there, the peace and simplicity 106 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of the cottagers' habits have not been sacrificed to it, and they have perfect leisure to gather up dropped stitches, or merely to rest and renew exhausted nerves, as seems best to them. That even an or- dinary interruption of daily life need not hamper her, Mrs. Deland. has a sort of ' studio ' in a neighbouring building, and disappears for considerable periods to pur- sue a lonely struggle with her successful weapon against the foes whom she scatters with such vigour, determination, and ef- fect. It is easy to feel that some of her inspiration consists in the happy union of a sound mind with a sound body, tingling with the shock of the Atlantic waves, or thrilling with the ferruginous breath of its strong breezes. Mrs. Deland's boat has been a prize-winner in some of the annual river carnivals which are the event of Kennebunkport's fete-day, and she usu- 107 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ally has her guest-chambers full, but one would look for her in vain at the hotels or at the casino." Then, too, there is Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. Nobody will deny her right to be numbered with the foremost writers in America, and since she came to Newton and settled, from whence she frequently comes forth to appear at occa- sional society affairs, Boston claims her as belonging to its literary set. She is both a voluminous and inspiring writer, and has been well called one of the most daring, for is she not caught frequently writing of things beyond the veil that separates us from eternity ? She claims that we are living in the suburbs of the Heavenly City, and she has brightened the life of many a weary traveller in this mundane sphere. Not only with her fa- mous " Gates Ajar," " Beyond the Gates," 108 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and " The Gates Between " has she dared to venture into what had heretofore been considered sacred ground, but in the field of speculative essay, she treats freely sub- jects that were once supposed forbidden even to the angels. Whether it is a wise thing for the modern mind that is in- clined toward the morbid or the unfathom- able, we will not attempt to settle here. Mrs. Ward belongs to the famous Phelps family, which has so long been connected with the old-fashioned theology, and it is probable that this accounts for her bold and aspiring temperament. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps was born in Boston August thirty-first, 1844. When she was four years old her father was appointed professor at the Andover Theo- logical Seminary, and the pleasant hill town was her residence until her marriage in 1888. Her first literary essay was a 109 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY magazine article, called " A Sacrifice Con- sumed," and she was only twenty-four when her great success was attained in " Gates Ajar*" Of this book many more than one hundred thousand copies have been sold. It has been translated into German, Danish, and Italian. Her lit- erary career has been exceedingly busy, and her marriage to Mr. Herbert D. Ward, in 1888, opened a new chapter in it. In collaboration with her husband she wrote " The Master of the Magicians," "Come Forth," and " The Lost Hero," religious novels, in which the outlines of the Scriptural story are clothed and col- oured. Her own work can be divided into various groups. Mrs. Ward has done a good deal for juvenile literature, and has done it well. There are the " Trotty " books, and the " Gypsy " books, and " The Boys of Brimstone Court," which are 110 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY favourites with the most thoughtful class of youngsters. Another sphere in which she has tried her wings is the poetical. " Poetic Studies " and " Songs of the Si- lent World " are specimens of this side of her wide mind. She has made some nov- els, pure and simple, " The Story of Avis " and " Doctor Zay," - purposeful, of course, but reasonably progressive bits of genuine narrative. Again, we have a group of realistic tales, like " The Ma- donna of the Tubs," " The Supply at St. Agatha's," " Jack the Fisherman," and " A Singular Life," to which we might add the extravaganza, illustrated by " The Old Maid's Paradise," " The Burglar in Paradise," and so on. Finally there are the stories of the Promised Land, " Gates Ajar," " The Gates Between," and " Be- yond the Gates." Her " Story of Jesus Christ " is one of 111 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the most tender biographies of the Christ ever written. Her beautiful, pathetic tale called " Loveliness " is without doubt the best argument against vivisection ever put forth, and none who have read it can feel that its author is wasting a bit of time and strength in the war she is waging against the practice of vivisection. Mr. Herbert Dickinson Ward, her hus- band, was born in Waltham, Massachu- setts, and is a graduate of Amherst Col- lege. He was the son of Doctor William Hayes Ward, editor of the New York Independent. Mr. Ward was " The Bur- glar Who Moved Paradise," and married Elizabeth Stuart Phelps at the little cot- tage at East Gloucester, which is asso- ciated in the minds of so many delighted readers of the " Old Maid's Paradise." Mr. Ward has written several books alone, besides collaborating with his wife in 112 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY three, and is doing a vast amount of lit- erary work for the best magazines and periodicals. He belongs to the University Club, and is treasurer of the Boston Au- thors 7 Club ; he has been for several years State Commissioner of Prisons, and is a popular member of many organisations. He is a diligent worker, and possessed of a ready wit, which gives zest to all he says as well as to what he writes. His latest work was a brilliant novel, which was published anonymously, and it has proved that a thoroughly good book may become popular without a well-known name on its title-page. Mr. and Mrs. Ward have a charming home in Newton Centre, where they live surrounded by their books, and half buried in work during the winter months, flitting back to their " Paradise " at East Glouces- ter with the first hint of summer. 113 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY But in summing up our famous literary women, let us not forget that rarest, most delicate soul which has given out so much that is strong and true and aspiring, Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford; for, although it is true that her real home is at New- buryport, Mrs. Spofford has ever been identified with literary Boston, and passes some part of every winter here. She is a lifelong intimate friend of Mrs. Moul- ton, and may on rare occasions be found at a Friday afternoon reception at 28 Rutland Square, although, shy creature that she is, it is almost impossible to in- duce her to attend any function of a social nature. Her poetic soul, however, cannot resist the charm of good music, and Mrs. Spofford's delicate head and high-bred, spiritualised face is often seen at the best concerts and at the opera. Mrs. Spofford was born in Calais, 114 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Maine, but removed to Newburyport, Mas- sachusetts, at an early age, where she mar- ried Eichard S. Spofford, a prominent Boston lawyer, in 1865. Their home on Deer Isle, in the Merrimac Eiver, be- tween Newburyport and Amesbury, was an ideal one, and here Mrs. Spofford's friends are still glad to seek her out, for she still clings to the beautiful spot, al- though Mr. Spofford was called to the " Blessed Isles " several years ago. The electric car, with its jangling discord, now clangs across the old chain bridge that connects Deer Isle to the two old towns, and pilgrims to Whittier's old home, as well as those on more prosaic errands bent, may catch a glimpse of the stately old mansion, with its shaded grounds on one side, and the picturesque field oppo- site with its groups of noble trees, its summer-house, and its boat-house, as they 115 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY go clanging by. But only the favoured few are privileged to know Mrs. Spofford in her own home, where she seems half like some woodland sprite and half the shy invalid, poet, and novelist. Her heart beats warm for humanity, however, and loves her friends devotedly when once she recognises the sincerity of their affection for her. Mr. Spofford was a thorough scholar and lover of books, and the fine old house has a rare library within its well-kept walls. As Mrs. Spofford has always lived in the atmosphere of books, it is not strange that she should have chosen the vocation of letters. More than a dozen books of fiction have her name on the title-page, and several volumes of verse attest her right to the much abused word, poet. The same elusive charm that per- vades her personality shines through her writings, and, although Mrs. Spofford is 116 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY approaching the three score years and ten limit, her work is just as much in demand by publishers and public as ever. May it be many years before she lays down her pen. 117 CHAPTER VI. JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDCE AND HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH MERRIVALE" is the name of a book which has been read, probably, by but few of the present generation, although a small special edition, printed a few years since, introduced it to a select cir- cle of readers, who were specially inter- ested in it because they had heard it whispered that within its pages were re- cited the early literary experiences of one of Boston's famous writers, John T. Trow- bridge, who first gave them to the public 118 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY under the pen-name of Paul Creyton, in 1864. Whether or not this supposition of the story being, in part at least, autobiograph- ical, is true, it is still an interesting one to read, for the insight which the book gives into the editorial offices of the time. Those who were familiar with them and there are some still remaining who were say that nowhere else is so accu- rate a portrayal of their peculiarities given as in these pages. If all the vicissitudes of fortune which " Martin Merrivale " met were really en- countered by John Townsend Trowbridge, one thing is certain, and that is that he conquered them all, and now rests in the serene afternoon of life in his rarely pleas- ant home in the town of Arlington, one of Boston's charming suburbs just beyond Cambridge. 119 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY He lives in Pleasant Street, which is most fittingly named, a wide avenue run- ning from the main street across into the neighbouring town of Belmont. This street is a veritable parkway, with arching elms overhanging it, and broad stretches of green turf separating the sidewalk and roadway. His house is set well back from the street, is of wood, painted a deep red, and, with its graceful outlines and cosy piazzas, makes a most effective picture under the big trees which half surround and wholly frame it. It is up-stairs in this attractive house that the visitor finds the author's study, the room where Mr. Trowbridge does his work. It is a cheerful apartment, not too large, with two windows facing the west, and one looking to the south. His desk faces the southern window, and the view therefrom is so attractive that it is a great 120 HOMK OF .IOIIN T. TRONVBRIDiJK, ARLINGTON LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY temptation to the occupant to keep his eyes constantly fixed upon it. And so, when he is very busy, and the work is insistent, he pulls down the blind to shut out all its beauty, for only so can he ac- complish his task. This southerly outlook is over the near gardens to Spy Pond, while from his west- ern windows he looks past the big apple- tree and the tall fir-tree which stand close to the house, across the well-kept, trimly clipped lawn, with its flowering shrubs here and there, and its vine-covered trel- lises, to the broad street and lovely estates opposite. It was on account of its proximity to the pond that Mr. Trowbridge chose his home. When he was a boy, he lived on the banks of the Erie canal, and he is never content to be out of sight of the water. In the summer he goes with his 121 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY family to their cottage near Cape Arundel, at Kennebunkport, but, glad as they are to escape the heated term inland, they are never sorry to return to the Arlington home, at which they arrive usually widle autumn is in its fullest glory. Mr. Trowbridge is in all his character- istics a typical New Englander, but he is, nevertheless, a native of New York State, and did not come to Boston until about a month before he was twenty-one. But he is of good New England stock, his father, Windsor Stone Trowbridge, having been born in Framingham, Massachusetts, although brought up in New York State, and settled in the town of Ogden, eight miles beyond the city of Rochester, where the famous author was born, the eighth child of the family, on the eighteenth of September, 1827. As a boy, Mr. Trow- bridge lived the usual country life, going 122 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY to school for six months a year until he was fourteen, working on the farm in summer, and learning more out of school than in, through his studious habits and his love of reading. He taught himself French, and also attempted Latin and German without a teacher. Much of his time he spent in writing, and his first published bit was a school poem, " The Tomb of Napoleon." When first Mr. Trowbridge came to Boston to seek his fortune in literature, his father had been dead about five years, and he was wholly dependent upon his own resources. Life was a serious thing for him at that time, although it was brightened by the friendship of another young writer and newspaper man, Benja- min P. Shillaber, who afterward became known the country over as " Mrs. Par- tington," and was one of the early humour- 123 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ists. Genial, warm-hearted, altogether de- lightful Ben Shillaber! One can easily imagine how his friendship might cheer a lonesome young worker like Trowbridge, alone in a strange city, making the manful fight for success which came because he compelled it. He had previously spent some little time in New York writing for the Sunday Times, the Dollar Magazine, the Knick- erbocker, and other periodicals. But he tired of writing for fame, notes of thanks, and, at most, a dollar a page, and so came to Boston, the acknowledged literary cen- tre, where, writing under the name of Paul Creyton, he found plenty to do at the munificent rate of two dollars a column. In 1855 he went to Europe, and spent the summer in Passy, a suburb of Paris, where he wrote " Neighbour Jackwood," 124 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY his first work of widely extended popu- larity. After the Anthony Burns affair, young Trowbridge had cast his lot in with the Abolitionists, and in " Neighbour Jackwood," as well as in a later story, " Cud jo's Cave/ 7 there was no mistaking where he stood on the question which was rending the country and threatening to disintegrate it. Its graphic pictures of New England life made " Neighbour Jackwood " a great success, and gave its author national reputation. The book at once took a place among the standard novels of America, and is still widely read. Soon after its publication in book form, the author dramatised it, and the play was produced at the Boston Museum, where it had a long run to crowded houses. When the Atlantic Monthly was pro- posed, he was invited to become a con- tributor, and, although less than fifty 125 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAV years have passed since the appearance of the first number, Mr. Trowbridge and Professor Charles Eliot Norton are the sole survivors of the contributors to that first issue. Mr. Trowbridge occupies a unique position among the older literary men, being the only one who has depended wholly upon the income from his books. He held no position in any business, nor as teacher, nor did he attempt any other profession, and only for three years was he in an editorial position. During the time between 1870 and 1873 he was the editor of Our Young Folks. Some of his own early experiences with editors must have remained in his mind, for a more considerate, kindly, sympathetic man, especially in his treatment of young writers, never sat in the editorial chair. It was while he held this office that he wrote his most famous story for boys, 126 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY " Jack Hazard." The success of this work was so great that it influenced him to keep along in this line of work, and so great was the demand for these breezy, wholesome, healthy tales that his fame as a writer of juvenile literature for a while almost dimmed his poetic reputation. During all the years he has kept up his connection with the Atlantic, and is a frequent contributor. If there is one thing in American literature that is al- most like a patent of nobility, it is the reputation of being one of the original " Atlantic group." It is, as nearly as may be, like being one of the " Immor- tals " of the French Academy. As might naturally be supposed, Mr. Trowbridge has known most of the well- known literary men and women those best worth knowing certainly in Amer- ica during the past half century. Walt 127 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Whitman was counted one of his dearest friends, and so were John Burroughs and the poet Longfellow. A few years ago Dartmouth College conferred the A. M. degree on Mr. Trowbridge, and, at the same time, on Charles Dudley Warner. All the author's actual writing is done at the desk in the pleasant study on the second floor of his house, which has al- ready been described. As he relates them, his methods are very simple. When he has a long piece of work in hand, he sits down soon after breakfast, and stays at his desk for three or four hours, working steadily and uninterruptedly. He is an impulsive writer, but he does not put pen to paper unless he has something to say. He revises and rewrites more than he did in his earlier work, which is quite natural. Much of his work is done in the open air, particularly his poetry, which is composed 128 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY while lie is walking about, and his verses are often quite complete in his mind be- fore they are committed to paper. During the fifty odd years of his literary life, he has produced almost fifty volumes of prose and poetry, a remarkable record. Mr. Trowbridge's prose is marked by a simplicity and sturdiness befitting the plain country life concerning which he writes. His humour is full, genial, and hearty, and perfectly clean and pure. But good as his prose is, it is upon his poems that his enduring literary reputation will probably rest. Said Mr. Howells, in speaking of his work : " His poems show him to have looked deeply into the heart of common humanity with a true and ten- der sense of it." There is a feeling akin to Tom Hood's in the handling of homely subjects, and in the humour and pathos extracted from them. ~No humour ever 129 LITEBAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY made one laugh more spontaneously or was more free from vulgarity; no pathos was ever more directly chord-touching. Through everything gleams the sunlight of his nature, and his preference for the bright side of the world. The soldierly carriage and erect figure of Mr. Trowbridge tell the story of his love of exercise, while his clear blue eyes and fine colour belie the record of his three score years and ten. He is the friend and companion of his children, a young son of about nineteen, just entering sturdy man- hood, and two accomplished daughters, one of whom is a fine violinist, the other an equally accomplished pianist. The home is a genial and sympathetic one, where friends find hearty welcome, and even the stranger is not permitted to feel his strangeness, because of the fine hospitality 130 LITEKAKY BOSTON" OF TO-DAY of the master of the house, warmly sec- onded by his wife and daughters. Boston cherishes this sunny-natured man, not only for himself, but because he is one of the few remaining links binding the golden days of her literary past with the literary life of to-day. When a strong, clear note of human kindliness and sympathy marks the work of a writer, one secret of his success is made apparent. And when there is com- bined with this trait great fertility of in- vention and a keen insight into human nature, another secret of his success be- comes manifest. Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth is a Bos- ton writer whose work is disinguished by these traits. His outlook on life is so kindly and so cheerful that one can- not find a morbid or despondent line in anything that he has written. His has 131 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ever been a gospel of hopefulness and helpfulness, and many of his books have exerted a wide influence for good. Ever ready and glad to recognise merit in young writers, he has been a source of help and inspiration to many young and untried men and women entering the world of literature, and needing for their develop- ment just such sympathy and encourage- ment as Mr. Butterworth has given them. He has caused a fresh spirit to rise in many a depressed and discouraged writer, and he has been quick to respond to any appeal for advice and sympathy. Entirely unselfish and a stranger to envy, Mr. But- terworth has watched with keen delight the rise of many of our most prominent writers, and some of them have been glad to testify to the fact that they owe their success largely to the encouragement Mr. Butterworth gave them at a time when 132 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY they needed encouragement most, and when others withheld it from them. Mr. Butterworth's ready sympathy with and for young writers struggling against many obstacles, is largely due to the fact that he knows from personal experience what it is to overcome obstacles, and what it is to stand in need of a friend to offer a word of cheer and encouragement. Born of poor parents in the little town of War- ren, Rhode Island, in the year 1839, Mr. Butterworth has known what it is to strug- gle against adverse fates. With only a common school education, without money, friends, or influence, he left his country home and came to Boston, the Mecca of all young aspirants for literary honour and glory. Like so many other young writers, he found a sale for his first work in the office of the Youth's Companion. The owner of that paper was a man of 133 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY acute perceptions, and he was quick to discover traces of genius in the work of the inexperienced youth from Rhode Island, and so it came to pass that in the year 1870 Mr. Butterworth became associated with the Youth's Companion) and for twenty-five years he was one of the editors of that paper. It is not giving Mr. But- terworth any undue meed of praise to say that the wonderful success of the Youth's Companion has been in part due to his work during those twenty-five years. No man ever gave more faithful and con- scientious work to a paper, and the result of that work has been something of which any man might well be proud. In addition to his editorial duties Mr. Butterworth wrote many books and many stories for the best known magazines dur- ing the quarter of a century he was with the Youth's Companion. It was during 134 HEZEKIAH BUTTERWOHTH LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY these years that he brought out that im- mensely popular series of books under the title of " Zigzag Journeys." These books have had an aggregate sale of more than a half million of copies, and the demand for them continues. Indeed, Mr. Butter- worth might still be writing them with profit, but he has wanted to give his time to other kinds of book writing. His " Story of the Hymns," published in 1878, won for him the George Wood gold medal, and his " Under the Palms," and other musical compositions have met with great favour. Resigning his position in the office of the Youth's Companion in 1895, Mr. But- terworth spent a number of months abroad, this being his second or third trip across the water. He has visited all parts of Europe, and has travelled in South Amer- ica and in Cuba. He has gone over the 135 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Andes, and has during the present year taken a trip to Porto Rico. The result of his journeying has been a number of books of travel, and he has published a " History of South America," and one or two histories for young readers. He has written no less than twelve volumes for the D. Appleton Company, among them being the " Boyhood of Lincoln," " The Wampum Belt/' " The Log Schoolhouse on the Columbia," " The Knight of Lib- erty," " The Patriot Schoolmaster," and other stories, in which the heroes of our American history have played a part. Mr. Butterworth has published two vol- umes of poems, and his short stories would make a great many volumes if they were published in book form. His stories have appeared in the Century, the Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, St. Nicholas, the Out- look, and, indeed, in nearly every maga- 136 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY zine of any prominence in the country. He has been one of the most industrious of our American writers, and has brought out nearly fifty volumes of various kinds, while the demand for his work steadily increases. Ever seeking an opportunity to be help- ful to others, Mr. Butterworth has for years been identified with different organ- isations having for their object the uplift- ing of humanity. He has for nearly a quarter of a century been a member of one of the greatest institutional churches in America, the Ruggles Street Baptist, and he has given in the aggregate many months of personal service in the carrying forward of religious and benevolent work. He has rarely refused to give his services without charge as a speaker for any good cause, and a very large part of his earn- ings have been given to others. His in- 137 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY fluenee for good has been far-reaching, and he has been a builder of men. In recent years Mr. Butterworth has become a most popular lecturer, and the demand for his services in this direction has been so great that he has written a number of lectures, among the most popu- lar being the ones entitled " Over the An- des/' " Longfellow and the New England Poets," " The Eed Settle Tales and Songs of Old New England Days," " Emerson and the New England Transcendentalists," and " The Story of the Hymns." He has also met with most gratifying success as a speaker before religious bodies, one of his most effective addresses being the one en- titled " The Creative Power of Prayer." His wonderfully retentive memory and his ability to present a subject in the most entertaining way make Mr. Butterworth a speaker who always pleases his audi- 138 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ences. He is never happier than when he is addressing the young. This is because his own heart is a fountain of perennial youth, and he refuses to grow old in spirit. His marked fondness for the so- ciety of the young is no doubt prompted by the same motive that caused Doctor Johnson to write : "I love the acquaintance of young people; because, in the first place, I do not like to think myself grow- ing old. In the next place, young acquaint- ances must last longest, if they do last; and then, sir, young men have more vir- tue than old men; they have more gen- erous sentiments in every respect." Be this as it may, it is true that Mr. But- terworth is never happier than when he is in the society of the young, to whom he is a steadfast friend. While Mr. But- terworth has not been a writer of great books, he has written many volumes that 139 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY have counted for much in the growing good of the world. The youth of his day and generation have been helped by much that Mr. Butterworth has written, and he has left his impress on the age in which he has lived. Not a line that he has writ- ten has destroyed character, or been in any way harmful to his readers. With high ideals and a strong desire to make his work count for good, Mr. Butterworth has been true to himself in his work, and our American literature could ill afford to have lost much that he has contributed to it. ~No group of the older Boston men of letters is complete without the genial and scholarly gentleman known as Frank San- born, editor, lecturer, author, philosopher. Franklin Benjamin Sanborn was born in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, in 1831. He came to Boston while a young man, 140 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and was graduated from Harvard in 1855. Mr. Sanborn has been connected with journalism in Boston for many years, his Boston letter to the Springfield Republi- can having been widely quoted for many years. Indeed, his opinions, as given in that sheet, have come to be looked upon as authoritative, even although somewhat radical. He was editor of the Journal of Social Science twenty-one years, and has edited twenty Massachusetts State Re- ports on Charities, Labour, etc. Mr. San- born was one of the founders and active workers in the Concord School of Philoso- phy. He has been a lecturer, not only at that famous institution, but in Cornell, Smith, and Wellesley Colleges, and has written biographies of Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, Doctor Samuel G. Howe, John Brown, and Doctor Earl. He has also been one of the founders of the American 141 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Social Science Association, the National Prison Association, the National Confer- ence of Charities, the Clark School for the Deaf, the Massachusetts Infant Asy- lum, and has been secretary or president of most of these. He has also been chair- man of the Massachusetts Board of State Charity, and for ten years an inspec- tor of charities for the State as well. Although he has passed his allotted three score and ten, he is still active in public and charitable work. 142 CHAPTEK VII. JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE, THOMAS RUSSELL SULLIVAN, JOHN T. WHEELWRIGHT, FREDERIC J. STIMSON, AND ROBERT GRANT " T ~f 7 HY are you smiling ? " asked yy^ one friend of another whom he met on the street in Boston. "I've just left Jeff Koche," was the reply; then both laughed, a merry, genial laugh of perfect understanding and thor- ough good fellowship. There is that quality about James Jef- frey Roche that makes all his friends feel in better spirits whenever they see him. He expresses within himself the spirit of 143 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY good comradeship, and he fairly radiates kindliness and friendliness. He is a charming man and a delightful, sympa- thetic companion. His is a well-known figure in literary Boston; he has dark eyes that sparkle and snap with intensity of feeling, or soften with sympathy; his dark hair, that will curl in spite of every attempt to make it lie smooth, is begin- ning to be threaded with gray, and the gray shows also in the moustache that hides the expressive mouth, which, as well as the eyes, betrays every variation of feeling and each differing emotion. His thoughts move rapidly, and when he talks, his words come bubbling and tumbling one over the other in the effort of the tongue to keep pace with the brain. He moves his hands in quick, expressive gesture, and even his body shows his mood by its movement, alternately flexible and 144 JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY tense, swayed by the waves of feeling that pulsate through the healthy veins. Sparkling, genial, ready of wit, quick with sympathy, clever at repartee, tender of suffering or distress, loyal in friend- ship, eager, alert, Irish, this is James Jeffrey Roche, poet, orator, editor. Mr. Roche was born at Mountmellick, Queen's County, Ireland, just a little over fifty years ago. But all the practical use he had for Ireland was to be born in it, although he has a deep and abiding love for the country in which his eyes first beheld the light of day. He was brought to Prince Edward Island by his\ parents in his early infancy, and that was his boy- hood's home. His father, Edward Roche, an accomplished scholar and a distin- guished teacher, personally attended to the early education of his son. The boy at- tended the school directed by his father, 145 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and prepared for college under his careful eye. He entered Saint Dunstan's College at Charlottetown, where, among his class- mates, were the present Chief Justice of the island and Archbishop of Halifax, and in due time he was graduated from that institution of learning. He showed his literary bent at an early age, and, although when he came to Bos- ton, in 1866, he started out in a business career, he was not destined to follow it for a life's vocation. He engaged for sev- enteen years in commercial pursuits, but his pen was busy during this period, and he was steadily tending toward what was to prove his real work. He was feeling his way, trying to discover what he really could do in the line of his preferred pro- fession before he should cut loose from the dull routine of a business life, which, as much as he disliked it, still gave him 146 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY his bread and butter and the necessary accompaniments. He was the Boston cor- respondent for the Detroit Free Press for several years; he sent fugitive bits of verse here and there ; and he was editorial contributor to the Pilot long before he became a permanent member of its staff. All this time he was refraining from pub- lishing under his own name. He wanted to be quite sure of his power to succeed before he took the public into his con- fidence. The temperaments of the two men, their common nationality and intense pa- triotism, the ties of a religion which bound them still more firmly, brought John Boyle O'Reilly and James Jeffrey Roche into close friendship and the most inti- mate relations. The former was the edi- tor-in-chief of the Pilot, and he became so interested in his young and clever con- 14T LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY tributor, recognising to the full his abil- ity, that he prevailed upon him to shake off the fretting trammels of a business life and put on the harness of the editor, which fitted him better, and become assist- ant on the Pilot. This was in 1883 ; and, on the death of Mr. O'Keilly, in 1890, Mr. Koche suc- ceeded to the chief editorship, a position which he has held ever since, conducting the paper, as nearly as might be, on the lines laid down by his illustrious prede- cessor. He combines two qualities not always found together, discretion and brilliancy. He is a master of trenchant sarcasm and a sparkling but always re- fined humour. His strong, poetic sensi- bility would prevent coarseness or any approach to it. He handles political top- ics most ably, and, in the treatment of the still broader social and economic ques- 148 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY tions, he writes with a strength and spirit worthy of the associate and successor of that apostle of human brotherhood, John Boyle O'Reilly. Like his predecessor, whose footsteps he seems to follow closely, he is poet and author, as well as newspaper writer and editor, and his literary tastes, as one of his friends describe them, " run to the he- roic and romantic lines, with a strong squint seaward." For the latter, there is a legitimate rea- son. Mr. Roche's sympathy with the he- roic records of American seamen came largely from his sympathy with the life of his favourite brother, the late John Roche, pay clerk in the United States Navy, who died a hero's death in the Samoan disaster of March, 1889. " At Sea," a poem which appeared in the At- lantic Monthly the following summer, and 149 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY which won high praise from Thomas Bailey Aldrich, is the embodiment of as beautiful a story of brotherly love as the world has ever made record. The readers of the Atlantic, Harper's, the Century, and Scribner's have become familiar with Mr. Roche's work, for nearly all his later poems have appeared in these magazines. He was the poet of the event at the unveiling of the " High Water Mark Monument " at the national dedication on the field of Gettysburg, June second, 1892, and in 1893, by the invitation of the city of Boston, he wrote the poem for the General Butler Memo- rial in Tremont Temple. He is the author* of three books of verse, " Songs and Satires," " Ballads of Blue Water," and " The V-A-S-E." His prose works are " The Life of John Boyle O'Keilly," "Story of the Filibusters," 150 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY which has been recently republished with additions under the title of " By-Ways of War," and " Her Majesty, the King." In 1891 Mr. Roche received the de- gree of LL. D. from the Notre Dame University of Indiana, and consequently may be addressed as " Doctor " Roche. He is a member of the St. Botolph and Papyrus Clubs, and has served the last mentioned for several years as secretary, and in 1890 was its president. The famous Papyrus Club, which is known to men of letters and attainment everywhere, so many having been its guests, has furnished its full quota to the literary Boston of to-day. It is an organ- isation to which only exceptionally bril- liant men belong, and the majority of its members have been pen workers, either writers of books, of magazine literature, 151 LITEKARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of caustic criticism, or pungent para- graphs. Like Mr. Roche, Mr. Thomas Russell Sullivan is a Papyrus man, one of its past presidents and a still active member; and like Mr. Roche, Mr. Sullivan is of Irish descent, although he is not so near to the country of his progenitors as the former. But he has the gay lighthearted- ness, the delicate chivalry, the fine sense of humour, and the sparkling wit, which are the bequests of his Celtic forefathers. The first Sullivan to come to this coun- try left his home, Ardea Castle, in Bantry Bay, in 1723, and found a home in Ber- wick, Maine. He figures in Sarah Orne Jewett's latest story, " The Tory Lover," and he was a well-known character of the period. He taught all the young people of the time, and was always called " Schoolmaster Sullivan." The name 152 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY originally was said to be O' Sullivan, and the genealogist has traced the family back to the O' Sullivan Beare of Bearehaven, a royal Irishman. But the member of the family who came to America, and con- tinued the line here, left the " O " behind him when he started for the new world, and it has been just plain Sullivan ever since. " Schoolmaster Sullivan " continued to be schoolmaster until he was ninety years of age, and he lived to celebrate his one hundred and fifth birthday. When he was in middle life he made a romantic marriage with a young girl whom he met while coming to this country. One of his sons was the famous Revolutionary general ; another son was governor of Mas- sachusetts, and was the ancestor of the author. Thomas Russell Sullivan was born in 153 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Charles Street, Boston, on the twenty- first .of November, 1849. His father, who was also Thomas Russell Sullivan, was the master of a very successful pri- vate school, in the rooms under the Park Street Church, and here young Sullivan began his education, which he continued at the Boston Latin School. Later he went into business and spent some time abroad in its interests. He made the most of this time, and laid up a goodly store of material, which he was to turn to prac- tical account in the days, then undreamed of, when he should relinquish business for authorship. On his return to Boston, in 1875, he entered the large banking-house of Lee & Higginson, and three years later, in 1878, he made his first entrance into the ca- reer which he was destined to follow. His first work was a play, " Papa Perrichon," 154 VJ THOMAS RUSSELL SULLIVAN LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY an adaptation from the French, which was produced at the Boston Museum, and was afterward taken on the road by Mr. Crane. This play was followed in quick suc- cession by " Midsummer Madness/' " In- dian Summer/' and " A Cigarette from Java," all of which were successful, and have kept a place, in popular dramatic literature ever since. But the most suc- cessful of his dramatisations, from every standpoint, was his adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's remarkable story of " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." This dram- atisation was authorised by Mr. Steven- son, and, on its completion, Mr. Richard Mansfield bought it outright, and thus secured control of all the rights of pro- duction. His first novel, " Roses of Shadow," was written in 1885, and in 1888 Mr. Sullivan left business to devote himself 155 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY exclusively to literary pursuits. He has since published three volumes of short, stories and a second novel, " Tom Syl- vester." Mr. Sullivan is a great social favourite and is a good clubman, being besides an enthusiastic Papyrus member, a loyal Tavern clubman, and an active and pop- ular member of the Union, the St. Bo- tolph, and the Authors 7 Clubs. He has a frank, earnest expression, and a manner thoroughly charming and gracious, alto- gether suggestive of birth and breeding. He is tall and erect, walking with a rapid, elastic step, and a military bearing which hints of a long line of soldierly ancestors. As a writer, Mr. Sullivan is thoroughly conscientious, and a perfect master of English. He is his own most severe critic, and is never satisfied with any of his work until it is polished and finished, 156 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and is made simply direct. This sim- plicity of diction gives a virility to his writing, reminding one of what the late John Fisk was accustomed to say: "Any attempt at the ornate weakens the work, and the best rule to follow in writing is to use short Saxon words, in terse, direct sentences.'' Said one of Mr. Sullivan's admirers : " It is interesting to take up one of Sullivan's books at random, and, frank and simple as they seem, try, and try in vain, with the most fastidious crit- icism, to suggest a change which would be an improvement, even in minor detail." Mr. Sullivan has been abroad several times, and he is easily conversant with the modern tongues of Europe. He is a close student of literature and language, and has more than an ordinary knowledge of the humanities, and the characters of his stories are drawn from this ripened as- 157 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY similated knowledge. That is why they are so delightfully human and appealing. The home of this author is at 31 Massa- chusetts Avenue, where, to quote his own words, written in a merry letter to an ac- quaintance, he is " still at work in spite of advanced age " - the advanced age being a trifle over fifty, as counted by years, al- though in spirit he is nearer the quarter century mark than half, for with him the wheels of time seem to run backward. Another one of the group of clever men, of whom Roche and Sullivan are shining examples, is John T, Wheelwright, who is also a Papyrus and a St. Botolph man, a lawyer by profession, and an author by preference. Mr. Wheelwright was born in Roxbury on the twenty-sixth of February, 1856, before that city became a part of Boston, and while it had an individuality of its 158 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY own. He prepared for college in the fa- mous high school of the city, which has had a noble record in its work of training boys for college or the technical schools, and was graduated from Harvard in 1876. He entered the Harvard Law School im- mediately upon his graduation, and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar in 1879. He had a leaning toward newspaper life, and was for a time on the editorial staff of the Boston Daily Advertiser, when that paper was under the editorial man- agement of the \amented Delano Goddard. One of his first hits as a writer was a little sketch which he wrote for George Riddle, a skit on women's sewing socie- ties. It was a clever bit of work, and Mr. Riddle made a genuine success with it. But the law made so many demands upon the young editorial writer that he dropped newspaper work, to the regret 159 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of his associates in the Advertiser office, with whom he was a great favourite, and who missed their genial fellow worker, who was always ready with a good story, a kindly word, and who never lost his serenity, no matter what was the stress of the hour. But, although Mr. Wheelwright said good-bye to newspaper work, he did not drop his pen, and he wrote something be- sides briefs with it. His published books are " Rollo's Journey to Cambridge," " A Child of the Country," and "A Bad Penny." He has also written much mis- cellaneous matter for magazines and news- papers. A critic, speaking of his book, " A Bad Penny," says : " It has a simple, old-time flavour which reminds one of Maria Edgeworth's stories, and other pleasant child lore. Some readers may be impatient with the simple manner of 160 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY its telling, but many more will find rest to their souls in a narrative, primitive, like the time of which it discourses, and with a genuine, unaffected American flavour." Mr. Wheelwright was appointed park commissioner by the late Governor Rus- sell, whose personal friend he was, and he has served in other official capacities, always with credit to himself and to the good of the special service in which he was engaged. His home is at 99 Mt. Vernon Street. Said the Bookman: " Even looking at the matter casually, one is impressed by the close connection which has always ex- isted between law and literature. Al- though lawyers rarely write fiction which treats essentially of the experiences which come to them through the practice of their profession, there has never been a time 161 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY when there have not been lawyers writing novels, and good novels. Scott was a bar- rister. Balzac began life in a law office. Thackeray was qualified to practise. To- day, in thinking casually of our own American novelists, we recall that Judge Grant, among others, belongs to the legal profession." The Bookman might have found an- other most brilliant and striking example without going out of Boston, or outside the social and professional circle of which Judge Grant is a distinguished member. The law has lent to literature another man of whose double reputation Boston is justly proud, and that is the writer on law subjects, whose books are everywhere accepted as authority upon the questions of which they treat, Mr. Frederic Jesup Stimson, who is also known to the world of fiction readers as " J. S. of Dale." 162 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Mr. Stimson was born in Dedham, the beautiful old shire town of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in 1855, and in this delightful place his boyhood was passed, in the midst of scenes which he has pictured in his historical novel, " King Noanett." Here he has lived all his life, calling Dedham home, even while passing his winters in his town house in Boston. He was graduated from Harvard in 1876, in the same class with John T. Wheel- wright, and in 1878 from the Harvard Law School. He was the assistant at- torney-general of Massachusetts in 1884- 85, and was afterward made general counsel to the United States Industrial Commission. In view of his comparative youth, for he is only entering middle life, Mr. Stim- son has accomplished much valuable work. He has been a voluminous writer upon 163 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY legal subjects, and, in spite of professional and official duties, he has found time to make several fine contributions to the lit- erature of the time. A list of his works would read like a library catalogue, and to the average reader many of the titles would convey but little meaning, although to the members of his own profession they are luminous with suggestion. To Mr. Stimson belongs the distinction of being the pioneer in the field, somewhat overworked of late, of the historical novel. " King IsToanett " was one of the earlier of the flood of recent novels which deal with American colonial life, and was a notable success. " Pirate Gold " is an- other of Mr. Stimson' s books which has gained wide popularity. It gives a good idea of Boston in its early days, when it was the leading commercial city of the country, and its merchants were the 164 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY princes of the time. These are but two out of the number of works of fiction which Mr. Stimson has written, but they place him in the front rank of American nov- elists. Mr. Stimson's home in Dedham is just off High Street, which is one of the famous beautiful streets of E"ew England, al- though it has been sadly marred by per- mitting electric cars to run down its tree- shaded length. The grounds reach to the High Street, and the house overlooks the winding Charles, as it takes its sinuous way through the meadows of Dedham, its surface, in the summer, dotted with ca- noes, which skilful paddlers are propelling either down toward Watertown, from whence the first Dedham settlers came in canoes almost three centuries ago, or up river toward historic Medfield, over the route taken by Courtenay and Moore in 165 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY their search for a home. Tall trees, older by years than the town itself, dot the lawn and make pleasant shade for Mr. Stim- son's house. A delightful place it is, either to rest after a wearing day in the courts and poring over law books, or to dream out some romance. In the centre of things, yet just outside them, with the dome of the court-house shadowing one side, it is an ideal place for the home of a man of affairs, who is also an idealist. Other works of Mr. Stimson are " Guerndale," " The Sentimental Calen- dar," " The Residuary Legatee," " In the Three Zones," "First Harvest," and "The Crime of Henry Vane." Mr. Stimson is a member of the Papy- rus Club, and also of the Somerset and Country Clubs. Had he established no other reputa- tion, Eobert Grant would be known all 166 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY over this country as the creator of Selma White. Where he found this monstrous travesty on all womanhood, it would be difficult to tell, although there is no com- munity of any size where she has not been recognised, and her acquaintances have wondered how the author could have known anything about her. The probable truth is that Judge Grant did not find her at all, but that she represents to his mind the type of a certain class of women whose ambitions trample every other sentiment under their feet. She is a composite crea- tion, this heroine of " Unleavened Bread," and no doubt the author intended her as a solemn warning to women who suffer from virulent social ambition. For some time after the appearance of the book, the clubwomen raged as violently as the heathen of old, but the tempest seems to have died down, and all except the most 167 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY irrational among them now admit that there was a grain of truth underlying the exaggerated description, and cease mak- ing themselves ridiculous by their femi- nine fulminations against it. Robert Grant was born in Boston in 1850, and is of Scotch descent, his grand- father coming to this country as a young man, and becoming a good American, marrying a Boston girl of position and wealth. He (Robert Grant) was fitted for college in the Boston Latin School, and he is, as one of his friends describes him, " thrice a Harvard man, Bachelor in Arts, Doctor of Philosophy and Law, in 1873, '76, '79." Judge Grant was secretary to Doctor Samuel A. Green, when that most genial and accomplished gentleman was mayor of Boston. Then he was a member of the Water Commission, and later associate 168 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY judge of probate, which position he still holds. During all the time he has been steadily advancing in his literary posi- tion, carrying one work along with an- other, yet never neglecting the one nor the other. He was none the less the faith- ful public official because he was publish- ing novels and essays, nor was his literary work any the less convincing for being done in the intervals of official duties. To quote from one of his critics : " On the whole, his literary progress may be summarised as having proceeded from the stories of realism in childhood and youth, through the novel of society, to the ripe- ness of the essayist of men and manners, a species which we have just discovered to be peculiarly and distinctively Ameri- can, and in which our best writers com- bine the German insight, the English fair- ness, the Hebraic humour, the French 169 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY delicacy in a manner which seems to pos- sess the field. George William Curtis was no mean man, a scholar, a gentleman, a stylist; but, if one would compare the growth of a generation, it is only neces- sary to read his i Fotiphar Papers ' and Judge Grant's ' Art of Living ' con- secutively. The latter collection is so complete in its grasp, so Horatian in refinement, so absolute in its comprehen- siveness, in which nothing is answered and everything suggested, so restrained in humour, that one lays it down in despair of ever reading anything else. It is final." In his lovely home in the Bay State Road, in Boston, Judge Grant and his cha-rming wife dispense a gracious hospi- tality to their many friends, and are them- selves convincing exponents of " The Art of Living." 170 CHAPTER VIII. ARLO BATES,, PERCIVAL LOWELL, JUSTIN II. SMITH, HENRY CABOT LODGE, JOHN TORREY MORSE, AND BRADFORD TORREY ^^"^HERE is something about the old t West End of Boston, particularly that portion of it which lies on the crest of Beacon Hill, that lures literary people to it. Something still is left there of the spirit of old Boston, of the days before the Back Bay was, or ever the boule- vard was builded; business has not suc- ceeded in quite elbowing its way in; it is quiet and tree-sheltered; there is no jangle, nor car-gong, nor whir of the trol- ley. It is in the very heart of things, yet 171 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY it is set discreetly outside the bustle and confusion, the noise and fret, of the world's work ways. It is indescribably fascinat- ing, and especially so to those who come to Boston from other parts of New Eng- land, and who know the traditions of the beautiful old town which was set on three hills. And so it is that Arlo Bates, Maine boy, Bowdoin graduate, coming here fresh from college, and making his way to a professorship in the Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology by the way of the news- paper editor's chair and the story-writer's craft, settled in old Chestnut Street; the quiet street that makes its noiseless way toward the setting sun and the broad river, down the western slope of the hill. Edwin Booth had his Boston home in this street, and here the famous Radical Club lived out its short and brilliant life in the hospitable homes of Doctor Bartol and 172 ARLO BATES LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Reverend John T. Sargent, numbered re- spectively 13 and 17. Here, surrounded by the traditions which make for cleverness and achieve- ment, in the stillest street in the city, in a small house of cosy snugness, full of the weapons and tools of a literary man's la- bours, Professor Bates finds a congenial atmosphere for a home. Arlo Bates was bom in East Machias, Maine, on the sixteenth of December, 1850. His father was a physician, and the relation between the little growing boy and his father must have been a most beau- tiful one, to judge by the manner in which the son speaks of his parent, and the tone of the dedications of his books. The same is true of his mother and his affection for her. One can but believe that the family life was sweet and sympathetic, and that 173 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the man's ideal of home was builded upon the boy's experience. As was the proper thing for a good, loyal State of Maine boy, he was sent to Bowdoin College, the college which was the Alma Mater of Longfellow and of the recent Secretary of the Navy, Honourable John D. Long, and from which he was graduated in 1876. He had early deter- mined to follow literature as a profession, and naturally he turned his steps Boston- ward. He must live while he was wooing literary success, and he soon found himself in the editorial harness, having taken a position as editor of the Sunday Courier, and, at the same time, he became the Bos- ton correspondent of the Providence Jour- nal. But the editorial harness did not fit the ambitious young fellow, and it galled him sadly. He did not hesitate to express himself regarding the trend of 174 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY modern journalism, and fretted indescri- bably, although he saw no immediate opportunity of freeing himself from its trammels. He was in a perpetual attitude of protest and defiance toward that arm of the newspaper body known as the count- ing-room, and that same arm was usually raised in defence against him, although occasionally the attitude changed to one of offence. He was a conscientious worker with high ideals, which he could not make fit into the surroundings of a paper pub- lished to make money for the owners in a perfectly honourable, business fashion, to be sure, but commercial rather than literary, after all. Still Professor Bates remained as editor from 1880 to 1893, when, doubtless to his great relief, he was called to the chair of English literature in the Institute of Technology, and thus enabled to feel the 175 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY coining accomplishment of the aims and ambitions of a lifetime. The man who is largely introspective, who looks inside rather than out for his working material, is out of place in newspaper work, and out of sympathy with it. And so the chair of the professor is more comfortable for one like Professor Bates than would be the most capacious editorial chair in the world. As to his literary work, Professor Bates has given to the world some very bright and clever books and one or two irritating ones. But there is always an advance, which is a hopeful sign of even better things, and the growth is the more as- sured because the author's ideals are kept at a high standard. He has written sev- enteen or eighteen novels, the most talked of, probably, being " The Pagans," " The Philistines," and "The Puritans," each 176 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of which created a sensation on its appear- ance. " A Lad's Love " and " A Wheel of Fire " were also widely discussed when they appeared. He also published two helpful volumes of " Talks on Writing English" and "Talks on the Study of Literature." The name of Percival Lowell is promi- nently associated with Boston, although he is more apt to be found in Mexico or Arizona or the far East than in his native city. He still keeps a home in Boston, however, and has a permanent address here, where his books are published. Mr. Lowell established the Lowell Observa- tory in 1894, and is a member of many scientific associations. His books deal with astronomical and Oriental topics, which are presented in a popular way, and have helped to do honour to an old Boston name. 177 LTTEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Like Mr. Lowell, Professor Justin H. Smith, of the chair of modern history in Dartmouth College, keeps a Boston ad- dress, having been connected with a Bos- ton publishing house many years previous to his connection with the New Hampshire college. As Professor Smith is a member of the Boston Authors' Club, and will doubtless return to take up his abode here in due course of time, he may be counted in with the Boston literary set. His book, " The Troubadours at Home," is the most delightful as well as the most exhaustive work on that subject ever published. Pro- fessor Smith was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1877, and has travelled much in Europe, acquiring a wide knowledge of history and political economy, with which a comprehensive and liberal mind combines to render him a valued member of society wherever he goes. 178 LITEKABY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Statesmen, naturalists, and financiers, as well as lawyers, have invaded the do- main of literature, and the literary Boston of to-day numbers notable examples in its list of members. In this connection, the first name which presents itself is that of the Honourable Henry Cabot Lodge, the junior Senator from Massachusetts. Mr. Lodge comes from fine old Puritan stock, and was born in Boston on the twelfth of May, 1850. He was graduated from Harvard in 1871, from the Harvard Law School in 1875, and was admitted to the bar in 1876. Although born in Boston, Senator Lodge has, according to the Time and the Hour, but one home. " The beautiful house on Ehode Island Avenue at Wash- ington, where he passes so much of his time, is a residence. An ample and agree- able one, to be sure, to which he has added 179 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY a handsome library and many adorn- ments; but no man owning and inheriting such an estate as Eastern Point, Nahant, could count any other abiding-place as a real home. The stranger who passes, by sunken ways, contrived to prevent the occupants of the house from seeing the visitors to the cliffs, who might otherwise use the public right of access to the water- side in a more obnoxious way, through the grounds to the shore, has little con- ception of the charm which the situation possesses; rocks, surf, and sea; a glowing garden, intensely verdant turf, shrubbery, and choice glimpses of distant shore; then a great burst of unlimited ocean, the whole arched under a dome of blue sky to an horizon broken nowhere by ugly lines of human structures, alone with nature in its richest perfection and most absolute con- trast, though only half an hour from the 180 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY great city. Once upon a time the Nahant Hotel stood in these grounds before Mr. Lodge's father acquired the property. A famous resort it was, where the selectest Boston families met equally select visitors from the South and other parts of the country, and where there was a decorous and fine gaiety. The little temple on the highest point, used by the Lodges as a billiard-room, was an appanage of the hotel, destroyed long ago by fire. "It is not difficult to understand how the young man, who, from his earliest years, drew in the influences of such per- fect surroundings, was naturally led to the calm pursuits of scholarship, which pre- ceded his entrance into active political life. Mr. Lodge was the scholar, the edi- tor, and the author before he was the politician, which he has been since, just escaping being the statesman." 181 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Settled very early in life, scarcely past his majority when he took his wedding journey to Europe, directly after his grad- uation in 1871, he came back to the study of law, in the spirit of the philosopher and commentator rather than the possible practitioner. He won his Ph. D. by a comprehensive and learned treatise upon the " Land Law of the Anglo-Saxons," while he lectured in his alma mater upon American history from 1876 to 1879. It is in the Cabot blood still to be ad- venturous, and he sought a newer and wider field in the editorship of the North American Review in 1876, and later, from 1879 to 1881, in connection with Mr. John T. Morse, Jr., he edited the Inter- national Review. An admirable " Short History of the English Colonies in Amer- ica," and a correct and comprehensive " History of the Spanish- American War " 182 HENRY CABOT LODGK LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-PAY are excellent exponents of the value of his historical work. The latter must be accepted as the most accurate of any of the numerous histories in the summing up of the causes leading to the war, since, from his position as Senator, and his con- sequent knowledge of all that preceded it, he was in full possession of the minutest bit of detail which made this late war with Spain inevitable. As a biographer, he has given to the world the lives of Washington, Hamilton, Webster, and of his great-grandfather, George Cabot. He edited the works of Hamilton, and he also compiled as a bit of pleasant recreation and a rest from his more arduous labours one of the finest collections of songs and ballads ex- tant. His taste is exquisitely fine, and he makes no mistake in selection. All this work, accomplished by a man 183 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY who has only just passed the half -century mark, indicates an industry and ability beyond the common inheritance of those born in the purple, especially when it is borne in mind that, besides this, which is in itself a large work of achievement, Mr. Lodge has been making all along an active political career, delivering Low- ell lectures, fulfilling the duties of Har- vard overseer and of the local functions which naturally fall to a man in his position. His political career must alone have required great attention and diligence, and much time. It began with his service in the General Court in 1880 and 1881. He went to Congress in 1886, and his advancement to the Senatorship followed his service in the House, while he went to the National Republican Conventions of 1880 and 1884. There is probably 184 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY no more scholarly man in the Senate than the junior Senator from Massachusetts, and he is the recognised leader of his party in that body. But it is the au- thor, and not the politician, that we have to do with, and in the literary world Mr. Lodge holds a high place from the breadth and quality of his work, and his scholarly method of treating any subject which he undertakes. Boston is proud to be able to count him among the younger men who are helping to hold up her old traditions, and to give her still the right of claiming to be a literary centre of power and influence, if not the centre. One of the men who was for awhile closely connected with Mr. Lodge, in the editorship of the International Review, was Mr. John Torrey Morse, Jr. Mr. Morse was born in Boston on the ninth of January, 1840, and was graduated from 185 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Harvard in 1860. He studied law, and, after his graduation from the law school, wrote several books of value on legal sub- jects, prominent among which are books relating to banking and also to arbitration and award. These books are considered authorities, and have given their author a prominent place in the list of writers on law. His more recent work has been in the line of biography, and he has writ- ten a life of Oliver Wendell Holmes and also a life of Alexander Hamilton. In the American Statesman Series of Biog- raphy, he wrote the lives of Abraham Lincoln, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. Mr. Morse's home is at 'No. 16 Fairfield Street, in the Back Bay dis- trict of Boston, where he lives surrounded by all that goes to make existence flow smoothly and easily along, and where he 186 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY is still busy at his work. There is nothing " strenuous " in his mode of life, and, as he says, there is nothing to tell about it, except the story of pleasant hours of con- genial work. Although he was born in Weymouth. and lives now in Wellesley Hills, literary Boston claims the naturalist and delight- ful writer, Mr. Bradford Torrey, as be- longing to her. And why should she not, since all his most charming work first sees the light of day through the pages of the Atlantic? There is no one, not even John Burroughs, who seems to live so near to Nature's heart, or to be the re- cipient of so many of her secrets, as does Mr. Torrey. His work is a perpetual delight from its perennial freshness, its convincing quality, and its absolute natu- ralness. He was born in Weymouth, Massachu- 18T LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY setts, on the ninth of October, 1843, and was educated in the public schools. For the rest, he must have taken a post-grad- uate course in the woods and on the moun- tains and hills of New England. By no other means could he know so much about the birds, the trees, the wild flowers, of the habits of Nature, her ways and her methods. It is evident that he lives on terms of the most delightful intimacy with her, and that she takes him into her clos- est confidence, else how could he tell of her so delightfully and convincingly as he does? Mr. Torrey is one of the editors of the Youth's Companion, and has a lovely home in Wellesley Hills, one of the pleasant suburbs of Boston. Another worker along historical lines, who belongs to the group of men at pres- ent under consideration, is Mr. James 188 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Ford Rhodes, who calls Boston home, since his work is done there at present, and he finds in it a congenial atmosphere. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on the first of May, 1848, and the basis of his education was laid in the excellent public schools of that pleasant lake city. He was afterward at the University of New York, going from there to the University of Chicago for special lines of work, al- though he did not take a degree. His specialty is history, to which he devotes himself exclusively, and his most ambi- tious work has been the " History of the United States since the Compromise of 1850." 189 CHAPTEK IX. ELIZA ORNE WHITE, AGNES BLAKE POOR, ANNA FULLER, HELEN LEAH REED, AND EVELYN GREENLEAF SUTHERLAND x^vNE of the best short stories ever f J printed in the Atlantic Monthly was " A Browning Courtship." Its author was Miss Eliza Orne White, whose " Miss Brooks," a novel appearing about the same time, attracted attention to a new writer of originality and genuine humour. Miss White's ascent to fame has been a gradual one, though she has written all her life. It is said that her ambition was always to write a long novel rather than short stories; and that she 190 LITER AEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY wrote one at the age of fourteen that she considers better than anything else she did for years after. Her first published work was some children's stories for the Chris- tian Register. By degrees she worked on, her " Browning Courtship," however, be- ing the first thing that attracted public interest, and this not until she was thirty- two or thirty-three. She has written steadily since, and her stories are now well known in England as well as here. Miss White lives in a delightful old house with extensive, well-shaded grounds in Brookline. The house has the fine literary atmosphere characteristic of Bos- ton's best ; and, although the encroach- ments of modern progress are drawing disagreeably near, it stands so far back from the street that the overhanging trees shut out the proximity of trolley-cars, and, ere the caller has traversed the winding 191 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY pathway up the picturesque knoll to the house, he has forgotten the rushing world, and dreams only of sylvan solitudes. In- side the roomy house there are spacious apartments, with cosy corners and beauti- ful old furniture, with fine pictures and plenty of books, and, best of all, a digni- fied, genial old father and a silver-haired, delicate little mother, who form exactly the right background for Miss White, who, after all, has often to wrestle with the disadvantages of a woman's career. She is a housekeeper at home, and nurse as well, and for months at a time is un- able to get to her writing at all. This makes her feel as if she were leading a dual existence; and when she is not actu- ally writing, she forgets that she is ever such a thing as a literary person. With regard to her working habits, the same circumstances keep her from being 192 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY regular. She prefers to work in the morn- ing. Working late in the day keeps her from sleeping at night. She can write about four thousand words in a day, but that is when she is copying, rarely while she is composing. Miss White does not devote much at- tention to style, although she revises and polishes her work very carefully. She be- lieves the more she polishes her writing, the more spontaneous it appears. She likes to write straight ahead first, even though it involves the frequent repetition of the same word. This defect she is care- ful to correct afterward. Miss White's characters are very real to her, they even " write themselves." She finds it impossible to change even their names, once they have been chris- tened. Her mother, who takes the keenest interest in her daughter's work, once ob- 193 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY jected to the name of one of Miss White's heroines, and wanted her to change it. The author, in deference to her mother's wishes, tried various other names, hut none of them would do, and she was finally obliged to come back to the original ap- pellation, as the only one that was at all natural. This illusion of reality is so strong that she is not willing to alter her stories rad- ically when once they have got written down. She had, by her publisher's re- quest, to shorten " Miss Brooks " consider- ably, cutting out certain scenes and shortening others, but the result was not satisfactory to her. She has the feeling common to most writers endowed with originality, that rewriting a book, or any portion of it, to gratify the desires of publishers or critics, destroys in a degree her sense of creation and possession. And 194 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY yet to assist her judgment toward a more reasonable mean, she likes to read her manuscripts to friends, and, in this way, by noting the impression made, thinks she becomes quite a good critic of her own work. She rather makes a point of avoiding the study of people for the sake of making use of them in her books, and thinks that characters in fiction are less often exact portraits from real life than is usually supposed. Miss White's own favourite among her books is " Winterborongh " ; not that she thinks it is really her best, but because she values its associations. It represents the scenes among which she grew up, and the people who surrounded her youth. Curiously enough, the author's favourite is seldom that of the public. Mrs. Deland confesses to a particular fondness for 195 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY " The Wisdom of Fools/' and Miss Jewett to " The Country of the Pointed Firs," and, while both of these were well re- ceived, neither of them have sold as well as other books by the same author. Miss White's last book is " John For- syth's Aunts," and this was preceded by " A Lover of Truth," " The Coming of Theodora," "Winterborough," "A Brown- ing Courtship and Other Stories," " Miss Brooks," and several fascinating chil- dren's books. Among Miss White's neighbours is her friend, Miss Blanche M. Channing, of the famous Channing family, an earnest philanthropist and a successful writer of children's books, " Winifred West " and others. Miss Agnes Blake Poor, whose short stories have attracted considerable atten- tion in the leading magazines, is another 196 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Brookline writer. Miss Poor has a pleas- ant house on Walnut Street, with summer quarters at Andover, Maine. She is the daughter of Mr. Henry Yarnum Poor, banker and editor. Her first book, " Brothers and Strangers," appeared in 1894, and her second, " Boston Neigh- bours," was particularly well received. She has written much for magazines and periodicals, under the pen-name of " Dor- othy Prescott," but of late has more often used her own name in full. Mrs. Thomas Aspinwall (born Alicia Towne) is another Brookline writer who is making a reputation with her stories for young people. When " Pratt Portraits " appeared in 1892, it created a sensation, and attracted immediate attention to its author, Miss Anna Fuller, a Cambridge woman of charming address, unusual brilliancy, and 197 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY remarkable powers of observation. Her first book, the " Pratt Portraits/' was not published until her thirty-eighth year. This was not because she did not have an impulse toward writing from her earli- est years; indeed, she has told some one that it was only the disproportionate price of paper compared with her pocket-money that prevented the greatest American novel from being written by her at the age of twelve. But the exigencies of earn- ing her living by less congenial occupa- tions, which seemed more immediately remunerative, prevented her from having the necessary leisure to make a literary experiment. She began writing as soon as she had time to devote to it, for she claims that a certain leisure from the primitive anxieties of existence was neces- sary before the imagination can set to work. 198 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY The " Pratt Portraits " was not her first appearance in print, however. She made her debut in the New York Evening Post, at the age of twenty-one, with a letter from Germany. The editor was so pleased with this that he expressed a desire for more, but Miss Fuller was so abashed by her sudden success that she could not pluck up courage to repeat the experiment. Her most popular book in this country has been " A Literary Courtship." It may be of some comfort to struggling authors, whose excellent manuscripts are continually rejected, to know that this book, like many another popular novel, ran the gauntlet of innumerable refusals before it was finally accepted ; and that then, when the book had appeared and been a success, one of the firms that had refused it, when it was first offered, wrote 199 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY innocently to Miss Fuller, asking her to write a story on similar lines for them. Indeed, it would seem sometimes that seven proves a lucky number to the strug- gling author, for some of the most suc- cessful books, like " David Harum," " Eben Holden," " King Noanett," and others, were rejected by seven publishers before finally seeing the light of the printed page. As to " A Literary Courtship," those who have read the story will remember that it hinges on the adoption of a fem- inine nom-de-guerre by a masculine writer. An astute English critic, the critic of the Pall Mall Gazette, insisted that the writer was playing the same trick, and was evi- dently a man, in spite of the name " Anna Fuller " on the title-page. Miss Fuller's impulse is to write off her story in the rough at first, and then 200 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY to prune and revise it exhaustively. She thinks there is a danger of spoiling the spirit of a story if one potters over the sentences as one goes along ; and that there is unwisdom in working against the grain > in trying to force inspiration when the inspiration is not there. When the im- pulse of inclination is strongest, then is the writing most likely to be worth read- ing, a truth accepted by most authors. Like many another writer, too, Miss Ful- ler has a feeling that each book she writes is worse than the last, and she is always in the depths of despair before the pub- lication of every one, lest it should not please. Partly for this reason, she likes to read over her work to friends before- hand to be criticised and encouraged. Besides the books already mentioned, she has written " Peak and Prairie from a Colorado Sketch-Book," "A Venetian 201 LITERARY BOSTON" OF TO-DAY June/ 7 " One of the Pilgrims/' and " Katherine Day." Miss Fuller lives in artistic apartments at 191 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. A few doors below lives Miss Helen Leah Reed, whose " Brenda " stories are fast making her name a household word wherever there are young girls. Miss Reed was graduated from Boston schools, and then took the course at Radcliffe Col- lege, in the old days when it was still the " Harvard Annex/ 7 and she was the first young woman to win the Sargent Prize for the best translation from the Greek, After taking her degree from the " An- nex," Miss Reed went on to the editorial force of the Boston Daily Advertiser, but after a few months resigned the place in order to devote herself to purely literary work. Since that time, however, she has done a good deal of desultory writing for 202 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the Boston Transcript, for Chicago papers, and for syndicates. Her first book was a novel, " Miss Theodosia " ; but in writing for girls, as she has done since, Miss Heed seems to have found her metier,, and is establishing a reputation for conscientious and painstaking, as well as fascinating, work. Still farther up the avenue, one may find, as mistress of Doctor John Preston Sutherland's home, another woman who is fast making a name, not as a novelist or juvenile writer, but as playwright. Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland began her literary work as dramatic critic for sev- eral Boston newspapers, during which period she wrote many notable short sto- ries, as " Dorothy Lundt," taking the prize in McClure's short story competi- tion, in 1894, with an army story, " Dik- kin's Dog." Her interest in the drama, 203 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and her wide acquaintance among theat- rical people, however, turned her serious work in the way of play-writing, a field where she is winning laurels and achieving excellent results. Two books of one-act plays have been produced, " Po' White Trash," and " In Office Hours." At first she collaborated with Emma Sheridan Frye, former leading lady at the Boston Museum and with Richard Mansfield. Later she collaborated with General Charles King in " Fort Frayne," and with Booth Tarkington dramatised " Beau- caire " for Mr. Mansfield. Mrs. Suther- land is well known to a large circle of friends, belongs to several leading clubs, and is a popular woman, endowed with executive ability, originality, and a keen wit; add to this that she is an affable and charming hostess, and it will be unneces- sary to add that her " Sunday evenings " 204 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY are enjoyed by many noted players while they are in Boston, as well as many ap- preciative people whose names are scarcely well known. Mary Devereux, whose " From King- dom to Colony " has been widely read and discussed, is a resident of Boston, and lives in a quiet way at that famous hos- telry, the Parker House. Mary Knight Potter is another Bostonian who is com- ing to the front in the world of letters, if, indeed, she has not already arrived. Her " Love in Art " is a delightful book, and " Councils of Croesus " is one of the best novels of the day, while among the juveniles she is known and loved for her graphic representation of " Peggy's Trial." 205 CHAPTEK X. JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY, BEULAH MARIE DIX, CAROLINE TICKNOR, ELIZA- BETH PHIPPS TRAIN, MARY TAPPAN WRIGHT, LILIAN SHUMAN, AND GERAL- DINE BROOKS " ' JT'VE decided what I'm going to be J when I grow up/ announced Ali- son, at the mature age of eight one day, e I'm going to be a poet. 7 And then after a serious moment, f And if I am, I hope I'll be a good one.' 7 If this was the youthful ambition of Josephine Preston Peabody, the gods were indeed good, and granted all her wish, for, although she will not round out her 206 JOSEPHINK PRKSTON PEAHODY LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY third decade for some years yet, the critics have already relegated her to one of the highest seats on Olympus with American poets. Miss Peabody claims that her biog- raphy can be condensed into eight words: I was born and I still am here. But there are a few intermediate facts of interest to other people. She was born in New York, moved to Dorchester when she was eight years old, and lived the life of a suburban child till she moved to Cambridge in 1900. Her education was in the Girls' Latin School (after the sub- urban grammar school) and two years' special study at Kadcliffe ; " and trudging back and forth from libraries/' she said, in a recent interview, " and writing all kinds of things ever since I could write 207 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY at all. I have always written much verse and dramatic scraps from the very first, likewise stories, short and long, when I was a child. As I grew up, prose dwin- dled and poetry grew; but I look back upon an almost unbroken history of think- ing and of solitary work at the problem of getting one's ideas clear to oneself and to other people. The career of writers is not attractive to me, however. As a child, I should have chosen to be an artist of some kind; but while I was amusing myself with plays and paint-boxes, my semi-conscious expression of myself, by way of prose and dramas and doggerel verse, was going on at a rate that I never realised. My sister Marion became the artist (it is she who designed my first two book-covers), and I kept on with the medium that had half developed itself. " When I went to the Latin School, I 208 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY put many verses in the school paper; a few of them were dramatic bits on the subjects given out for school compositions (Penelope in ' The Wayfarers ' started out in this way). But the first thing accepted by an important magazine was i The Shepherd Girl/ a poem which Hor- ace Scudder accepted for the Atlantic Monthly. Through it, I met him, and he was the first man of letters who ever spoke with authority of my work, or gave me literary counsel; perhaps I should say encouragement. For I was never cheered on, as a child, and never discouraged. I merely wanted to please myself, without precept or prospect." Doubtless this lack of interference had much to do with the development of the poet, and anxious mothers might draw a lesson from it if they would. Miss Pea- body lives in Cambridge with her mother 209 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and her sister, the decorative designer, and has recently taken the place of Pro- fessor Vida Scudder at Wellesley College, giving courses of English literature. Her work covers a collection of old Greek folk- stories, " The Wayfarers/' " Fortune and Men's Eyes," and " Marlowe," the latter, especially, a fine illustration of her claim that, while it may be inconvenient to be given to poetry in a time when so few people care for poetry, that that is a mat- ter she cannot seem to change; and also that nothing seems to give her the con- genial scope and exhilaration of the big drama. A neighbour of Miss Peabody's is an- other of Boston's young literary workers. Beulah Marie Dix lives at 77 Larch Road with her family, a diligent literary worker who has apparently grasped the fact that hard work has something to do with 210 BKULAII MA HIE DIX LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY genius and more especially with success. Her father's people are of English de- scent, and have been in the vicinity of Watertown ever since 1640. Edwin Asa Dix, the author of " Deacon Bradbury/' is her father's third cousin. Her mother came from Machias, Maine. She is a great-great-granddaughter of Gideon O'Brien, one of the six O'Brien broth- ers who had a hand in the capture of the British sloop Margaretta in Machias lower bay, the first naval battle of the Revolution, which may have given Miss Dix her taste for colonial scrimmages. She was born at Plymouth, Massachu- setts, December twenty-fifth, 1876, in the days before the trail of summer visitors was over the town. She passed her first twelve years of life very happily there, attending school as little as possible till she was ten, reading everything she could 211 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY lay her hands on, and playing alone a great deal. In 1889, her family moved to Chelsea, where she entered the high school, worked steadily, read the valedic- tory, and entered college in 1893, going to Radcliffe, at that time Harvard Annex. She was the kind that they call a " sport- ing grind," -played basket-ball and went to club meetings and rehearsed plays all day, and then studied most of the night. She did a good deal of English and his- tory, besides the necessary amount of lan- guages, living and dead. In 1897, she took the degree of B. A., summa cum laude, and with highest honours in Eng- lish, and received for her honour thesis subject, " Published Collections of English and Scottish Ballads, 1765-1802 " the George B. Sohier Prize of two hundred and fifty dollars. This prize is given " for the best thesis presented by 212 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY a successful candidate for Honours in English or Modern Literature/' whether an undergraduate of Harvard, a Harvard graduate studying in the graduate school, or a student of Radcliffe. Miss Dix is particularly pleased with that prize, claim- ing it is the one thing in life that she is proud of. " Everybody, particularly every young woman/' she says, " writes blood and thundery historical novels nowadays; but every young woman does not take the Sohier prize." On the strength of it, she returned to college for a year of graduate work, and took her degree of M. A. in 1898. She began writing little stories when she was seven or eight, and began telling them to herself o' nights much younger. She plunged into the theme courses, and by a stroke of luck sold to Lippincott's Magazine one of her sophomore themes, 213 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY which was published in 1895. This suc- cess encouraged her to write other stories, and then she took to play-writing. In her junior year she wrote a little romantic play for the college girls, and published it under the name of " Cicely's Cavalier." Other one-act comedies of the same period were given at college, one by the Cam- bridge Dramatic Club, and two of them, "Apples of Eden" and " At the Sign of the Buff Bible," were played in ~New York by the pupils of the Empire Theatre Dramatic School (Franklin H. Sargent) in 1897 and 1898. In her graduate year at college, Miss Dix had taken all the English theme work that there was to do, so she started to write a little book for boys, taking a plot she had in mind for several years, and " Hugh Gwyeth, a Roundhead Cavalier " was the result. Just at that time she got 214 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY a chance to do a child's story about the Pilgrims, for the Macmillan Company, and ventured to send them " Hugh Gwy- eth." They accepted it, and it was brought out in the spring of 1899. All this time she was writing short plays and stories. Some of the later got into print in Short Stories and The Delineator and Lippincott's. In the fall of 1899 Mac- millan published " Soldier Bigdale," a story of early Plymouth; and then Miss Dix settled down to serious work, as she called, on a real novel that she had had in mind for four or five years. It was pub- lished in the spring of 1901, under the title of " The Making of Christopher Fer- ringham." " A Little Captive Lad,' 7 a story of England in the year 1650, is just appearing, and so is a novel, called " The Beau's Comedy," on which Miss Dix and her friend and fellow collegian, Miss Car- 215 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY rie Harper, collaborated. She has also done a good deal of play-writing lately with her friend, Evelyn Greenleaf Suther- land. She lives very quietly at Cambridge with her family, never travels, reads a little in the Harvard library before she writes about anything, a method quite unfashionable among young women writ- ers. In " Christopher Ferringham," she tried to give her own view on life and a man's life and the doctrine of regenera- tion by hard labour, and also her views on what the Massachusetts Puritans of 1650 were. The book is usually judged as a " rattling story of adventure." " Of course I shall always write," says Miss Dix. " It is a teasing trade. I don't know that I want to drop it ; I suppose I couldn't if I wanted to." As to her meth- ods of work, she writes with pencil on 216 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY yellow paper, and rewrites and revises, and typewrites and revises again, and then re-typewrites and prints. Then the critics tell her how she ought to have done it. Over in Jamaica Plain another young woman is doing a great deal of excellent literary work in her quiet way, and doing honour to the fine old name she bears. Miss Caroline Ticknor is a daughter of Benjamin Holt Ticknor, publisher, and granddaughter of William D. Ticknor, founder of the historic publishing house of Ticknor & Fields. Miss Ticknor, who has for the past five or six years been writing short stories for the Harper's., At- lantic, Lippincott, Cosmopolitan, Youth's Companion, Independent, and other peri- odicals, besides contributing humourous sketches to the New York Tribune, Boston Transcript, Globe, and other papers, has enjoyed the privilege of being brought up 217 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY in the atmosphere of authors and libraries. Her first book, " A Hypocritical Romance and Other Stories/' appeared in 1896, and was followed by " Miss Belladonna," a social satire, which was published in 1897. During the past two years Miss Ticknor has been engaged in doing con- siderable editorial work, and has, besides her other literary work, completed the task of compiling twenty volumes of fa- mous selections in conjunction with For- rest Morgan and Nathan Haskell Dole. This work, entitled " The International Library of Famous Literature," was pub- lished in 1898. Like all good Bostonians, Miss Ticknor belongs to several clubs, literary, patriotic, and dramatic, but she willingly deserts them all for out-of-door sports, as she is devotedly fond of athletics, being, above all things, an enthusiastic skater. 218 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Miss Ticknor has recently edited twenty volumes of " Masterpieces of Famous Lit- erature " and fifteen volumes of " The World's Great Orations. 7 ' She lives in the best part of Jamaica Plain, on a quiet, shady street, in an interesting old house, the most fascinating room of which is the library, with its walls covered with au- tographs of her grandfather Ticknor's authors, Hawthorne, Emerson, Long- fellow, Lowell, Holmes, Tennyson, George Eliot, and many others who were his dear friends, and most of whom he introduced to the reading public. Since " A Social Highwayman " was dramatised, the name of Elizabeth Phipps Train has been widely known. She began her literary work in the late eighties with several volumes of French translations, and since that time has published " Dr. Lamar," "A Professional Beauty," "A 219 LITEKARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Social Highwayman/ 7 " A Marital Lia- bility/ 7 and " A Queen of Hearts." She was born in Dorchester, makes her winter home on Marlboro Street, Boston, and has a charming summer house in Dux- bury. Miss Train spends much time abroad, however. She is a cousin of the famous beauty, Miss Eleanor Winslow, of London, who, it is said, was the real hero- ine of her " Autobiography of a Profes- sional Beauty." Miss Cornelia Warren, daughter of the late S. D. Warren, of Mount Vernon Street, is another Boston woman who has written a successful novel, " Miss Wil- ton/' published ten years ago, and who intends to write again when she has lei- sure. At present, her time is given to the Denison House Settlement work, of which she is treasurer. Mary Tappan Wright is another famil- 220 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY iar name to magazine readers. Mrs. Wright lives in Cambridge, on beautiful old Quincy Street, the wife of J. H. Wright, himself an author-editor as well as professor of Greek at Harvard Uni- versity. She was the daughter of Presi- dent Tappan of Kenyon College. Her books are " A Truce and Other Stories " and " The Alien/ 7 a recent successful novel, treating of Southern life from the Northern point of view. Lillian Gertrude Shuman (Mrs. Carl Dreyfus) was born September third, 1876. in Boston. She still resides in her father's fine, old-fashioned house in Roxbury, where she was born, and where the largest part of her life has been spent. She at- tended the Dillaway Grammar School in Roxbury, and, after graduating, went immediately to Miss Heloise Hersey's school for girls on Chestnut Street, Bos- 221 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ton. Here she remained for five consecu- tive years, receiving her certificate for advanced study. She then continued spe- cial courses with Miss Hersey herself, studying the languages and other branches of learning with private instructors at home. During these years she travelled quite extensively in Europe, making three different journeys, one of longer duration for the purpose of study. She has recently been abroad upon a brief trip of pilgrimage to literary shrines in Italy, from which we shall hear in poetic prose. She was married April sixth, 1899, to Mr. Carl Dreyfus, Har- vard '95, of Boston. She is a member of the Boston Authors' Club, the Boston Browning Society, and also a member of the examining committee of the Boston Public Library. Mrs. Dreyfus is the au- thor of a volume of dainty poems, entitled 222 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY " From Me to You/' and has written fre- quently for Boston periodicals. Her work is marked by a beautiful sincerity and clear-sightedness of purpose. Young, filled with high aspirations, and possessed of leisure for study, and, above all, free from the necessity of writing " pot-boil- ers," we may look for work from her that is exceptionally worth while in the future. Then there is Miss Geraldine Brooks, the oldest daughter of Elbridge Streeter Brooks, who was himself for many years an important member of the best literary sot in and around Boston. Mr. Brooks had written very nearly fifty volumes pre- vious to his death in January, 1902, and his daughter not only inherited his talent, but had the benefit of his advice and lit- erary training. Miss Brooks kas written two books on " Colonial Dames," which have been well received and give promise 223 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of better work to come. She is a charming young woman personally, a graduate of Radcliffe College, to whom the doors of literature have already swung open. The Brooks family have occupied a lovely home in Somerville for many years, and are important members of the Boston Au- thors' Club, as well as having a wide ac- quaintance among literary and musical people throughout the East. Miss Abbie Farwell Brown, whose juve- nile stories are of uncommon quality, is another promising author of whom much may be expected in the future; and Miss Elizabeth McCracken, a young newspaper woman of Boston, has a name that is beginning to appear frequently on the title-pages of the leading magazines. Miss Edith Robinson is another Boston writer who has made herself known by several excellent juveniles and two or three novels 224 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of much ability. Miss Robinson is a Massachusetts woman residing in Boston and devoting herself to literature. Among her successful books are " Forced Ac- quaintances/ 7 "Penhallow Tales," "A Little Puritan Rebel," "A Loyal Little Maid," " The Captain of the School," and "A Puritan Knight-Errant." 225 CHAPTER XL MARY A. LIVERMORE, ADELINE D. T. WHIT- NEY, EDNAH DOW CHENEY, ABBY MOR- TON DIAZ, AND KATE TANNATT WOODS v^NE of the women whom Boston f 1 delights to honour, one of Boston's very own, born at the old North End, when the North End was the rep- resentative portion of the city, educated in its schools, as far as they conld give her the education she desired, and coming back to it after a few years of absence, to win new honours and to grow old among the friends of her early life, is Mary A. Livermore, reformer, philanthropist, ora- tor, and writer. She has reached the 226 v&tw Jr MARY A. LIVERMORK LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY autumn of life, the days, not of inactiv- ity, for Mrs. Livermore will be active as long as she has life, but of peace, and with the fruits of her good works garnered in her heart, she awaits in the restful sun- shine of ripe retrospection the cheerful harvest home. Mary Ashton Rice was born in Boston on the nineteenth of December, 1821, and was a pupil at the old Hancock School at the North End. She was a bright, unusually clever girl at her books, and kept pace with her brothers and their friends in all school work, but when it came to the higher education, the larger opportunity, she was not permitted to go on with them. The college was open to them, but its doors were shut to her. She took the best that offered, however, and went to a " Female Seminary " at Charles- town, which was at the time one of the 227 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY finest schools for girls in this part of the country. She was graduated from there, and, after her graduation, she took a posi- tion as a teacher in this same school. At that time teaching seemed the only voca- tion open to an ambitious girl who had her own way to make, and she naturally followed it. But she soon left Massachusetts, tempted by an offer as teacher in a family school in Virginia, where she remained for some time. It was while there that her eyes became fully opened to the horrors of slavery, although in the family in which she was employed the negroes were kindly treated, and there were none of the evils which sometimes accompanied the system. She tried to teach the blacks during her leisure hours, but was not permitted, and left Virginia to open a school of her own at Duxbury, in Massachusetts, which was 228 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY most successful, but which she finally gave up to unite her fortunes with those of a promising young Universalist clergy- man, the Rev. Daniel P. Livermore. With him she went to Fall River, and found new duties, no less pleasant than teaching. She must have been a fine teacher, for the reputation which she won then has always stayed by her. The same magnetic power, the same subtle influence that every one recognises who comes in contact with her now, was potent then, and it almost seemed as though she was giving up a vocation to which she was as plainly " called " as was ever one to any sacred work. But it soon became quite as plainly apparent that there was to be in this mar- riage no sacrifice of personality, no merg- ing of the strong individual soul into another's life, but that sympathy and pure 229 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY affection were to double and not hamper its energies. Together they worked, this devoted pair, and the wife was as busy as the husband, performing her many duties with wonderful grace and tact. In 1857 the Livermores removed to Chi- cago, and Mrs. Livermore became her husband's assistant in the editorship of a denominational paper, undertaking al- most the entire charge, and leaving him a larger liberty for pulpit work. Then followed the war, and the forma- tion of the Sanitary Commission, in which Mrs. Livermore was an active worker, as well as one of the founders. It did a magnificent work, that great auxiliary as- sociation in which so many noble women found opportunity for splendid service, and whose history supplements the lurid war record of blood and carnage. Here were gentle hands binding up wounds, 230 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY pouring oil and wine, writing letters for poor, shattered fingers to send to friends at home, bathing fevered foreheads raised in prayer to commend passing souls to heaven. In hospitals, in camp, on the battlefield itself, they went, these minis- tering angels. These years of labour, of travel, of appeal, of entreaty, of personal service, were the condensed values of a lifetime, of a thousand ordinary lifetimes. Chicago was the central point of dis- bursement for the West, and early in the war Mrs. Livermore was sent to the front with stores for the hospitals. It was when she was coming up from the camp in front of Vicksburg that she made her first public address, little dreaming to what it would lead. The boys were in fearful straits, and Mrs. Livermore started north to get fresh supplies. The work had begun to flag, people had begun to tire of giving, 231 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the war was getting to be an old story, and something must be done. On the way up the Mississippi she was telling the story of the needs of the men at the front to a gentleman, who proved to be a leading citizen of Dubuque, Iowa. Dubuque was one of the places at which she was to stop to beg for help, and she asked the advice of her fellow traveller, about how best to reach the people. " There is but one thing to be done," he said ; " you must meet some of them personally and tell them the story of the great needs." Mrs. Livermore agreed, supposing that she was to meet a few of the most influ- ential women of the city in some parlour, and, in answer to questions, tell them what she wanted them to do, leaving the work of getting up a mass-meeting and collect- ing stores and money to them. 232 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY The boat arrived at Dubuque early in the morning, and her friend escorted her to the hotel, so that she might get some rest, while he set about getting the people together. When she awoke, he was wait- ing to see her. " I've got the largest church in town, and the fliers are at every house, announc- ing that you will speak this evening about the needs of the army and the work of the Commission." Mrs. Livermore was aghast. " I can't do it," she said ; " I never did such a thing in my life as to speak in public." " But you must now," said the man, " everybody is expecting it, and it is the only thing to be done." " But I have prepared no speech ; I don't know what to say." " Tell the people just what you told me, 233 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and tell it as though you were telling it to one. You will find you will have a generous response." " But I have no change of dress ; I have only this one, soiled with the mud and stained with the water of the camp." " Never mind the dress, that is a sec- ondary matter; it is what you will say, not what you will wear, that will tell." In the end she consented, and a few hours later, in a brilliantly lighted, ele- gant church, wearing her dress stained with the mud of the camps, she faced her first audience, which completely filled the spacious auditorium, all eager to hear the message " from the front." At first her knees trembled, so that they could scarcely bear her weight, a mist swam before her eyes, and her voice re- fused to utter a word. It seemed an age ; it was but a moment that she stood thus; 234 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY then suddenly the thought of the brave fellows in camp and hospital came to her, and she realised that only her words could help them in their distress. Her tongue was loosened, and simply, but so earnestly, even passionately, she told her story and brought her message, that every heart was opened, and there was a generous and speedy response. That night's work in Dubuque showed to the leaders of the Sanitary Commission where her power lay, and how best she could help. So she was sent to city after city, and the money and the stores came pouring in. And still she did not abandon her work at the front; she visited camp and hospital, and hardly a soldier in the Union army did not know her name and reverence it. Chicago was a parole camp, and many of the boys detained there were welcomed 235 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY at her own home, and the sick ones espe- cially looked after. The war being ended, the cause of woman suffrage began to claim Mrs. Liv- ermore's attention and engross her untir- ing activity, and she started the Agitator in Chicago, but came to Boston in 1870 to edit the new suffrage organ, the Woman's Journal. She continued in the editorial charge for about three years, when her increasing popularity as a speaker, and the consequent demand for her in lyceums and for lectures in the leading cities all over the country, made it necessary for her to drop her editorial duties. For years her name was one of the most potent in " lyceum " announce- ments all over the land. She was quite in her element in this work, as she en- joyed the travel, triumphed in the fatigue to which many others, men as well as 236 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY women, would have succumbed, and glo- ried in the opportunity of disseminating the truths in which she believed as saving doctrines to humanity. The temperance work was the next field for her labours, and for the last quarter of a century Mrs. Livermore has laboured, written, spoken, and organised for the great local moral reform of the day, which she espoused with deep interest./ and with an intensity unflavoured by bitterness, malice, or evil-speaking of antagonists. The personal side never is permitted to enter this work; she keeps always to the side of broad morality and the question of absolute right or wrong. Indifference, selfishness, criminality, stand on one side to be attacked. These eliminated, and how small, comparatively, is the sincere opposition to that intense desire to remove the drink temptation from the pathway 237 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of the weak, which actuates everybody who goes down into the lives of the sub- merged. What law can effect is one thing, what public opinion ought to is another; and there are not a few people, who, if they should probe their consciences, would find themselves moved to personal denial, lest they cause their brother to offend, and to the promotion of a general tem- perance sentiment as far as in them lies. Many a person, many thousand of persons, Mrs. Livermore has moved to this sort of thinking, who would have been driven into opposition by the intemperate howlers for temperance. Besides her work in suffrage and tem- perance, her busy brain has devoted itself to the work of Chautauqua, to the advance- ment of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, the Soldier's Aid, the Indian Association, the Psychical Society, 238 LITEKAKY BOSTON" OF TO-DAY in all which and in many more causes and organisations Mrs. Livermore serves in pen and in person. She never refuses to work for a cause which really needs her efforts, and in the old lyceum days she would bother poor James Redpath, then her manager, by undertaking an en- gagement for little or nothing, at the same time sacrificing some lucrative appoint- ment. The Livermore home is in Melrose, one of the pleasantest and most attractive of Boston's many attractive suburbs. It is an old-fashioned, square, roomy house, with wide piazzas and pretty, well-kept groiMids that slope downward to the shores of the lovely Crystal Lake, und all about are the prosperous looking, comfortable homes of the conservative, wealthy New Englanders. Within, in the long parlour on the left of the door, a room which runs 239 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the whole length of the house, are many portraits, some busts, and a few pictures, memorials of many great men, women, and great causes, but the dominating fea- ture, the thing above all that attracts and holds the visitor, is the beautiful bust of Mrs. Livermore herself by Anne Whitney. Mrs. Livermore' s own special work- place is up-stairs. Here is a study, com- municating with her sleeping-room, lined on every side, from the floor to the ceiling, with books, and furnished with a largs revolving bookcase, which stands near a big study table, upon which an enormous correspondence is punctually answered - a child's request for an autograph as punc- tiliously as the official communication of a foreign society. In this room, with her secretary, Mrs. Livermore passes many hours each day, 240 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY for her pen is still busy, and she does not know what it is to be idle. Mrs. Livermore has a most magnetic personality, and whether one listens to her as she speaks from the platform, or talks with her face to face, this quality is felt, compelling and convincing. She is a woman of large frame, which her years have not bent, and of large, expressive features. She is always plainly dressed, simple in speech, and a practical, common sensible manner, reminding one of the old- time Puritan women in her directness. But when she speaks! Then it is that her charm and her power alike are felt. She has a most wonderful voice, full, deep, and flexible, capable of expressing feeling and even passion, and its first tones chal- lenge the respect and attention which always follow her. She has studied and developed her great oratorical gift, yet it 241 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY does not disguise, but rather illuminates, her sincerity and conviction, which are the impressive influences that radiate to a single listener, or to crowded audiences, with such extraordinary effect. There is a saying familiar to all that has something to do with prophets and their own country, and the honour that is denied them there. This does not hold true in this case. The whole town of Mel- rose delights to honour its distinguished citizen, and since the death of her hus- band, about three years ago, it holds her in special affection and care. No two stories of achievement could be more different than those of Mrs. Adeline D. T. Whitney and Mrs. Livermore. Mrs. Livermore's work, done in the full light of the world, every new movement in some way a public measure for the uplifting and broadening of humanity, Mrs. Whitney's 242 LITEKARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY in the shelter of the home, yet having for its ultimate end the same general aim as that of her fellow worker. Although not agreeing as to what was the better way of achieving the end, both were equally zealous and sincere in wish- ing to do the most for the bettering of the world, so that they might not feel that they had lived and worked in vain. Mrs. Whitney occupies the peculiar position of belonging to literary Boston, while not being of it. Her work has made her recognised as one of the strong fea- tures of the literary life of the community since her first book was published in about 1860, although she has kept her personal side very much away from the world, and sent her work, which has been always on the side of the purity and integrity of life, out from the shelter of her suburban home. And, since personal eifacement has been 243 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY her wish, the newspapers have respected it, and interviewers have not been per- mitted to trouble her. When her opinion has been sought, upon any question involv- ing the safety of the home, the bettering of the community, and tne uplifting of civic affairs, she has never refused to give it through the medium of her pen; but anything which seemed to her impertinent, or which she thought intruded upon the personal, she has never hesitated to treat with the contempt which she felt that it deserved. The world knows as much as she believes it has a right to know con- cerning her, and no more. Her work has been so well received, so wanted, evidently, that her publishers have never been com- pelled to resort to the employment of per- sonalities to advertise them. Had that been the case, however, she would have seen her books fail, rather than employ 244 LITER AEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY such methods, because she believes so thor- oughly in the right of every individual to hold his life sacred and apart from the public. She has never belonged to clubs, or in any way made for herself divergent interests outside of the home. Adeline Train was born in Boston on the fifteenth of September, 1824, and was the daughter of one of Boston's best known and most successful business men. She was educated in her native city, fin- ishing at the school of George B. Emerson, where all the leading young women of the Boston of her time were pupils, which she attended from 1837 to 1841. On leaving school, she entered society, after the custom of all young women of wealth and position, and, judging from her books, and the hearty way she writes about the social festivities of the young, she must have enjoyed life immensely, 245 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and, at the same time, taken its pleasures sensibly. In 1843 she was married to Mr. Seth D. Whitney, and settled in Milton, which was her husband's home, and where she still lives. In her early life she wrote little for publication, although she was an " occasional contributor " to the magazines of the time, but probably had no idea of the place which she was to hold in the large world of letters in her later life. Her first book was published in 1859, and, unless memory is treacherous, it was " The Boys of Chequasset," a juvenile story which was well received, but gave no hint of the popularity which was to follow the appearance of her next book. When "Faith Gartney's Girlhood" was published, it came upon the world like a revelation. It was so different from any- thing which had preceded it; it was so 246 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY simple, so direct, so human, and so strong that it carried captive every one who read it. It was one of the first books unless " Uncle Tom's Cabin " is excepted that had a phenomenal sale, and passed quickly from edition to edition. The critics didn't quite know what to do with it ; there were no standards by which to measure it, it was entirely unlike anything else, so they gave up trying to criticise, and heaped unstinted praise upon it. As for the young girls who read it, they were simply delighted by it, and called for more like it. And so that remarkable series of books for girls, " Leslie Gold- thwaite," " Keal Folks," " We Girls and the Other Girls," were written. There is no doubt that these books helped many a girl to elevate her standard of living, and taught her many an unconscious lesson 247 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY in behaviour, and that Mrs. Whitney stood to them for the ideal of all that was fine and sincere in living. There has never been one who has been more to girls, in a helpful way, than has this writer, who surely must have a genuine love for girls in her heart, or she could not so thoroughly enter into their lives with the little troub- les and perplexities, their plans and their pleasures, as she does. But it is not the girls alone for whom she has written. She is the author of sev- eral successful novels : " The Gay worthy s," which is a most delightful story of country life, of many lives in fact, bound in com- mon interests ; " Hitherto," which is as much a character study as a story, and " Odd and Even " being the most prom- inent and interest-compelling among them. " Sights and Insights " and " Patience Strong's Outings " are a little difficult to 248 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY classify ; they have a touch of story, a good deal of philosophy, and much human- ity in them, and they are helpful and most delightful reading. There are tables holding the books which are the most dearly loved and the most read by the owners, where " Patience Strong " holds a permanent place, along with the Bible and prayer-book, Marcus Aurelius, Emer- son, and Whittier. And so, there are those who enjoy an intimate friendship with Mrs. Whitney, even though they have never looked in her face, nor clasped her hand in friendly welcome. And Boston is as proud of her and of her achievement as though she was active in its social lit- erary lif^ Art, literature, reform, and philan- thropy have alike engaged the attention of Mrs. Ednah Dow Cheney (born Little- hale), of Boston. In her quiet, secluded 249 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY home in Jamaica Plain, Mrs. Cheney plans for her beloved hospital, works for the Art and Literature Committee of the New England Woman's Club, keeps abreast of all the educational movements, and writes monographs on art subjects. Hers is a full life, and it numbers in its list of things accomplished some most helpful and far-reaching works of benefi- cence. Miss Littlehale was born in Boston on the twenty-seventh of June, 1824, and was educated in the schools of her native city. Quite early in life she was married to Mr. Seth Wells Cheney, an artist. She became, in her early life, intimately as- sociated with the men and women who had made the experiment at Brook Farm, and was active in the transcendental move- ment which had its centre in Boston, and out of which grew the Radical Club, of 250 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY which she was a prominent member. She was also prominently identified with the work for the Freedmen, coming naturally to it from her antislavery antecedents, and her inherent sympathy for any op- pressed class. This led her naturally to the woman suffrage movement, with which she has been a worker for years, as well as an officer in the State organisation. When the New England Woman's Club was formed, she became one of its mem- bers, and has been its first vice-president many years, her term of service being of nearly the same length as has Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's in the presidential chair. She was one of the founders of the New England Hospital for Women and Chil- dren, the first hospital of its kind in Bos- ton, and the second in the country, the first being founded in New York by the sisters Blackwell, who had as an associate 251 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY a young Prussian doctor ; Marie Zakrzew- ska. This doctor was the prime mover for the hospital, and she found a ready and sympathetic ally in Mrs. Cheney. For years Mrs. Cheney has been president of the Board of the Hospital Managers, and never for an instant has her interest re- laxed. She has been also deeply interested in the higher education of women and their professional advancement, and the special room in the Institute of Tech- nology is a memorial to her only daughter, Margaret, who was taken from her in the beauty of budding womanhood. The Summer School of Philosophy en- gaged her interest and her activities, and she was one of the regular speakers and instructors during its sessions. She was a friend of the Alcotts and the Emersons, of Elizabeth Peabody and her sisters, Mrs. Horace Mann and Mrs. Hawthorne, of all 252 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY that remarkable coterie, in fact, which made Boston so famous in the middle of the nineteenth century. Her writings have been chiefly on art, but she has written a book of children's stories and a " Life of Margaret Fuller " ; but her most famous work, the one by which she will be the longest remembered, is her " Life and Letters of Louisa Al- cott." " A daughter of the Puritans," one would involuntarily exclaim upon seeing Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz, with her dark hair smoothly banded over her ears in the old-fashioned way, her plain dress, prim almost to preciseness, and her quaint, straightforward manner. And that is precisely what she is, although there is nothing Puritanical about her, except her appearance and her ancestry. And even her ancestry is Pilgrim instead of Puri- 253 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY tan, for her forebears were among those who challenged fate, and sought a home in the unknown new world in the May- flower. " One of the Mortons of Plym- outh," that is what she was; Abby Mor- ton, after she had grown up and had children of her own, wrote the most de- lightfully refreshing children's books, that even the older people read with as much pleasure as the children themselves. In her. early life she was an active worker in the abolition movement, and her girlhood was passed among the noble men and women who were prominent therein. And, like all the rest of the anti- slavery workers, she came naturally into the woman suffrage movement, and has been identified with it for many years. It was not until after her short married life that she began to write, and her first book was " The William Henry Letters." 254 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY These were the letters of a boy at school, written to his people at home, and they were simply delicious in their naturalness. Nothing like them had ever heen written ; the book was unique, and for many years Mrs. Diaz was kept busy writing chil- dren's stories. There is a strain of whim- sicality running through everything which she writes that makes fascinating reading. It may not, possibly, as some one has sug- gested, be literature, but it is essentially human. Mrs. Diaz has a quaint philos- ophy of her own that shows in her book?} written for older people, which may, for want of a better description, be called the philosophy of common sense. The basis of it all is the truths which are gained by living. Since its formation, in the simplest way, of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union by Doctor Harriet Clis- 255 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY bee, Mrs. Diaz has been an active worker in it, and its first growth and development, pointing to the power which it was to become, was due to her thought and her work. For many years she was the pres- ident of it, and only retired when it be- came so large, with work in so many directions, that she could not give the time to it; then she yielded the leadership to the executive hands of Mrs. Mary Morton Kehew. Mrs. Diaz has a pleasant home in Belmont, only a little way from Mr. Trowbridge's Arlington residence. Another woman who belongs to this older group of workers is Mrs. Kate Tan- natt Woods, whose home is in Salem, but whose affiliations are with Boston. She was born in Peekskill, New York, where her father was the editor of a paper, and she was brought up in the atmosphere of literary work. She has written a large 256 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY number of books, most of them juveniles, and is still busy with her pen. She was an early member of the New England Woman's Club and of the Woman's Press Association. In her busy life, Mrs. Woods has found time to become prominent in several movements, and her pen and her voice are always at the service of any worthy cause. 257 CHAPTER XII. THE CAMBRIDGE SET I CHARLES ELIOT NORTON, PRESIDENT ELIOT, AND OTHER AUTHORS CONNECTED WITH HARVARD UNIVERSITY, WELLESLEY COLLEGE, THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECH- NOLOGY, ETC. " (^ JT'^IE Cambridge set " has been f looked on with pride by literary Boston for many years, since the days when Professor Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Doctor Holmes were a part of it. Mr. Horace E. Scud- der and Professor John Fiske, so recently lost to literature, were for many years connected with the Atlantic Monthly, and Harvard University has always furnished 258 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY some of our best writers and thinkers. Perhaps the man who best serves to-day to keep alive the atmosphere of soul and beauty that enveloped Longfellow and Lowell and these others is Charles Eliot Norton. He was born November sixteenth, 1827. He was graduated from Harvard at the age of nineteen. He served as super- cargo on a voyage to India in 1849. Dur- ing the Civil War he edited the papers issued by the Loyal Publication Society, and then, from 1864 to 1868, he was joint editor with James Russell Lowell of the North American Review. In 1875 he became the professor of the history of art in Harvard College, and held the posi- tion until a few weeks ago, when he re- signed it. He is the gentlest kind of a gentleman ; he reminds one of the aged Nestor, out of 259 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY whose mouth, tells us the old Latin prose- book, " came speech sweeter than honey." During his connection with the North American Review, Mr. Norton's articles were naturally largely political, but since 1869 they have been pretty limited to belles-lettres. " The 'New Life' of Dante " has appeared in several editions. His translation of the whole " Divine Comedy" came out in 1891 and 1892. Besides this he has written much on Dante ; in fact, this is in a way the leit- motif of his literary work. Further Dante literature was, in 1865, " The Original Portraits of Dante," and " Dante and the Latest English Translator " in 1866. Re- cently, in 1896, Mr. Norton contributed an article on Dante for the Child Memo- rial volume, and he has just published one in the Warner Library. As Mr. Low- ell's literary executor, he published " The 260 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Letters of James Russell Lowell," edited by himself. In 1860 he published " Notes of Travel and Study in Italy." Of this Euskin says : " My impression is that, by care- fully reading it, together with the essay by the same writer on the ' Vita Nuova ' of Dante, a more just estimate may be formed of the religious art of Italy than by the study of any other books yet exist- ing." In connection with Mr. Euskin, another quotation from the " Life of Long- fellow " is apposite. Mr. Euskin wrote to Longfellow : " I had many things to say about the sense I have of the good you might do this old world by staying with us a little, and giving the peaceful glow of your fancy to our cold, troubled, unpeaceful spirit. Strange that both you and Norton come as such calm influences to me and others," The compliment to the 261 LITEBAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY one is the speaking well of the other. The influence of a conservative personality is the more apparent as change and storm rage the worse, just as the seer is the more the Magus as he stands unmoved while others flutter and buzz. In Longfellow's journal occurs this no- tice (25th October, 1865): "Lowell, Norton, and myself had the first meeting of our Dante Club. We read the XXV. e Purgatorio/ and then had a little supper. We are to meet every Wednesday evening at my house." These meetings were kept up throughout the winter, and were the preface to the appearance of Longfellow's translation. Criticisms were passed with- out fear or favour. The three made a private seminary on Dante without either unseemly wrangling over absurdities, or the German custom of sleepily listening to a Latin harangue, and interspersing it 262 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY with " Sanes " like Methodist " Amens." Criticism to a man of a liberal education means the shortest way to the best results ; to the unlearned, ignorant man it means a fight of defence to still his own con- science. Mr. Norton was the first president of the American Institute of Archaeology at its beginning in 1879. In the short-lived Harvard Register for 1880 appears an appeal from him for students to take part in an expedition of excavation to Greece; a few pages later is an announcement that far too many have applied, and that certain ones have been chosen. Under these auspices begun, the institute has al- ways seen the " raven's flight on the right," and Assos, Sicyon, Thorikos, Ere- tria, Argos, and Corinth show forth our good deeds in fair Hellas, and the new American school in Rome attests to Ital- 263 LITEKARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ians our love for lore in their country. A man of work and attainments, of con- viction and courage, of dignity and quiet demeanour, of faith and hope, such is Charles Eliot Norton. The president of Harvard University is also well known to literature, for, in addition to text-books on higher chemistry, he has published several volumes of essays on topics pertaining to political reform and education. President Eliot has been styled purely a Boston product. He was born here (1834), and, after a prepara- tory course at the Boston Latin School, entered Harvard, where he was graduated in 1853. Chemistry was his specialty, and he became assistant professor of that branch, with mathematics, in 1858, re- maining in that post until 1863, when he went to Europe for further study. He was professor of analytical chemistry in 264 CHARLES W. ELIOT LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1865 to 1869, when he resigned to take the presidency of Harvard College, a position he has filled for forty-three years. During this time President Eliot has been identified with the highest and worthiest movements for the public good, and he is known and respected in Boston no whit less than in Cambridge, where he has seen the old university broaden and develop under his administration more radically than it had done in a century previous. In the social life of both cities President Eliot and his wife occupy a prominent place, and his picturesque home, just beyond that of Professor Palmer, on the edge of the college grounds facing Quincy Street, and plainly visible to passers on the trolley-cars under the old elms, has been the centre and shelter of 265 LITEKARY BOSTON" OF TO-DAY many exclusive gatherings during the last half century. Quincy Street seems to be the favourite haunt of Cambridge literary folk. Pro- fessor Palmer's is the first house, a delight- ful old colonial mansion overlooking the college grounds. George Herbert Palmer has been Alford professor of moral phi- losophy, civil polity, and natural religion at Harvard since 1889. He is a native of Boston, a graduate of Harvard Uni- versity, with a post-graduate course in Germany and a course of study at the Andover Theological Seminary. He has translated the Odyssey into rhythmic prose, and written the " New Education," the " Glory of the Imperfect," " Self-Cul- tivation in English," and translated the " Antigone " of Sophocles. His last book, " The Field of Ethics," has been widely commented upon and warmly received by 266 LITERAKY BOSTON" OF TO-DAY the best critics everywhere. Professor Palmer and his wife, Alice Freeman Palmer, occupy a high place in Cambridge and Boston society, and their home is the pleasant resort of a host of friends. Next to Professor Palmer's house is that of President Eliot, whose next neigh- bour beyond is Professor Nathaniel Sha- ler, dean of the Lawrence Scientific School and professor of geology in Harvard Uni- versity. Professor Shaler is a native of Kentucky, who served as an officer in the Union army during the Civil War, after which he became instructor in zoology and geology at the Lawrence Scientific School, where he graduated in 1862. As geolo- gist, he has served the United States Gov- ernment in the Geological Survey of the Atlantic division. He has done a great deal of literary work, having published some fourteen or fifteen books, besides 267 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY numerous magazine articles of a scientific nature. Professor C. C. Langdell, the next in this row of college professors, graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1853, and practised law in New York until 1870, when he became dean of the law faculty of Harvard University. He has written four valuable books connected with the law. A world-famous name is attached to the next house on Quincy Street, this being the residence of Pro- fessor Alexander Agassiz, and also of Mrs. Louis Agassiz, his mother, who has writ- ten a couple of good books. Professor Agassiz is a son of the great naturalist, and is the curator of the Natural History Museum in Cambridge. He has written several books connected with his special work, in one of which he was assisted by his mother, who is also an accomplished 268 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY naturalist and a woman deeply interested in all progressive movements of the day. Here, too, live Professor J. H. Wright and his wife, Mary Tappan Wright, both of whom are well-known writers. On the opposite side of the street lives Professor Sumichrast, and farther along Professor Farlow, professor of hotany at Harvard since 1879, and a prominent authority on cryptogamic botany. Pro- fessor Farlow has written several books on botanical subjects, which rank among the best of botanical work. The name of Barrett Wendell is well known in literature, and, although he is a resident of Marlboro Street, Boston, he belongs to Cambridge, where he is pro- fessor of English in Harvard University. He has written two popular novels, several volumes of essays, and various historical books connected with literature. 269 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Professor Taussig, professor of politi- cal economy at Harvard, is the author of several books on that subject and editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Albert Bushnell Hart has written a dozen valuable works connected with history, and is joint editor of the Harvard Grad- uates' Magazine and the American His- torical Review. He has been professor of history at Harvard for some years. Professor John Trowbridge is well known as a writer on electricity and phys- ics, and the author of several books on that subject. He has been Rumford pro- fessor of applied science at Harvard since 1888. Professor Arthur Oilman, head of the famous Oilman School for Girls in Cam- bridge, and the originator of Harvard An- nex, of which he was the executive officer when it became Radcliffe College, is the 270 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY author of many valuable books, many of them of a popular nature. His wife has also written several books under the name of Marion Vaughn. Professor Gilman lives in a beautiful old mansion facing historic Cambridge Common and almost opposite the old Washington elm. Two well-known Cambridge names have only recently been removed from the list of authors connected with Harvard Col- lege, Mr. Horace Scudder, for so many years editor of the Atlantic Monthly, and Professor John Fiske, both of whom have been removed by the hand of death within six months. Mr. Samuel H. Scudder, the naturalist, is still doing much literary work connected with his researches, work that is of the highest value. Professor Ashley of the chair of economic history has written a number of books along the line of his 271 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY specialty. Professor Davis has written several geological works, while Professor William J. Rolfe has been famous for many years as a writer and lecturer on Shakespeare. Professor Lyon, of the Har- vard Divinity School, one of the most famous authorities on Semitic languages and history in the world, has given us a number of volumes connected with Bib- lical and Assyrian literature. Of Colonel Higginson's work we have already spoken ; for, although he is not of Harvard College, he still belongs to the Cambridge literary set. Professor Williams has written sev- eral text-books on the Greek language, of which he is professor at Harvard, while the name of Arthur Searle, professor of astronomy at Harvard, may be seen on the title-page of certain astronomical works. Professor Asa Gray, the world- famed botanist of other days, has given 272 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-BAY place at Harvard to George Lincoln Good- ale, who has published a number of bo- tanical works. Professor Lanman, the Sanscrit and Oriental professor at Har- vard, has a long list of books credited to him on Buddhism and the Sanscrit lan- guage. Professor Pickering, who has charge of Harvard Observatory, is the author of certain valuable works on astron- omy, and Professor William James is equally well known as an authority on psychological topics. Josiah Royce, pro- fessor of the history of philosophy, has written books on a variety of subjects from fiction to religion. Professor Peabody is the author of a number of helpful books on religion, as is also Professor Thayer, who occupies the chair of New Testament criticism and interpretation at the Har- vard Divinity School. Professor Miins- terberg is the author of a number of 273 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY valuable works on psychology, both in German and in English, and his " Amer- ican Traits " is one of the recent popular books. Other well-known writers in Cambridge are the Reverend Samuel Crothers, the Reverend Alexander McKenzie, the Rev- erend William Johnson, and the Reverend William Basil King, formerly of Christ Church. Wellesley College contributes a number of writers to Boston's literary set, among whom are Miss Katharine Lee Bates, pro- fessor of literature and author of many delightful books. The president of Wellesley, Miss Caroline Hazard, has published several books; Professor Kath- erine Coman is the author of a number of books on English history. Florence Converse, the author of two successful novels, has been connected with Wellesley 274 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY College, and Miss Vida Scudder, a niece of Mr. Horace Scudder and a professor at Wellesley, has published a number of interesting and valuable books on litera- ture. The name of Sophie Jewett is familiar to magazine readers. In Welles- ley, too, lives Miss Julia Eastman, who has written some delightful children's books. The president of the Massachusetts In- stitute of Technology, Henry S. Pritchett, is the author of various scientific papers; Gaetano Lanza, professor of theoretical and applied mechanics at this institution, has also published many books and papers useful to the scientific world. Boston University gives us several well-known writers, and Tufts College contributes a number of names well known to the lit- erary world. 275 CHAPTEK XIII. CHAELOTTE PORTER AND HELEN ARCHI- BALD CLARKE, EDITORS OF POET-LORE,, LOUISE IMOGEN GTJINEY, MAY ALDEN WARD, AND WILLIAM G. WARD IT^OET-LORE has been an essential j part of " Literary Boston " for a dozen years or more, and its two editors are well known in all the literary sets, as well as in the club world. Char- lotte Porter, the senior, was born with a decided bent from the earliest for books and for out-of-doors, her two main en- thusiasms ever since. She rightly ac- counts it good luck that she came into being in a country town, among view- 276 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY commanding hills by the swift and sinuous Susquehanna River; and that she came into a sense of life through familiar com- panionship with the library of several thousand volumes belonging to her father's sister, the aunt for whom she was named. That library was a beautiful room occu- pying a large wing of the house and rising to the roof, with galleries along the second story, connecting with the chambers of the body of the house and with stairways from the galleries to the floor of the library, which made it all seem very stately and fascinating. In a wide, deep embrasure at the side, with an arched window of stained glass, shelved on either wall, all the oldest and most valuable volumes were kept, and there the future author and editor liked best to be. There was a com- plete set of knightly armour there, set up, a hollow iron man which she used to scare 277 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY herself with thrillingly, as a little girl, by going up to it, alone, in the twilight, be- fore the lamps were lit. Above it was an American eagle, with wings outspread, on a perch in the high obscurity of the roof, and there was always something signifi- cant in the supremacy of that above the mediaeval knight before she understood really what it might symbolise. Besides, there was an alcove room off the gallery, where Indian relics were kept, in which her aunt was especially interested, and which were dug up from an old Indian burying-ground at the bend of the river below the town. This little museum gave her the idea of a race banished to give us room, and made a deep impression upon the child, along with that which the oldest books gave her in the embrasure over which the eagle soared. She was free to go at will there as a very little child, be- 278 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY cause her wise aunt knew the child was fond of hooks, and so Charlotte Porter was brought up on black-letter. Her fa- vourite picture-book was a copy of the Nuremburg Chronicles of 1495, one of the first volumes printed by Gutenberg, a his- tory of the world in folio, with the quaint- est of wood-cuts. " The vista, the sense of the long past, and of the universal," says Miss Porter, " it gave my imagination then, no amount of travel and experience I can ever get will ever surpass." Her forebears for many generations were born in Connecti- cut, where the family had moved on from Danvers, Massachusetts. Her mother was born in Towanda, in the northern part of Pennsylvania, settled from Connecticut, for which Penn had to treat with Con- necticut when he desired to make it a part of Pennsylvania; but the grandfather, 279 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY one of the earliest settlers, a physician who used to ride through the counties along the " northern tier/ 7 with his sad- dle-bags full of potions and lotions, was also from New England. So she can claim to be in derivation Yankee, born away from home. Miss Porter read and studied very much as she pleased under the private instruc- tion of a myth and history and poetry- loving teacher who was very congenial; hence, browsing at pleasure in the aunt's library figured largely in her education. She read Shakespeare at ten, and espe- cially remembers a series of books of her father's, called "The English Stage," The only book he ever took away from her was a translation he had of Aristophanes' " Sysistrate," which he found the child reading at a tender age. She went to Wells College later, a little 280 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY disappointed because it was decided that she could not be parted from for a four- years' course. She was graduated from there in two years. She had already writ- ten a good deal (destroying it all in a fine frenzy later), and had printed things in the town paper. At Wells she was the editor of the college paper, did a great deal of lounging out-of-doors, driving, and boating on the river with her brother. When her father died, her family moved to Philadelphia, and there outdoors was not so enticing, and she wrote more, printing various articles in the Continent, American, and Shakespearian, all Phila- delphia periodicals; also in the Index (Boston) and in the Century. In March, 1886, after she returned from Europe, she was asked to become editor of ShaJce- speariana. Henceforth editing and inci- dental review-writing and the like ab- 281 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY sorbed most of her time. She was editor of Shakespeariana until the close of 1888, and then became the first editor of what is now the International Journal of Eth- t ics, then the Ethical Record. Late in 1888 the idea seized Miss Clarke and Miss Porter of starting a magazine which should be devoted broadly yet purely to exalted world literature to culture or " Poet-Lore." " We had to coin the name to express what we meant," says she ; " we planned it, and sent out a prospectus asking for subscriptions from those interested in the idea, and we issued the first number of the magazine January, 1889, inside of two months' time having secured a good list of subscribers in advance of the first issue. " In April, 1892, we moved Poet-Lore and ourselves to Boston, and took up our abode where Boston seemed to us most 282 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY picturesquely Boston, in the heart of the town, close by the common, on the crest of Beacon Hill." The private work Miss Porter has done is closely shouldered by the succession of books the two young women have been asked to edit, as well as by the critical and editorial and educational work and the translations in which the magazine has involved them, which are revealed in the fourteen yearly volumes of Poet-Lore. Miss Helen Archibald Clarke, her as- sociate since 1888, has an equally in- teresting history. As a child she was wonderfully proficient in music, not only playing the piano at the age of four, but reading music at sight when she was five. As a little girl, with long golden curls, she played a hymn on the large church organ at Holy Trinity, in Philadelphia, to the delectation of the admiring choir. 283 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY She studied with governesses up to thir- teen, then went to the private school of Miss Mary Anna Longstreth, and later to her successor, Miss Bart, graduating at the age of seventeen at the head of her class. At school she had an especial pre- dilection for scientific studies, especially in the line of natural philosophy or phys- ics. Her reading during this time in- cluded most of the standard novels and science, with discussions on the conflict between science and religion, essays by Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer, etc. After leaving school, she took special courses in Latin, literature, French, and German, also a course in physics in the University of Pennsylvania and a course in harmony and composition, graduating in two years. Then came a good time in society for several years, with the usual round of dances and card-parties, until she grew 284 HELEN ARCHIBALD CLARKE LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY tired of it. She played constantly during the time at private iruisicales, and was regarded as the best amateur pianist in Philadelphia. She composed many songs, piano pieces, part songs, and a sonata for piano and 'cello, which was performed in public; some of these were published, some not, but, in consequence of their com- positions, Miss Clarke was made the only woman charter member of the composer class in the Music Manuscript Society, founded a few years ago in Philadelphia. But in spite of the fact that every one said she would devote herself heart and soul to music, and prophesied distinction in that line, Miss Clarke turned her at- tention, in 1888, to literature in its hum- bler phases, and began writing essays and critical papers, as has been stated, in 1889. She cooperated with Miss Porter in found - ing Poet-Lore. That she has not given 285 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY up music altogether, however, is evidenced by the fact that she has recently composed songs and piano music, and often plays to friends who appreciate classical music. In answer to the question, " What books have influenced you most ? " Miss Clarke once said : " Herbert Spencer and John Fiske, Kobert Browning and Walt Whit- man, and, above all, the music of Bee- thoven." Miss Porter and Miss Clarke have ed- ited and compiled several books in collab- oration. Among these are " Select Poems of Robert Browning with Biographical and Critical Introductions and Notes," in two volumes ; " The Ring and the Book," with introductory essay and notes; " Clever Tales " from the French, Rus- sian, Bohemian, etc. ; Robert Browning's Complete Works, Camberwell Edition, in twelve volumes, with critical introductions 286 LITEEAEY BOSTON" OF TO-DAY for each volume, notes, bibliography, etc. ; Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Complete Works, Coxhall Edition, in six volumes, also with critical introductions and notes, etc. Then there are the Browning Study Programmes, Shakespeare Stories, and Macbeth, and they are now busily en- gaged on the preparation of an edition of Shakespeare constructed in such a way as to put before one at a glance both the original Elizabethan text of 1623 and the modern Victorian text, giving facts en- abling one to see readily what three centuries of Shakespeare editing have amounted to. Their translations were the first made in English of Maeterlinck's " The Blind," " The Seven Princesses," and " Pelleas and Melisande." Both of these writers have prepared and read able papers before the Boston Browning So- 287 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ciety, and both have been connected with it from the beginning. They live in an apartment in one of the roomy old mansions on Joy Street, just off the historic Boston Common, where, surrounded by a world of books and many fine pictures, they work busily all the hours when they are not browsing in the Public Library or the Athenaeum, and the occasional recreation hour, when they welcome and make glad their appre- ciative friends. Louise Imogen Guiney, of course, is the poet among Boston women who ranks next to Mrs. Moulton; some even place her above. Miss Guiney has been writing some fifteen years, and, although she is not a prolific worker, perhaps because of that, her verse is exquisitely polished. Miss Guiney lived many years at Auburn- dale, where she held the office of post- 288 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY master for some time. She occupied a pleasant, spacious house filled with every- thing that is lovely to the literary mind, which, of course, means plenty of books. Her devotion to dogs, of which she has a number of fine specimens, is well known, and in all her walks abroad she is accom- panied by one or more of her beloved pets. Miss Guiney was the only child of Gen- eral P. R. Guiney, of Boston, and was born in 1861. After graduating from a private school in Providence, Rhode Is- land, she studied under private tutors, and then went abroad for two years. She be- gan to contribute to the leading magazines in 1885, and since then has published several volumes of poetry and of critical essays, besides editing an edition of Mat- thew Arnold and one or two other authors. Miss Guiney has been in England for two years past, where she is an important ad- 289 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY dition to the literary set, and is hard at work on a new book. Mrs. Emma Endicott Marean, associ- ate editor of the Christian Register,, has done some excellent literary work, and is a thoroughly literary woman in taste and in work. Mrs. May Alden Ward, the president of the Massachusetts State Federation of Woman's Clubs and a well-known lecturer on literary topics, has written four excel- lent books of a scholarly character. Mrs. Ward was born in Ohio, and takes pride in being a direct descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Mullin of old Plym- outh Colony. She is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, with two years ad- ditional study in Germany. Her hus- band, William G. Ward, is a professor of English literature in Syracuse Uni- versity and also at the Emerson College 290 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of Oratory in Boston. He, too, is an author, having written some delightful books on Tennyson and Robert Browning, and also a collection of literary essays and a valuable treatise on " Art for Schools. " Professor Ward is a popular lecturer, too, on literary topics, being gifted with elo- quence backed up by a thorough scholarly knowledge of his subjects. Mr. and Mrs. Ward live at 281 Dartmouth Street, just off Copley Square, Boston, where their rooms are marked by the distinctly lit- erary atmosphere of the hard-working- student. They have one daughter, Helen Alden Ward, a graduate of Radcliffe, who gives promise of the same literary gifts which distinguish both parents. 291 CHAPTEE XIV. NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, CHARLES F. DOLE, GEORGE WILLIS COOKE, SAM WALTER FOSS, CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS, AND EDWARD PAYSON JACKSON rHEKE was born in Chelsea, a suburb of Boston, on the fifteenth of August, in the year 1852, a boy who was destined to fill no unim- portant place in the world of American literature. That boy was Nathan Haskell Dole, and by birth and achievement he has the right to be classed with the writers who make up the literary Boston of the present day. Mr. Dole is the son of the Eeverend 292 LITER AEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Nathan Dole, a Congregational minister and a man of unusual literary attain- ments. Mrs. Dole was a Miss Fletcher of Norridgewock, Maine. Mr. and Mrs. Dole gave their son his education in the public schools of Chelsea, and later he went to school in Exeter and Andover. He finally entered Harvard College, with such young men of promise as Paul Dana, Ernest Fenollosa, Charles Penhallow ? Richard Dana, and Richard Sears. Mr. Dole's literary career began with his Harvard days, for, while he was a stu- dent at the famous old college, he tuned his lyre, and wrote his first poetry, which appeared in the Boston Transcript, that Mecca of the young poets of the past as well as of the present day. Mr. Dole's remuneration for these first flights into the realm of poetry was not large, since his inborn love of music made him ready 293 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY to exchange his poems for opera tickets at the office of the Transcript. There have, however, been poets whose compen- sation for their first work has been even less than this, so that Mr. Dole may con- gratulate himself on having made a very good beginning. Following the very good example of many college graduates of his day, Mr. Dole began teaching when his college days were done. His first experience as a teacher was at De Veaux College, Niagara Falls. He also taught in the Worcester High School and in the Derby Academy at Hingham, Massachusetts. All this was valuable as experience and as discipline, but, as the young teacher had early de- cided to enter the pleasant fields of litera- ture, he felt that he had taught quite long enough, and when an opportunity came for him to connect himself with the pub- 294 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY lishing house of Estes & Lauriat in Bos- ton, Mr. Dole gladly availed himself of it, and from that time to the present he has been engaged in literary pursuits as a reader of manuscripts, a translator, writer, editor, and literary adviser. While with Estes & Lauriat, Mr. Dole prepared for them Rambaud's " Russia," a work that aroused his interest in Russia to such a degree that he made a most thorough study of that country, and wrote a " Young People's History of Russia," which was his first venture into the field of histori- cal writing. Mr. Dole then became the literary, musical, and art critic of the Philadelphia Press,, and later he accepted the position of editor of the New York Epoch. Re- ceiving an offer from the publishing house of T. Y. Crowell & Co., to enter their house as a literary adviser, he accepted 295 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the position, and remained with them until the removal of the firm from Bos- ton to New York. Mr. Dole then accepted a position with the publishing house of D. Appleton & Co., and, after spending some months in New York, he returned to Boston, where he has become a free lance in the literary world. Few men of his years have done the vast amount of work Mr. Dole has done, and made all of it of so much literary value. His versatility has been so remarkable that it would seem as if Mr. Dole possessed the happy faculty of being able to " turn his hand " to anything in the way of literary effort. Writing of Mr. Dole's many ac- complishments, one of his friends says: " Dole is a kind of a Mezzof anti. Sup- plementing his college acquirements, he has picked up one language after another, until he has been able to translate, not 296 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY only from Greek and Latin, but from the Russian, German, French, Spanish, Swe- dish, Bohemian, Italian, Hungarian, and Polish. His passion for Tolstoi is a marked feature of his career. He has made translations of ten of the great apostle's works. i War and Peace ' he was translating at the same time when ' With Fire and Sword ' was on the way. Mr. Curtin exchanged greetings with Mr. Dole while the work was going on, and presented to him compliments upon it, which have been very gratifying. His f Anna Karenina ? was another notable bit of translation. People have not forgotten the feat by which Mr. Dole created a version of ' Trilby of Argyle ' in a few hours, to meet the edition which another firm was at work in preparing. His book of poems, called ' The Hawthorn Tree/ was quite acceptable. It exhibits powers 297 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of versification, and a great ideality of feeling as well. It is an admirable pocket companion in the country. Mr. Dole has published two novels, which have had a far better than average sale. He has done a good deal of lecturing before schools, university extension associations, and women's clubs. His lectures on Russian literature have been delivered in Phila- delphia, New York, Boston, and else- where. That on ' Originality in Litera- ture and Art ' has been most successful." No mention of Mr. Dole would be com- plete without reference to his work in connection with Omar Khayyam. Re- ferring to this work, Time and the Hour " Though not a pessimist nor alto- gether approving of the philosophy of Omar, Mr. Dole enjoys the literary qual- ity of his words and works. He has not 298 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY surrendered himself to the mental preoc- cupation of his delicious author, but he is possessed with the dangerous material passion of the collector. His shelves of Omar, not quite complete, are exceedingly interesting and valuable. The magnum opus, the two-volume Rubaiyat, published by Page in 1896 for Mr. Dole, leads all the rest. Here the English, French, Ger- man, Italian, and Danish versions follow each other, and all the others are discussed with notes, portraits, bibliography, and every kind of illumination and illustra- tion. The portraits, and especially the Persian pictures, are exceedingly impor- tant. The book well represents a year's hard labour. His beautiful pocket edi- tion of the Rubaiyat in English and Latin is a charming convenience for the worship- per who carries about the manual for acts of private communion and worship. Mr. 299 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Dole has ready a volume, giving all of Fitzgerald's work for the Persian poet, the three versions, and much illustrative matter." Mr. Dole has added to his many other literary labours that of editing two libra- ries of literature. His translations have exceeded those of any other writer in Bos- ton. They include translations of books, poems, and stories from the French, Swe- dish, Italian, and Hungarian. Mr. Dole was the first American correspondent of Octave Uzanne's monthly bibliographical journal, Le Livre. He has done admir- able work as a correspondent, and, when in the right vein, he has composed some ex- ceedingly clever humourous poetry. He is a member of the Authors' Club of Bos- ton and also of the Twentieth Century Club, which is perhaps the most important club in the city of Boston. 300 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Mr. Dole's home, " Hedgecote," is a charming place, with all of Boston's great Franklin Park for an outlook and for breathing space. Here he does his work, and here his friends find him at his best. The Reverend Charles F. Dole, pastor of the Unitarian church at Jamaica Plain and brother of Nathan Haskell Dole, has written several valuable books of an ethi- cal nature, which give evidence of the scholarly mind and catholic nature of one of Boston's finest preachers. More than one man educated for the ministry, and entering upon the career of a minister, has forsaken the pulpit for the pen, and found in the fields of litera- ture more congenial work, and work for which they were better fitted than the work of the ministry. Mr. George Willis Cooke is one of these men. It is certain that he would have done excellent and val- 301 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY uable work as a minister, but his contribu- tions to American literature must have been lessened had he remained in the min- istry. We could ill afford to have lost some of the work Mr. Cooke has done. He ranks among our clearest and most progressive thinkers. He is a careful and conscientious writer and a recognised au- thority along certain lines of thought. Mr. Cooke is a Westerner by birth, for he first saw the light of day on the twenty- third of April, in the year 1848, in Corn- stock, Michigan. He received the greater part of his education at Olivet College in Michigan, Jefferson Institute in Wiscon- sin, and at the Meadville Theological School in Pennsylvania. Having fitted himself for the Unitarian ministry, he has had parishes in Grand Haven, Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana; and in Lexington, Massachusetts, and Dublin, New Hamp- 302 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY shire. Three years ago, Mr. Cooke re- tired permanently from the ministry, removed to Wakefield, Massachusetts, near Boston, and gave himself up entirely to literary pursuits. He had devoted a great deal of time to writing while in the min- istry, having published, in 1881, his book entitled " Ralph Waldo Emerson : His Life, Writings, and Philosophy." Two years later Mr. Cooke published " George Eliot, a Critical Study," and in 1886 his " Poets and Problems " appeared. The next year he published a volume under the unique title of " The Clapboard-Trees Parish, Dedham, Mass." Then came his " Guide-Book to the Poetic and Dramatic Writings of Robert Browning " and " The Spiritual Life." In 1898 Mr. Cooke pub- lished " Early Letters of George William Curtis to John S. Dwight " and also the " Biography of John S. Dwight." His 303 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY latest contribution to the world of books has been a " History of Unitarianism in America." It will be seen from the above long and varied list of books that Mr. Cooke has been a busy man and a close student. His work is characterised by the most pains- taking effort, and it forms valuable addi- tions to our American literature. In addition to the many books he has written and to the important work he has done as a minister, Mr. Cooke has been a frequent contributor to papers and mag- azines, and he is now a regular editorial contributor to the Boston Transcript, a paper to which he has contributed many articles dealing with problems of the day. He is a forcible and convincing editorial writer, and one who has added not a little to Boston's literary prestige. The Reverend George Gordon, of the 304 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Old South Church; Reverend Samuel Herrick, of the Mount Vernon Church; Reverend Edward Cummings, who has succeeded to Doctor Hale's pulpit; Rev- erend Edward L. Clark, of the Central Congregational Church; Reverend Ed- ward A. Horton, and Doctor E. Winches- ter Donald, the successor of Phillips Brooks, are some other Boston clergymen who have made valuable contributions to literature. There are many poems in our language that would not pass muster if viewed purely as literary productions, but which have appealed to the hearts of hundreds of readers as many classical poems could not appeal to them. They are the poems of childhood, of boyhood, of days on the old farm, and of rural associations. They are the poems that men cut from news- papers and slip into their pockets, because 305 LITEKABY BOSTON OF TO-DAY something in the homely rhymes has car- ried them back to other scenes and other days. They appeal to that which is best in the human heart, and they give men better and kindlier views of life. From the New Hampshire hills there came to Boston, some years ago, a writer of poems that carried many a man back in imagina- tion to the hills and valleys of his boy- hood home. This writer was Sam Walter Foss, the genial author of so many poems of New England life. Born in Candia, New Hampshire, in the year 1858, Mr. Foss spent his boyhood days in that best and happiest of environment for any boy, a farm. But one need not be told that Sam Walter Foss was reared on a farm. His poems give abundant proof of this fact. None but a farm-bred boy could write as Mr. Foss writes of rural scenes and people. 306 SAM WALTKR FOSS LITEBARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY After receiving a rural school educa- tion, Mr. Foss went to the high school in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the year 1877. He continued his studies at Brown University, from which institution he was graduated in 1882, his poetical talent hav- ing already become so manifest that he was made class poet. After his graduation Mr. Foss entered upon the career of a journalist, and he became editor of the Lynn Saturday Union, a position he filled for some years, until he came to Boston to accept the position of editor of that once popular periodical, The Yankee Blade, a paper in which the first work of more than one successful writer has appeared. Mr. Foss held the position of editor of The Yankee Blade for eight years, and for the next three years he was a free lance, contrib- uting to many magazines and papers. 307 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY In 1895 Mr. Foss became librarian of the Somerville Public Library, a position of unusual trust and importance, the Som- erville library being one of the largest and best in any of the suburbs of Boston. Mr. Foss finds himself quite at home in the bookish atmosphere of his new posi- tion, his only regret being that his duties absorb so much of his time that there is little left for the literary work he would like to do, and that many admirers of his poems wish that he might do. Mr. Foss has published four volumes of poems, under the titles of " Whiffs from Wild Meadows," " Dreams in Home- spun," " Songs of War and Peace," and "Back Country Poems." All of these volumes of poems by Mr. Foss have met with great favour, and they have been timely additions to the poetry of New England life. There is a delightful qual- 308 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ity of freshness and kindliness of feeling in the work of Mr. Foss, and one is quite sure that his poems are the expression of a true heart. They " ring true/' and one finds one's heart warming toward the au- thor after reading some of his verses. Mr. Foss has been very successful in the writ- ing of serious poetry, and he often strikes a ver^ high note in his patriotic verse ; but, when all is said, his friends enjoy none of his work quite so much as that in which he gives them real " whiffs from wild meadows/' from clover fields, from old orchards, and running brooks. Mr. Foss is in his happiest vein when he is writing of these things, for which the city dweller longs as the sailor longs for the salt air and the roar of the sea. Writers of German dialect have been few in America, which is to be regretted, since the peculiarities of our German 309 LITEKARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY friends offer opportunities for much good- natured, humourous writing. Among the few American writers who have essayed the writing of German dialect, none have attained a higher degree of success than Mr. Charles Follen Adams, so well known to the reading public as " Yawcob Strauss." Mr. Adams was born in the Dorchester suburb of Boston in the year 1842, and all of his life has been spent in Boston and in its suburbs. He is one of our American writers who have at- tained a very creditable degree of success without the advantages of a college edu- cation. Indeed, it became necessary for him to leave the public schools when he was but fifteen years of age, and enter a store in Boston. Five years later Mr. Adams enlisted in the Thirteenth Regi- ment, Massachusetts Volunteers, in re- sponse to the special and urgent call for 310 CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY recruits issued by Governor Andrew. The young volunteer saw active service in the great battles of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, and he was among the boys in blue wounded at Gettysburg in 1863. He was held as a prisoner until the Federal troops again took possession of the town, when he was taken to the hospital in New York. On his recovery, Mr. Adams became ward-master in the convalescent hospital in Washington, re- taining this position until the close of the war. It was in the year 1872 that Mr. Adams sent into the world his first German dia- lect poem, that was to be the forerunner of many similar poems to give pleasure to so many readers. This first venture was entitled " The Puzzled Dutchman," and it appeared in Our Young Folks, an excellent publication for young people, 311 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and one that in later years became merged into St. Nicholas. This first dialect poem by the genial " Yawcob Strauss " attracted a great deal of attention by reason of its quaint humour and the fact that the au- thor had entered an almost unknown field of dialect writing. " The Puzzled Dutch- man " was widely copied, and there came to Mr. Adams requests for other poems in a similar vein, and his poems began to appear in different periodicals. In June, of the year 1876, Mr. Adams's most popular poem, entitled " Leedle Yaw- cob Strauss," was published in the Detroit Free Press, which was then beginning its career as one of the brightest and best humourous papers in the United States. Mr. Adams became a regular contributor to the Free Press, and nearly all of his poems written after the year 1876 have appeared in that paper, which soon be- 312 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY came one of the most widely quoted news- papers in America. Mr. Adams has not confined himself entirely to poetry, many of his contribu- tions to the Free Press having been written in prose, but he is never quite so happy and felicitous in expression as when he confines himself to rhyme. His humour is of the helpful and wholesome kind that warms the heart. Referring to his work, Mr. Adams says : " I do not depend in my work wholly upon the grotesqueness and incongruity of dialect, for my aim is to write a more or less cheerful philosophy of life as I see it. I never force myself to write merely for the sake of writing, and it is only when I have that which seems to me a happy thought which lends itself to expression in my way, that I write, no matter how strong the induce- ment to do so may be. I might write 313 LITERAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY a poem next week, and not write another for an entire year." Mr. Adams has published two volumes of his poems, and they may be regarded as among the best illustrations of humour- ous German dialect in our American lit- erature. Mr. Edward Payson Jackson has writ- ten many poems and a number of success- ful books, among which are " Character Building " and " A Demigod." He is a resident of Dorchester, where he is vice- president of the Colonial Club and editor of The Bohemian. He is also president of the famous Chickatawbut Club of Bos- ton; and in addition to all his other work he writes many stories, essays, and poems for many periodicals. Mr. Jackson was born in Erzeroum, Turkey, March fif- teenth, 1840. His parents were American missionaries in Turkey. Edward came 314 LITEBARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY to the United States in 1845, and was graduated in 1863 at Amherst, where he was poet of his class. During the Civil War he served in the Forty-fifth and Fifth Regiments, Massachusetts Volunteers. Since 1877 Mr. Jackson has been master in the Boston Latin School. He has pub- lished " Mathematical Geography " and " The Earth in Space." Mr. Jackson's life has been one of aspiration and achieve- ment. He was graduated with honour from his college; he entered the union army as a private, and was promoted to a lieutenancy. His novel, " A Demigod," was published anonymously, and was variously attributed to other noted novel- ists. In 1889 the American Secular Union offered a prize of one thousand dollars for the best essay adapted to aid in the instruction of youth in the purest principles of morality, without inculcat- 315 LITEKARY BOSTON" OF TO-DAY ing religious doctrine, and in 1891 this prize was equally divided between Mr. Jackson, for a work entitled " Character Building: A Master's Talks with His Pu- pils," and Nicholas P. Oilman, for a work entitled " The Laws of Daily Conduct." 316 CHAPTER XV. J. L. HARBOUR, JAMES BTJCKHAM, OSCAR FAY ADAMS, ASHTON R. WILLARD, CHARLES FELTON PIDGIN, AND WILLIS BOYD ALLEN rHE man who adds to the gift of telling a story well an unbounded capacity for seeing and setting forth the funny side of life is sure to create a special niche of popularity for himself. This is the reason that the name J. L. Harbour has so wide a recognition, and that his stories are not only eagerly read, but are repeated in the home circle, at after-dinner tables, and on the elocu- tionist's platform. Mr. Harbour has a 317 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY wonderful stock of cheerfulness, backed up by an unusually keen sense of the ridiculous, qualities which make him, not only an excellent companion, but which won almost instant recognition when he began to write. Mr. Harbour was born forty-five years ago, in Oskaloosa, Iowa, and was brought up on a farm, where he laid the founda- tions of that robust health and untiring perseverance which have, perhaps, been his best friends in literary work. While he was a boy, working on the farm, he became imbued with a desire to write stories, and his earliest efforts were sent to the Youth's Companion when Hezekiah Butterworth was its editor-in-chief. Crude as these stories were, Mr. Butterworth recognised in them the ability of genius, and, although he did not accept the prof- fered manuscript, he took time from his 318 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY own crowded hours to write encouraging words to the aspiring Iowa youth. Per- haps no editor in the world has done more to bring out young authors, and to recog- nise literary ability in the rough, than Hezekiah Butterworth; and where the average editor would return such manu- scripts with the usual formula, more or less politely worded, Mr. Butterworth has given hours upon hours of time, that rep- resented distinct money value to himself, to the encouragement and assistance of venturesome young writers. Mr. Harbour has certainly justified all expectations, for, in addition to a juvenile book, he has written over six hundred short stories, the majority of them for the Youth's Com- panion. He first took Mr. Greeley's ad- vice and went West, where he taught school in Leadville, Colorado, later drift- ing to Denver, and becoming connected 319 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY with a daily paper. After a few years of newspaper life, Mr. Harbour had won such gratifying recognition in the East that he received two flattering offers on the same day to become connected with Eastern papers. The Outlook, of New York, and the Youth's Companion were both eager to secure him, and he decided at once upon the latter. That he made no mistake in his choice is evident from the fact that he has remained on the edi- torial force of the Youth's Companion for more than fifteen years. He has also written largely for the Detroit Free Press and for E"ew York papers, his work being in such demand that he seldom beholds in these days one of those beautifully worded and printed circulars, meant by kind-hearted editors to mitigate the woe of an author who sees his literary wares coming back to him from their ambitious 320 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY flights. Mr. Harbour is married, and has a beautiful home on Mount Bowdoin, Dorchester, where three unusually prom- ising boys and a beautiful girl are fast coming up into young manhood and womanhood. Mr. Harbour has recently entered the lecture field with gratifying success, his keen sense of the ridiculous making his talk on " Blessed Be Humour " greatly in demand. It is related that, in response to a call from Waterville, Maine, Mr. Har- bour gave this talk, which teems with witty anecdotes and laughter-provoking reminiscences. On the platform with Mr. Harbour sat the president of Colby Uni- versity, and after the lecture was over he told this story: " In the audience sat a man whom I have watched at public gatherings for many years, and had never yet seen a 321 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY smile on his countenance. I had often wondered if any power on earth could make him laugh, and when I saw that the lecture was rich in funny stories, I determined to watch that particular man. He sat like a graven image through the first half of the talk, and I had become convinced that laughter was an impossi- bility to him, when Mr. Harbour told a story which completely convulsed the au- dience. Then the icy reserve which I had noted for so many years gave way, the flood-gates opened, and a tide of laughter convulsed the man. He shook with uncon- trollable mirth all the rest of the evening. Mr. Harbour had done what had not been accomplished before in years, he had made that man laugh." Several other men on the Youth's Com- panion have written books, the managing editor, Edward Stanwood, being an author 322 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of some note. Arthur Stanwood Pier, one of the assistant editors, has written " The Pedagogues " and " A Sentimentalist," both novels enjoying a decided popularity. Walter Leon Sawyer, another assistant editor of the Companion, has written two or three books in addition to his regular work. It would be strange if so scholarly a man as the president of Vermont Univer- sity should not contribute at least one son to literature ; and this he has done by giving to Boston his oldest one, James Buckham, who was born at Burlington in 1858. He grew up in a literary atmos- phere, and enjoyed the best society of that good old college town until his graduation from Vermont University in 1881, when he took post-graduate courses at Johns Hopkins, following a period of study at Andover Theological Seminary. His early 323 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ministerial ambitions, however, gave way to a decided talent for literature when his poems began to be accepted by the leading periodicals, and he came to Boston in the eighties, becoming connected for a time with the Youth's Companion., and contrib- uting much to magazines and other period- icals. Hfe has had published a volume of verse, "The Heart of Life," which has been very well received both by critics and the purchasing public, and another collec- tion of poems is well on its way. Mr. Buckham married a beautiful daughter of Vermont, and they have a charming home in Melrose, where Mr. Buckham works every day in a cosy den, facing on one side a pine grove and on the other a great ledge of rocks, which keep in mind the rugged strength of his native Vermont hills. Another young poet in Boston, of whom 324 JAMES BUCKHAM LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY excellent things are predicted, is Frederic Lawrence Knowles, who has acted as lit- erary adviser of several publishing houses, and has held an editorial position on the Atlantic Monthly for a time. His, first volume of original verse, " On Life's Stairway/'' has been warmly received, and " A Kipling Primer " had quite a vogue in America and was republished in Eng- land. Although not so famous as his brother, Paul Leicester Ford, Worthington C. Ford, the economist and statistician, has made a name for himself as a writer of books on historical and political subjects. Mr. Ford is connected with the Boston Public Library, and lives with his wife in a delightful Boston home. One of the most important and inter- esting contributions to the biographical books of recent years was the work of a 325 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Boston writer, Mr. Oscar Fay Adams, to whom the literary world is indebted for his book, " The Story of Jane Austen's Life." Jane Austen never had a warmer admirer of her work than Mr. Adams has been, and his account of her life gives evidence of his keen insight into the char- acter of Jane Austen, and of his apprecia- tion of her work. When " The Story of Jane Austen's Life " came out, it at once made still more secure the reputation Mr. Adams had made for himself as a careful and accomplished writer. Mr. Adams had already published a number of books of special value and interest, among them being his " Hand-Book of American Au- thors," "Through the Year with the Poets," "Post-Laureate Idyls," "Dear Old Story-Tellers," and "The Poet's Year." He had also edited "Through the Year with the Poets " in twelve vol- 326 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY umes, and had done a great deal of excep- tionally good miscellaneous writing. En- tering the field of fiction, Mr. Adams has done excellent work in his book, " The Archbishop's Unguarded Moment, and Other Stories," a volume that has caused his friends to wish that Mr. Adams would give more time to the writing of stories. " The Presumption of Sex " must also be added to the list of books this industrious and versatile writer has produced. He has also edited a large number of books, among them being " The Henry Irving Shakespeare." Mr. Adams is a 'New Englander by birth, the first years of his life having been spent in Worcester, and a part of his edu- cation having been received in the public and private schools of Worcester and at the Leicester Academy. He is a graduate of the New Jersey State Normal School, 327 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and has added to his education by a wide range of critical study and reading. This is apparent in his work. His home has for some years been in Boston, where he is a member of the Authors' Club and of sev- eral other organisations, having for their object an increase of good-fellowship among literary workers. Mr. Adams has added lecturing to the work of writing, his lectures on literature and architecture having been received with the favour ac- corded his books. One of the newcomers to the ranks of the writers in the literary Boston of to- day is Mr. Ashton Rollins Willard, of Vermont. Mr. Willard is a native of Montpelier, Vermont, and he has taken up his permanent residence in Boston, hav- ing recently purchased a house on Com- monwealth Avenue. He has travelled much abroad, and his home is a veritable 328 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY treasure-house of works of art, in the way of paintings, carvings, tapestries, and bric-a-brac from foreign lands. One would know that the artistic tempera- ment predominated in Mr. Willard the moment one entered his home, and one is not surprised to know that Mr. Willard is the author of two valuable books relat- ing to art. One of these books is " His- tory of Modern Italian Art " and the other is " Life and Work of Painter Do- menico Morelli." In addition to these books Mr. Willard has been a frequent contributor to various art periodicals, and he is recognised as an authority in matters pertaining to art. Mrs. Willard is a daughter of Governor Horace Fairbanks, of Vermont, and the home of the Willards is already noted for its refined and kindly hospitality. Mr. Charles Felton Pidgin, the author 329 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of " Quincy Adams Sawyer," a story of New England life, " Blennerhassett," an historical novel which deals with events in the career of Aaron Burr, and " Stephen Holton," takes his literary work as a sort of recreation in the intervals of his real work in the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labour, where he is the chief clerk. He was appointed to the position, in 1876, by Colonel Carroll D. Wright, having for three years previously been secretary of the Bureau. During his connection with the Bureau, his attention has been largely devoted to the invention of machines for the mechan- ical tabulation of statistics. These ma- chines were invented to improve the efficiency of the office, but he has never asked nor received any compensation from the State for them. The census of 1875 was tabulated upon a series of self-count- 330 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ing tally-sheets, devised by him. In 1882 he first introduced an adding machine in census work, and in 1883 he invented the electrical adding and multiplying ma- chine, which has been in constant use in the Bureau up to the present time. The State census of 1885 was the first in which punched cards were ever used, and a spe- cial machine was invented for their tab- ulation. His leisure time has been devoted to literary pursuits. He has written the words of many of the popu- lar songs, the libretto of a cantata, and two comic operas, has contributed stories and poems to the magazines, and special articles to the newspapers, has written several musical comedies, and the three novels already mentioned. Besides this, during the twenty-eight years in which he has been engaged in statistical work, he has written many . 331 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY articles for the press upon statistical sub- jects, and in 1888 published the only work of its kind ever written, entitled " Practical Statistics, or the Statistician at Work." In addition to this tremendous amount of work, he has lectured upon statistical subjects before the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Technology, and many scientific societies, Mr. Pidgin was born in Roxbury on the eleventh of November, 1844, and obtained his education in the Boston public schools. When a man, still young, has to his credit a list of thirty-five books written by himself, it is convincing proof of great industry and singleness of purpose. Mr. Willis Boyd Allen might say of his book- writing: " This one thing I do." Eschew- ing society and all else that wastes time without profit, Mr. Allen has for years devoted himself with untiring devotion to 332. LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the writing of his books, most of which have been designed for young readers. Many boys and girls have found pleasure in Mr. Allen's work, which appeals to the young, because the author has put into his work so much of the memory of his own boyhood, and because his sympathies are evidently with the young. It is cer- tain that Mr. Allen has lived over his own childhood in the writing of his books, and he has fancied himself a boy with the boys about whom he writes. Mr. Allen was born at Kittery Point, Maine, on the ninth of July, in the year 1855. He is the only son of the late Still- man B. Allen, one of Boston's most noted lawyers and a man prominent in many things having for their ultimate object the growing good of the world. His son, Willis, graduated from Harvard College in the year 1878, and has been engaged 333 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY in literary work since that time. He has done some editorial work, but in recent years his time has been given entirely to the writing of books, when he was not travelling. Mr. Allen has had unusual opportunities of travel, having been abroad several times, and having visited about every part of his native land. He has explored Alaska, where he found the ma- terial for one of his most popular books, entitled " The Bed Mountain of Alaska." His " Pine Cones " series of books has delighted many young readers, who have also found great pleasure in reading his " Navy Blue," " Silver Rags," and " The Mammoth Hunters." His book of verse entitled " In the Morning " has in it some charming lines. Mr. Allen has written a great many short stories and poems for magazines and periodicals, but he is never more successful than when he is writing 334 LITERARY BOSTOK OF TO-DAY for the young. His stories are told in a delightfully unaffected way, and they are, moreover, safe books for young readers. So many unsafe books for the young are being written in the present day that a man who can write such safe and at the same time such entertaining books as those written by Mr. Willis Boyd Allen is doing good service for the youth of the land, and making valuable and needful contri- butions to our American literature. Mr. Allen's home is noted as one of the most delightfully hospitable homes in the city of Boston, and few homes in the city have received as guests so many men and women prominent in the literary, musical, artistic, educational, and philanthropic world. Mr. Allen is unmarried, and his mother and sister are the hostesses of the home in which many young writers un- known to fame have received a kindly and 335 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY cordial welcome that has warmed their hearts, and they have taken away memo- ries that have cheered and stimulated them for days to come. 336 CHAPTER XVI. KATE SANBORN, ALICE FREEMAN PALMER, MARY E. BLAKE, SOPHIE SWETT, FLOR- ENCE CONVERSE, ANNA FARQUHAR, LIL- IAN WHITING, AND KATHARINE E. CONWAY /T is worth much to have contributed to the world books that have cheered and brightened the lives of those who have read them, books that have added to the needed cheerfulness of the world, and that have helped men and wqmen to fight the battle of life with lighter hearts. Miss Kate Sanborn has done this, not only in her books, but in her lecturing days, when she was one of the most pop- 337 LITEBAEY BOSTON OF TO-PAY ular women speakers on the American lecture platform. The bracing and uplift- ing gospel of good cheer is the gospel Miss Sanborn has been preaching for many years, and it is this that has made her life one of helpfulness to others. Cheerfulness, combined with an unfailing sense of humour, have been predominant characteristics of all of Miss Sanborn's work. She would have her readers laugh more heartily that they may live more happily. She has brought to her work a clear insight into the foibles of human natures, combined with so much kindly sympathy and forbearance, that her sharp- est thrusts leave very little sting. She has demonstrated the fact that women have both wit and humour, and that they know how to use both to advantage. Miss Sanborn's windows have always been " open toward Jerusalem." Her outlook 338 KATE SANBORN LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY on life has been serene and kindly, and good humour and magnanimity are to be found in all of her books. Miss Sanborn is of New England birth, having been born in Hanover, New Hamp- shire, in July of the year 1839. Her father was Edwin D. Sanborn, one of the best known professors of Dartmouth Col- lege, and her great-grandfather on her mother's side was Ezekiel Webster, a brother of Daniel Webster. Miss San- born was but eleven years of age when she earned her first money with her pen, and from her seventeenth year she was able to support herself. When still a young girl, Miss Sanborn combined her literary work with teaching, and she be- came a teacher in Mary Institute in St. Louis. Later she became a teacher in a day school in her native town of Hanover, and from here she went to Brooklyn, New 339 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY York, to become a teacher of elocution in Packer Institute. Her most important work as a teacher was done, however, during the five or six years that she held the position of professor of literature in Smith College. Later in life Miss Sanborn relinquished the work of teaching, that she might give her time entirely to writing and to lec- turing. Her lectures comprised a great variety of topics, all of which she pre- sented in a way that gave great pleasures to large audiences in nearly every large town and city in the East. Her lectures, entitled " Are Women Witty ? " " Chris- topher North and His Friends," and " Our Early Newspaper Wits," were par- ticularly popular, and there was general regret when Miss Sanborn left the lecture platform for the more restful and con- genial work of writing books, literary re- 340 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY views, and a variety of miscellaneous works. Miss Sanborn's books include " Home Pictures of English Poets/' " Vanity and Insanity," " Shadows of Genius," "Adopt- ing an Abandoned Farm," " Abandoning an Adopted Farm," " The Wit of Women," " Favourite Lectures," " Round Table Series of Literary Lessons," " A Truthful Woman in Southern California," " My Literary Zoo," "Purple and Gold," and "Grandmother's Garden," "Sunshine Cal- endar," " Rainbow Calendar," " Starlight Calendar," and others. Miss Sanborn has demonstrated the fact that it is possible for a woman to combine a literary with a practical turn of mind. She is herself a woman of affairs, having for some years carried forward with grati- fying success a large farm, on which she 341 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY now lives, in Metcalf, about thirty miles from Boston. Her exceedingly popular book, " Adopt- ing an Abandoned Farm," is the story of Miss Sanborn's experiment in taking an old New England farm and restoring it to its original fertility and usefulness. The story of how this was done overflows with the author's irrepressible humour, even her failures affording her great amusement. A few years ago Miss San- born " abandoned " the farm she had " adopted," and purchased a farm quite near the one on which she had been liv- ing. This gave rise to her merry book, " Abandoning an Adopted Farm," which, in point of drollery and cleverness, quite equals any of Miss Sanborn's other books. Miss Sanborn's hospitality is prover- bial, and it suggests Washington Irving's lines : " There is an emanation from the 342 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY heart in genuine hospitality which cannot be described, but is immediately felt, and puts the stranger at once at his ease." It is this delightful kind of hospitality that characterises the quaint and charming home of Miss Sanborn at " Breezy Mead- ows," which is the fanciful and appro- priate name Miss Sanborn has given to her farm. Here one finds that good cheer and open-handed hospitality that has de- parted from too many of our modern American homes. The farmhouse, almost if not really a century old, has been trans- formed into the most restful and comfort- able of homes, " Don't Worry " being the motto of the house. Here, with her books almost without number, her periodicals of all kinds, her dogs, house plants, easy- chairs, open fires, and her chosen friends to visit her, lives one of our most popular and most successful authors, whose chief 343 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY delight is in sharing her success and her pleasures with others. Here Miss San- born has entertained many distinguished men and women; here she has given en- couragement and help to many struggling young writers, and her warmest welcome has often been for those in the humble walks of life. While Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer undoubtedly belongs rather to the educa- tional fraternity than to the purely lit- erary, she is, nevertheless, by virtue of her valuable monographs on education, on college work for girls, and other matter, an honoured member of tke band which makes the literary Boston of to-day. Alice Freeman was born in 1855 in southern New York, where she remained until she was sixteen years of age. She was a bright, active child, giving early promise of her future brilliancy, loving 344 I 1 ALICE FREEMAN PALMER LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY learning for learning's sake, and deter- mined to have a thorough education. She was a sunny, happy child, loving out-of- door life, and entering into all childish good times with the same energy and en- thusiasm that she showed for her books. Her father was a physician, and he kept a sharp lookout over this active little girl, taking good care that her brain did not get the upper hand of her body and over- come it; and her wise mother carried out all the father's ideas, so that between the two she came up to young woman's estate with a well-balanced mind, a healthful body, and a fund of common sensible ideas regarding life that have stood her in good stead. This early training of her own has helped her very much in her intercourse with girls, and has taught her wisdom iu her management of them. At sixteen she was ready for college, 345 LITEKARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY But not so many were open to women as there are now, notwithstanding it is but so comparatively short a time ago. Vas- sar had just made a beginning, but neither Smith nor Wellesley were thought of, and RadclifTe had no existence, even in the wildest dream. The Western colleges, which seemed to be the first to catch the spirit of the hour and to recognise and comprehend the full meaning of the educa- tional movement, had hospitably opened their doors and bade young women wel- come. Among these colleges, which thus early showed the generous spirit, was Michigan University, and thither Alice Freeman went, becoming a freshman before she had attained her seventeenth birthday. The going away of the young daughter of the house proved the signal for the entire family to go, too. None of them 346 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY liked the separation, so a new home was made in Michigan near the young student. At that time Miss Freeman looked for- ward to a permanent home in the West, and to the teacher's career for herself. She made a signal success as a student, and graduated as A. B. with honours in 1876, before her twentieth birthday. She entered at once upon her chosen profession, beginning her work by teach- ing the classics in the Geneva Lake Sem- inary in Wisconsin, studying in the meanwhile for the degree of M. A., which she took at Michigan University in the summer of 1877. The faculty wished that she should be identified in her teach- ing with the university, so she decided not to return to the school where she had been engaged during the previous year, but went instead to Saginaw, Michigan, 347 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY where she devoted herself to fitting stu- dents for the university. In the meantime Wellesley had been built and opened, in 1875, and in 1879 Miss Freeman was elected professor of history in the new college. Here was a complete revolution of all her plans. She had thought to stay in the West, and it seemed hard to go so far away. But here was a work which sadly needed workers, and the best ones, too ; and this work in a girls' college appealed strongly to the young teacher. She had, even then, so identified herself with the work of the higher education for young women that she greeted every advance step with a per- sonal delight. So it is little wonder that the autumn of 1879, three years from her graduation, found her occupying the chair of history at Wellesley. She had hardly entered the college be- 348 LITER AEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY fore her influence was felt ; she gave a new impetus to the work, and all the girls who came under her instruction imbibed her ideas regarding the college life and work. So well did she fulfil her duties, in fact, that in June, 1882, just ten years from the time she entered Michigan University, a girl of sixteen, she was 'president of Wellesley College. The standard was at once raised, and the years in which Alice Freeman stood at the head saw a growth and development that was amazing. It was not long before the college took uni- versity rank, and was always mentioned in the list of first-class educational insti- tutions. In June, 1883, just one year after her election to the presidency of the college, Michigan University conferred upon her the degree of Ph. D., and in 1887 Colum- bia University honoured itself by giving 349 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY her the degree of Litt. D. The loss to Wellesley, occasioned by Miss Freeman's resignation in January, 1888, to become the wife of Professor G. H. Palmer, of Harvard University, was regretted by every one connected with the college. Since that time she has been busy with voice and pen, and the home in the college green at Harvard is the resort of the lit- erary men and women of Cambridge, who also belong to the literary Boston of to-day. Since her marriage Mrs. Palmer has been much in Europe, and she has made a study of the opportunities and methods of education, especially for girls, in the older countries, coming back to her own, glad in the superior advantages which the girl of America finds. She is extremely practical in her ideas, is not carried away by theory, and applies the test of common sense to every question which comes to her 350 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY to solve. She is calm and dispassionate in judgment, executive in methods, and safe in her conclusions, altogether a large- minded, all-around woman, whom it is a delight to honour. She is a valued mem- ber of the Boston Authors' Club, and, although extremely modest about her lit- erary work, she wields the pen as well as she does everything else. One of the first of the books treating of modern Mexico was that written by Mary E. Blake in collaboration with Margaret Sullivan, giving us delightful pictures, " Mexico, Picturesque and Po- litical." A dozen books are credited to Mrs. Blake, five of which are volumes of verse. Mrs. Blake's name is often seen in popular periodicals on the title-page, and her critical essays show a wide schol- arship, combined with a keen perception of the values of things in general. Mrs. 351 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-BAY Blake was born in Ireland in 1840, but came to Massachusetts while a child, and was educated here. She married Doctor John G. Blake, a noted specialist of Bos- ton, and is the proud mother of five sons, all graduates of Harvard, and a daughter who has a Radcliffe A. B. added to her name. The Blakes live in a beautiful home on Beacon Street, and mix with the best literary sets of the old Puritan town. Young people everywhere adore the name of Sophie Swett. Few literary people, even in Boston, are aware that this is the real name of a lady who lives at Arlington Heights, and is in and out of the city with the frequency of any ordi- nary suburban dweller. With her lives her sister, Susan Hartley Swett, who is also well known as a writer for the lead- ing magazines, and the author of at least one successful book. The sisters were 352 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY born in Brewer, Maine, but educated in public and private schools in Boston. Sophie Swett was for a time associate editor of Wide Awake, when Mr. Elbridge Brooks was editor-in-chief. The child of to-day, who has not read some one or more of Sophie Swett's round dozen of excel- lent juvenile stories, is rare indeed. The work of Denison House, in Bos- ton, a college settlement on Tyler Street, is familiar to all who are interested in the problems of social reform. For four years Denison House has been the home of Flor- ence Converse, a name that is beginning to be known in literature. She was born in New Orleans in 1871, and graduated at Wellesley in 1893. Miss Converse has been on the editorial staff of the Church- man since January, 1900, and is the au- thor of two successful novels, " Diana Victrix" and "The Burden of Chris- 353 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY topher," both of which have enjoyed con- siderable of a popularity. When " Her Boston Experiences " was first published in book form, it created a good deal of a sensation, and the author- ship was attributed to various prominent writers. The woman who actually wrote it, however, was a Boston journalist con- nected with the National Magazine, and more or less well known in Boston as Anna Farquhar. Miss Farquhar was born in Indiana, educated in Maryland, studied music in New York and in England, and then came to settle in Boston, where she married a talented journalist, Ralph Ber- gengren. " Her Boston Experiences " was by no means her first book, for she had already published " A Singer's Heart," the " Inner Experiences of a Cabinet Officer's Wife," and " The Pro- fessor's Daughter," all of which have been 354 ANNA FARQUHAR. LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY well received. It was the frank and trenchant comment on actual Boston life, and the evident knowledge of it, that made " Her Boston Experiences " such a suc- cess. A hroader knowledge of history, however, and a deeper knowledge of the world are evinced in her latest book, " The Devil's Plough." Mrs. Bergengren is an uncommonly handsome woman of the Eng- lish type, a brilliant conversationalist, a keen thinker, and a hard worker. In fact, she is so devoted to her literary labours that she goes into society but little, her one ambition being to perfect herself in her art. If one were to ask what was the under- lying secret of Lilian Whiting's success in her chosen profession of letters, the ques- tion could best be answered in her own words : " The journalist is the sower, and the 355 LITEKARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY field is the world. It is not what one gets out of the work, but what one puts in that tells." Like many another successful writer, Miss Whiting has come to authorship by the way of the newspaper, and she holds her profession as sacred as the conscien- tious minister holds his. Although Boston claims her, and al- though she is an integral part of its lit- erary life, known as she is over the entire country as a distinctive authority on books and art, she was, nevertheless, not Boston born, not even New England reared. . She was born at Niagara Falls, but all her early life was passed in Illinois, where she was educated. She comes naturally to her position as author, for her mother was a writer, and her father an editor, and later a State senator. So it was that all her instincts, all her environment of 356 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY early life, all her training, led her into the field of letters. She began her life work as a school- teacher, and even then she was feeling her way into the profession for which she was destined, writing stories and poems, and getting them published wherever she could. Finally, realising that " nothing ven- ture, nothing have," she cut away from the school work, which she only half liked, and went to Cincinnati, where she soon found a place under Murat Halstead on the Cincinnati Commercial, making a dis- tinct success in her new profession. But all the time her eyes were turned Bostonward. There was where she wanted to be, and she bent every energy to the attainment of her desires. She worked away conscientiously and busily on the Commercial for a couple years, and 357 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY once more took matters into her own hands, challenged fate by resigning her position in Cincinnati, and starting for Boston, with no definite plans, but that of making a home in the city of her choice. She had no friends at court; she knew no one, but she had determination and pluck and ability. All she asked was a chance to prove herself. She applied for work at the Boston Traveller,, only to be told very plainly that they " didn't want a woman in the paper." Miss Whiting is delicate, re- fined, and sensitive to a degree, but she had plenty of the Western push, and she did not agree with the Traveller people. She was equally sure that they did want a woman there, only they didn't recognise the want. It was for her to convince them. So she asked them to give her a trial, adding that they need not accept her work, 358 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY nor pay her for it, if they did not like it. The offer was somewhat unusual, and, though they hesitated over it for awhile, they finally concluded to accept it. The result was only what might be ex- pected when a girl, able and ambitious, was so ready to begin at the bottom round of the ladder. The very fact that she so believed in herself made those with whom she was associated believe in her also. Everything she wrote and offered was at once accepted. In two weeks she was a member of the regular staff, with her name on the pay-roll, which was a most impor- tant thing. In two years she was made literary editor and art critic, a position which she held for about eight years, re- signing it to take the editorship of the Sunday Budget. She remained in the editorial chair until her increasing duties of a purely literary character became so 359 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY overwhelming that she was obliged to give up the more exacting position. Thus she had the leisure to do the work which she loved best, although she has always re- mained upon the staff of the Budget as a special writer, her department, " The World Beautiful/' being one of the most prominent in the paper. During all these years she has been the Boston correspondent of the Chicago Trib- une, the New Orleans Picayune, and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and it is tfirough her letters that her name is so well known throughout the country as an accomplished writer on literature and art. Her published works consist of one or more volumes of verse, three series of "The World Beautiful/' collections of her Budget essays, a " Life of Kate Field/' whose intimate friend she was, a " Study of Elizabeth Barrett Browning/' 360 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and a memorial of Miss Field, " After Her Death." Miss Whiting's work is noble in thought and lofty in its ideals, and her books will stand the test of time. She has indeed proved herself, and justified her own faith in her powers to succeed. She lives at the Hotel Brunswick, and from there she makes pilgrimages to Europe or to other parts of her own country, coming back always to Boston as to home. For it is home now. The Western home is broken up by the death of her father and mother, and all her interest is in the city of her adoption. Still another woman, who reached lit- erature through the journalistic road, is Miss Katharine Eleanor Conway. She is a recognised power in Boston, especially Catholic Boston, by her connection with the Pilot, and all her work is in the fullest 361 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY sympathy and accord with her religious belief. It was she of whom the late John Boyle O'Reilly, her editor-in-chief on the Pilot, said : " She is a poet and a logician ; she has the heart of a woman and the brain of a man." It was a rare power which O'Reilly possessed of surrounding himself with able and sympathetic workers. He brought Miss Conway on to the Pilot, as he had already brought James Jeffrey Roche, and, since his death, the two to- gether have held the paper up to the stand- ards which their beloved chief established for it, and have carried on the work as he planned it. Two more devoted follow- ers no one could have had, and they took the work which dropped from his still hands as a sacred legacy. Katharine Conway was born in Roches- ter, New York, of cultivated Celtic par- ents, and she was educated at the convent 362 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY in that city. Very early in life, while no more than a child, she was filled with lit- erary ambitions, and while yet a young girl she tried her hand at work on the local dailies of her home city, Rochester, and its neighbour, Buffalo. In 1878 she assumed the duties of as- sistant editor of the Catholic Union and Times,, where she remained until 1883, when Mr. O'Reilly, who had been watch- ing her career with great interest, decided that she was needed on the Pilot, and he offered her a similar position on that paper to the one which she was holding on the Union and Times. Like her friend, Lilian Whiting, she had a strong desire to go to Boston, the city which seemed a sort of literary Mecca, and she accepted the offer. She justified Mr. O'Reilly's belief in her abilities, and she has made a place for herself in the literary world 363 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY of Boston. Struggling against delicate health and the multitudinous demands of life, she has established a name as poet, critic, general writer, and novelist. She has published several volumes of poems, marked by a tender spirituality and up- lift and a rare conscientiousness of pur- pose. Her songs sing themselves, whether set to the minor key or the full flood of joyous harmony. Those who know them love them, because they are so evidently from the heart. In connection with Mrs. Clara Erskine Clement Waters she has edited two val- uable books on art. A charming little volume, " Watchwords from John Boyle O'Reilly," was published soon after his sad death, with her name as editor. Some of the helpful essays which have appeared in the Pilot have been gathered into book form, and she has written two novels, the 364 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY latest of which, " Lalor's Maples," has had a large sale. Miss Conway lives in Roxbury, near Egleston Square, where she has a pretty house at 1 Atherton Place. Here she does her literary work in a pleasant room with a big bay-window, where the sun shines all day, and which is a refuge indeed, after her working hours in her little office at the Pilot, which is as typical of the busy newspaper worker as is her cheerful room in Roxbury of the author. A woman of earnest and sincere pur- pose, she carries into all her work the desire to help and uplift humanity. She is the personal friend of Archbishop Will- iams, and was the second woman to be admitted to the Catholic Union, and prob- ably one of the most prominent Catholic women of the day. She has been on the Board of Prison Commissioners of Massa- 365 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY chusetts, and is full of interest in the work of reforming those who have gone astray ; especially the unfortunate women and girls for whom life has been a tragedy of the darkest sort. A broad-minded and liberal woman, she belongs, by right, to the world at large through her work for humanity as well as in literature. She is the leader of the John Boyle O'Reilly Reading Circle, one of the largest organi- sations of young women in Boston. She is a member of the Authors' Club and of the New England Woman's Press As- sociation. Like Miss Whiting, although an alien by birth, Boston holds her as one of her own, of whom she is justly proud. Her books are " Songs of the Sun- rise Slope," "A Dream of Lilies," "A Lady and Her Letters," " Making Friends and Keeping Them," " Bettering Our- selves," " Questions of Honour in the 366 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Christian Life," " The Way of the World and Other Ways," and " Lalor's Maples." Other Boston members of the New Eng- land Woman's Press Association who have written books are Miss Henrietta Sowle, of the Evening Transcript, Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln, Mrs. Lavinia S. Goodwin, Mrs. Anna L. Burns, Miss Frances C. Spar- hawk, Mrs. Sarah White Lee, and Mrs. Whiton Stone, the last named having a wide local reputation as a poet. Mrs. Stone has published several volumes of verse, and often furnishes poems of occa- sion. Sallie Joy White, who was the first president of the Women's Press Associa- tion, and the first woman to be connected with a Boston daily paper, has written three books connected with the domestic problem, which have been well received and given her a high reputation as a writer on these subjects. 367 CHAPTER XVII. FRANK P. STEARNS, HENRY D. LLOYD, AND THE LEADERS OF THE NEW THOUGHT MOVEMENT of this kind are coming to be of great importance in the world of letters. There is always something of a great man, whether his life is dedicated to the public in writing, preaching, and lecturing, or in political activity, which remains untold, a pri- vate side, a minor history, the comprehen- sion of which is needed to round out our estimate of him as a man and citizen. To say that Mr. Stearns has done this for the men he has known is but faint praise 368 FRANK PRESTON STEARNS LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY for those who are familiar with his ex- cellent works on Italian art." Thus writes a critic of Mr. Frank Preston Stearns's book, " Sketches from Concord and Appledore," which contain personal recollections of Hawthorne, Lou- isa Alcott, Emerson, David Wasson, Wen- dell Phillips, Celia Thaxter, and Whittier. Mr. Stearns is the second son of one of the most patriotic citizens of Massachu- setts, George Luther Stearns, who was an uncompromising antislavery worker, the man who recruited, largely at his own ex- pense, the two black regiments, the Fifty- Fourth and the Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts ; who gave of his time and his substance to all sorts of philanthropic enterprises, in whose devotion to the " causes " which he espoused, as Emerson said, " he gave more than he asked others to give." His mother, Mary E. Preston, was a niece of 369 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Lydia Maria Child, and he, in his own life and career, has proven that he is the worthy son of such a parentage. For sometimes it requires more real heroism to live and achieve than it does to die for a cause. The birthplace of Frank Preston Stearns was Medford, Massachusetts, which had heen the family home for generations, and the date of his birth was January fourth, 1845. He was first sent to school in Boston when he was nine years old, at that time not quite having learned to read. In 1857 he was sent to Concord to the school of Mr. Frank B. Sanborn, where he was fitted for college. While he * was in the school the attempt was made by the United States marshals, in I860, to kidnap Mr. Sanborn, and young Stearns was present through the whole affair. He was prepared for college in 1862, 370 LITEKABY BOSTON OF TO-DAY but under conditions, and, as he was ambi- tious to enter without, he waited another year for the purpose of reviewing his studies and strengthening the weak points. During this year he assisted his father in recruiting the coloured Fifty-Fourth, and he also saved the life of Mr. Sanborn's brother, who had broken through the ice upon the Concord River. He was then an athletic young fellow, and, on his return from the recruiting service with his father, he joined the Low- ell baseball club, at that time the best in New England. In 1867 he entered Har- vard, and among the things which he did was to lay out the first ball-ground on the Delta, and the following year was chosen in the first nine ever organised in the college. He, with his classmate, E. W. Fox, started the Harvard Advocate, which still 371 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO -PAY flourishes, and is a recognised college in- stitution. There had been a college paper started a little before Stearns and Fox undertook the Advocate,, but it had been suppressed by the college government for disrespectful mention of the members of the faculty. Among Mr: Stearns' s most intimate friends at college were Bellamy Storer, the present minister to Spain, Pro- fessor C. L. Jackson, and Speaker James J. Myers. Just before his graduation his father died, leaving him without money, and, as he found out, without friends. He was compelled to remain in Medford to look after the family, but he could not study a profession for want of money, nor could he go away to teach, as his presence was imperative in the home. So he had to look out for business, and this he did without avail, in spite of all that his father 372 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY had done to help others. The recipients of the father's kindness were simply in- different to the needs of the son until, at last, in the spring of 1870, Senator Sum- ner, hearing through Frank W. Bird of Mr. Stearns's difficulties, procured a posi- tion for him in the Boston Navy Yard at a remunerative salary. The young man had been sadly handi- capped in his search for something to do on account of his health, which had be- come broken from taking care of a brother during a severe illness in the last vacation of his college course. He was up with him every night until five in the morning for twenty-five nights, watching him with a devotion that was unparalleled in the history of brotherly affection. His father's death came a month after, and the con- fusion and trouble that followed prevented the system from recovering a healthy tone. 373 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY So he could not undertake anything which compelled constant attention and uninter- rupted effort, a fact which made it more difficult to procure for him such a posi- tion as he could fill. In spite of ill health, he saved enough out of his salary, so that in the late seventies he was able to go abroad to fit himself for a literary and art critic. When he was in Rome the first time, he was so discouraged about his health that he did all manner of reckless things. He walked across the Tiber on the para- pet of the bridge, forty feet above the river, and went at night into the most dangerous parts of the city, hoping that some one would attack him; but, like all persons who are careless of life, and hold its possession lightly, he was immune from all danger. In making a tour of Switzerland, 374 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Mr. Stearns overestimated his physical strength, brought on a spinal difficulty, and returned to America again an invalid. His physician, Doctor Clarke, was dead, and he was compelled to resort to other treatment, and was incapacitated for work for nearly ten years. In 1888 he published a small volume on John Brown, but that summer he met with an accident at Mount Desert, which prevented his doing much work for the next three years. Then, in 1892, he pub- lished " The Keal and the Ideal in Lit- erature " as, in a manner, a reply to William D. Howells. In 1893 he pre- pared his volume of " Sketches from Con- cord to Appledore," the review of which has already been quoted. Portions of that book, as well as " The Eeal and Ideal/' were dictated by Mr. Stearns from five to ten minutes at a time, which was the 375 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY longest period which he could work con- secutively. Mr. Stearns's methods of work are much like those of Francis Parkman. He is obliged sometimes to stop in the very middle of a sentence and take up the thread again hours afterward. He thinks out paragraphs, and writes or dictates them when he has the physical strength to do so. His life has been harder than most men's, but he has accomplished fine results in spite of it, and consequently has found satisfaction. He was married in September, 1898, to Miss Emilia Maciel, with whom he be- came acquainted years before at Fayal; and at the same time he purchased the Sampson estate on the brow of Arlington Heights, where they now reside. The house stands five hundred feet above the sea, and, from his front piazza, 376 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Mr. Stearns has a sweep of the coast from Egg Rock to Minot's Ledge ; and at night the twinkling lights of Boston and Cam- bridge glow in a sympathetic companion- ship. Half surrounding the house is a group of beautiful maples, which the owner cherishes with a personal fondness, and he has given each one a Greek name, Melos, Paros, Delos, etc. He has a den which is his very own, furnished with quaint old rosewood furniture, part of the marriage dower of his wife, which she has devoted to his own uses. The chief ornament of the room is an old Portuguese chest of drawers of solid rose- wood, in the Italian style of Sansovino, and on the top of this is a group of Rocky Mountain hawks. There are numberless curios in this room, each one having some personal or traditional association, which gives them a value which is unknown in 377 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the mere miscellaneous groups of the pro- fessional collector. Mr. Stearns's personality is most de- lightful. Simple and hearty in his man- ner, cordial to his chance visitor, and genial and sympathetic to his friends, his sunny nature shines out in spite of all he has had to endure, until those who know him the best have come to reverence as well as to have a deep affection for him. His is a unique individuality in the lit- erary world of to-day, and Boston is proud to claim him as her very own dearly be- loved child. Law and letters are once more wedded in the person of Mr. Henry Demarest Lloyd, the distinguished political econo- mist, and the man who started out single- handed to fight the trusts, but who has won thinking men and women to his side, until he no longer fights alone, but has a brave army of followers. 378 HENRY DF.MAUKST LLOYD LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY A distinct ripple in the world of affairs, both literary and financial, was made when his first article on the subject, en- titled " The Story of a Great Monopoly," was published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1881, while Mr. Howells was still the editor of that magazine. It was this article which initiated the trust agitation, and the article made such a sensation that several editions of the magazine were called for. Following this article in rapid succes- sion, Mr. Lloyd contributed to the At- lantic Monthly the " Political Economy of Fifty-Three Millions of Dollars " ; to the North American Review " Making Bread Dear," " Lords of Industry," and " The New Conscience." An interviewer once wrote of Mr. Lloyd and his work : " These articles may be the work of an idealist, but read one of them and see how hard 379 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY a blow an idealist can strike when his ideal is liberty and is being assailed." It is not at all surprising that Mr. Lloyd should be engaged in social reform. In- deed, he could hardly help it, since he is, by heredity, born to it. lie is in truth a Puritan of the Puritans. His father is descended from Mehitable GofTe, daughter of Walley, the regicide, and wife of Goffe (the other regicide), both of whom had to fly to find refuge in the caves near New Haven, Connecticut, after the accession of Charles II. to power. The Goffes and Walleys were kindred of Cromwell, Pym, Hampden, and other leaders in the Commonwealth of the sev- enteenth century. On his father's side Mr. Lloyd is also collaterally connected with the family of George Washington. On his mother's side he belongs to some of the oldest Huguenot families of New 380 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY York, his ancestor, David Demarest, who came from France by the way of Holland like so many other Huguenots, having been a member of the privy council of old Peter Stuyvesant. Mr. Lloyd was born in New York City on the first of May, in 1847, and is the son of Aaron and Maria Christie (Dem- arest) Lloyd. He is, on his father's side, a descendant in the fifth generation of John and Rebecca (Ball) Lloyd, who emi- grated from Wales in the seventeenth cen- tury. His ancestry on the maternal side has already been given. Mr. Lloyd's grandfather, John C. Lloyd, was a soldier in the war of 1812, postmaster at Belle- ville, New Jersey, for about twenty years, a justice of the peace, county coroner, and judge of Essex County (New Jersey) Court. His brother was David Demarest Lloyd, the playwright. 381 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY He was educated in the Columbia Grammar School and Columbia College, New York City, receiving his degree in 1867, when he entered the Columbia Law School. While he was in college he won a brilliant legal victory over the president of the college, for which exploit he is still known in the records of Columbia as " the man who threw Prex." And this is the story, as his classmates tell it, and as it is still recited to the incoming students. One day the class of '67, Mr. Lloyd's class, while passing to recitation, found a door, hitherto open to them, closed and locked. They, however, followed their usual route with results to the door. The president of the college at that time was F. A. P. Barnard, the distinguished editor of Johnson's Cyclo- paedia. He at once served notice upon the class of '67 that he should hold the entire 382 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY class responsible, financially, for the de- struction of the door. The class returned word that it declined to be held responsi- ble. President Barnard then proposed that the matter should be submitted to trial before a court of students, organised for that purpose. This was joyously ac- cepted by the class, and, as its counsel, it chose Nicholas Fish, son of the Secretary of State under Grant, and who has him- self, since that time, filled important po- sitions in the diplomatic service of the United States; George A. Dewitt, now a prominent lawyer in New York; Mr. Lloyd, and one or two others. At the opening of the court Lloyd raised a constitutional point which he urged should take precedence of any trial of the case on the facts. This point was that the college had no right to hold the class responsible, or even to subject it to trial, 383 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY because tlie college had never recognised the class as an agent in its discipline, and had never clothed it with any police pow- ers over its members. This point was urged first by Mr. Lloyd as a " plea in bar of trial," according to court-martial procedure, and, to the discomfiture of President Barnard, his plea was sus- tained by the court. One might say, from this incident, that Mr. Lloyd was a lawyer by instinct as he is by education, although, while he was admitted to prac- tise in 1869, he has never practised at the bar. After leaving college Mr. Lloyd was for several years assistant secretary of the American Free Trade League, organised by William Cullen Bryant, David A. Wells, and other prominent reformers, under the presidency of Mr. Bryant, and in 1870-71 he delivered courses of politi- 384 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY cal economy in one of the high schools of 'New York City. He also arranged a series of public addresses on the tariff, and, with his usual f airmindedness, which is so marked a characteristic of the man, he took as much pains to have the pro- tectionist side adequately represented as his own. Mr. Lloyd took an active part in the organisation of the Young Men's Munic- ipal Reform Association of New York in 1870, which contributed powerfully to the historic overthrow of the Tweed re- gime at the polls in that year. Finding that there was no accessible information for the guidance of reform workers, and seeing at once the absolute need for such, Mr. Lloyd prepared for the campaign of 1871 a manual for the use of voters, com- piled from the election laws, and entitled " Every Man His Own Voter." The as- 385 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY sociation adopted the manual, which Mr. Lloyd, refusing any payment, put at their disposal as his contribution toward the finances of the campaign ; and it was scat- tered broadcast. The New York Times commented editorially upon it to the effect that, if the Young Men's Municipal Keform Association contained many men of the initiative talent of the author of this manual, the result could not be in doubt. At Horace Greeley's nomination for the Presidency against General Grant, in 1872, Mr. Lloyd left active politics and went to Chicago on the editorial staff of the Chicago Tribune. He had worked actively in that campaign for the nomina- tion of Charles Francis Adams, of Mas- sachusetts, on a revenue tariff and civil- service reform platform, and he and his associates of the Free Trade League went 386 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY into the Chicago convention with every assurance that they would be successful. But there was a complete overturn of their plans. As a writer expressed it : " The reformers put Charles Francis Adams grain into the mill, and the grist they ground out was Horace Greeley." So skilful had been the manipulation of the Greeley party that every delegate from that State, with one exception, was for Greeley, that exception being Mr. Lloyd. He was overwhelmed with per- suasions to give at least one vote to Mr. Greeley as a compliment, that he might go before the convention and the country at least on the first ballot with the unani- mous vote of his State; but Mr. Lloyd refused to abandon his standard-bearer, even for the sake of giving a complimen- tary vote to Mr. Greeley. He remained with the Chicago Tribune 387 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY from 1872 to 1885, and it was while he was thus engaged that he began the work with which his name is now specially con- nected. His first book, " A Strike of Mil- lionaires Against Miners/' was published in 1890, and was the result of a personal investigation of the coal miners' strike in Spring Valley, Illinois. This was fol- lowed, in 1894, by his greatest work, " Wealth Against Commonwealth," which the Eeverend Edward Everett Hale de- clared to be as much an epoch-making book as " Uncle Tom's Cabin." In 1898 he published " Labour Copartnership," and in 1890 " A Country Without Strikes" and "Newest England," both results of his trip abroad, and as readable as they are instructive. It is said that the plan for allotting the lands in the opening of the great Indian reservation of Oklahoma was suggested to the Depart- 388 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ment of the Interior by the description of the New Zealand system in " Newest England." Such a service alone makes the writing of a book well worth while. M-r. Lloyd's style is graphic and often picturesque, and is always possessed of a fine literary quality. Robert Louis Steven- son was a great admirer of his, and he said to George lies in a letter, which, with other letters of Stevenson, Mr. lies has put in the library of the McGill University : " I was exceedingly interested by the articles of Mr. Lloyd, who is certainly a very capa- ble, clever fellow; he writes the most workmanlike article of any man known to me in America, unless it should be Parkman. Not a touch in Lloyd of the amateur; and but James, Howells, and the aforesaid Parkman, I can't call to mind one American writer who has not a little taint of it." 389 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY There is nothing violent or eccentric about Mr. Lloyd's philosophy, his meth- ods, or his language. " He has been ac- cused," says one of his critics, " of being an idealist, which, like all good philoso- phers, he certainly is. But he is an idealist armed with a very practical search-light, which he unexpectedly turns upon dark corners, making the rats that are gnawing through the municipal dikes squeal with pain, the pain of discovery." Mr. Lloyd is a member of the Twenti- eth Century and Authors' Clubs of Boston, and the Chicago Literary Club. He was married December twenty-fifth, 18 73, to Jessie Bross, daughter of Lieutenant-Gov- ernor William and Mary Jane (Jansen) Bross, of Chicago. Mr. Bross was lieu- tenant-governor of Illinois in 1865-1869, and was one of the founders of the Chi- cago Tribune. Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd have 390 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY four sons, William Bross, Henry Demar- est, Demarest, and John Bross Lloyd. Among the leaders of the new thought movement are Horatio Dresser, Henry Wood, and Ralph Waldo Trine, all resi- dents of Boston. They are idealists of the Emersonian type thoughtful, ear- nest, deeply religious men. The new thought societies follow Emerson in refus- ing to define themselves. The leaders are not willing to form churches or to start a sect. They withhold themselves from every form of creed, and from any attempt to define their belief. The Boston Meta- physical Society represents the new thought movement much more truly than the independent societies I have men- tioned. It holds frequent meetings for hearing lectures, for discussion and the dissemination of new thought views, as well as for social culture. The leaders 391 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY advocate the attendance upon the already established churches, and the conversion of them to new thought ideas and methods. They wish to leaven all churches with their spirit, and not to form a new denom- ination to contend with the old ones. Among the most popular writers in this movement is Ralph Waldo Trine, a grad- uate of Johns Hopkins, the author of " What All the World's a-Seeking " and a ln Tune with the Infinite," both of which have sold high up into the tens of thousands. " The Greatest Thing Ever Known " has sold nearly as well, and, in fact, everything that comes from Mr. Trine's pen finds an eager audience among progressive people. Mr. and Mrs. Trine have lived in Boston for several years, and have a wide circle of friends, which is by no means confined to the new thought movement. 392 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Another writer along these lines, who has contributed a number of helpful books, is Henry Wood, a native of Vermont, who has resided in Cambridge for many years. Mr. Wood is a contributor to many scien- tific and reform periodicals, and has writ- ten two novels of sarious purpose, in addition to " The Symphony of Life," " Natural Law in the Business World." and other books. Among the younger writers is Mr. Horatio W. Dresser, author of " The Power of Silence," which has had as wide a reading as any of Mr. Trine's books. Eight or nine other books on the new phases of religion and metaphysics are set down to Mr. Dresser's credit, although he is still a young man. Like the others mentioned, Mr. Dresser is a lecturer on the new thought and practical philosophy, and is meeting with a warm welcome 393 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY from all who are interested in bringing the great truths of the soul life into every- day thought and living. For the days when theology was everything, and the personal problem of right living and se- rene, helpful thinking only secondary, are past; the new thought is permeating the intelligent masses, and Boston is furnish- ing some of the best writers who can meet that particular demand. 394 CHAPTEE XVIII. JOURNALIST AUTHORS, EDWARD H. CLEM- ENT, HENRY AUSTIN CLAPP, BLISS PERRY, EDWIN D. MEAD, CURTIS GUILD, CHARLES E. L. WINGATE, SYLVESTER BAXTER, AND EDMUND NOBLE /N these days, when the newspaper takes on more and more of the magazine in its general tone, and the magazine in turn reflects the quality of the news- paper, it is by no means strange to find the writer for the latter coming in by the way of the daily paper, while the erstwhile magazinist seeks recognition and pecuni- ary reward through the columns of the journals. To-day there is no marked di- 395 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY vision line drawn between the newspaper worker and the literary man, for the two characters are so often combined that any attempt to divorce them would be in vain. And so it is with the clubs; at the Press Club some one looks about and says: " Why are all these people here ? They are not of the press ; they are book writers or magazine workers. We are of the true press, the daily or the weekly journal." " But," says another, " most of them are writing for the newspapers, particu- larly for the Sunday editions, and for the syndicates." This is the new order of things, and one of the bright lights of literary Boston of to-day, one who has acted as " guide, counsellor, and friend " to many an aspir- ing young writer in his capacity as editor, and has written most delightfully in his other capacity as author, is Mr. Edward 396 EDWARD II. CLEMENT LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY H. Clement, the editor-in-chief of Bos- ton's most typical newspaper, the Evening Transcript. Mr. Clement was born in Chelsea, Mas- sachusetts, on the nineteenth of April, 1843, of a line of which the American ancestry runs to the immigrant of 1643, who came from Coventry, England, to Haverhill, Massachusetts. He is as true a patriot, as good a citizen, and as loyal an American as one should be who has as a birthday the anniversary of the day of Lexington and Concord, the day when " On the rude bridge .... the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world." He was educated in the schools of his native city, and was prepared there for Tufts College, from which he was grad- uated in 1864, the first scholar of his 397 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY class. He went immediately upon grad- uation to assist in the publication of an army post paper in the South, which was established, with the abandoned plant of the Savannah News, at Hilton Head, South Carolina, by two correspondents of the New York Herald. While this was a most interesting experience, it could not be permanent, so, in 1867, Mr. Clement was back in Boston upon tke staff of the Advertiser. From there, by the invita- tion of Mr. John Russell Young, he went to New York, upon the staff of the Trib- une, where he remained for several years, working his way steadily upward, from exchange editor to night editor, through the grades of city editor and telegraphic editor. This New York experience, on the most influential of its great news- papers, proved a splendid training, and equipped the young editor for filling any 398 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY responsible position. He was for awhile in 'New Jersey, having ventured into an independent enterprise, but in 1875, on the invitation of Mr. William A. Hovey, who was at that time its managing edi- tor, he came to Boston, and became the musical, dramatic, and art editor of the Transcript. Mr. Hovey retired from the editorial management in 1881, and Mr. Clement succeeded him. Ever since then he has been at the head of this representa- tive Boston paper, which has been always distinctive in its refinement of general conduct, and has reflected the culture, phi- lanthropy, and public spirit of the com- munity. " It is not possible to detract from the merits of the founders, the managers, or the successive editors of the Transcript, -Walter and his sister, Mrs. Richards, Sargent, Haskell, and Hovey," said one, 399 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY in writing about the work of the youngest editor, " but its growth in value during the last seventeen years, through a com- bination of fortunate circumstances, has been by leaps and bounds. The fine Sat- urday night edition, which has become a New England standby, and brings the scattered Bostonians in various parts of the world into touch with home, has grown up largely under Mr. Clement's inspira- tion. The digestion of the enormous vol- untary contribution to the favourite paper is a large task. Yet those who know the editor think they recognise his hand in many a little touch beyond the common, or a bit of piercing causticity which cuts so clean that it inflicts a painless wound." Mr. Clement's poetical contributions to the leading magazines are of a high order, for, although it be necessary to harness 400 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Pegasus to the hack work of a daily paper, yet, once out of traces, he is as graceful and as strong in the use of his wings as ever. His high spirit cannot be tamed. Critics are inclined to accord to his ode, " Vinland," his most permanent title to literary fame. It was written for and delivered at the special session of the American Geographical Society at Water- town, Massachusetts, on November twenty- first, 1889, to commemorate the discovery of the ancient city of Nbrumbega. It is rarely that an occasional poem rises to the height of this most remarkable one. A criticism written of it at the time says that "it is a classic, boldly modern, yet getting at the ideal in the heart of things almost as thrillingly as Parsons, alone among our poets, has been able to do. There is no external affectation of 401 LITEKARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY fancy in it. It is virile with imagination which must have been the outgrowth of life and experience." Personally Mr. Clement is a most at- tractive man. He has the kindliest blue eyes and the most sympathetic face, smil- ing out from a frame of silver hair, and his manners are fine and simple. He is the embodiment of physical and mental strength and virility, and he gives the impression of largeness, and one feels that the pettiness of character, which one often finds among both men and women, is ut- terly unknown to him. He is a loyal friend, and, when occasion requires, a kindly antagonist, always with the courage of his convictions, uninflu- enced by prejudice, just as becomes a man in the position which he holds, and one of whom Boston is proud, both as the newspaper man and the author. 402 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Mr. Clement has a delightful home in Brookline, just off the Boulevard, where, with his charming wife, he exercises a gracious hospitality. Mr. Edwin Munroe Bacon, another well-known newspaper editor of Boston, has written a number of historical books. Mr. Bacon began his literary career as reporter of the Boston Advertiser, and was later managing editor, having served various apprenticeships on that standard journal. His brilliant editorials as editor of Time and the Hour made that paper famous, and his handbooks of historical Boston are considered the best in existence. These include " Historic Pilgrimages in New England," "Literary Pilgrimages in New England," "King's Hand-Book of Boston," "Boston Illustrated," "Ba- con's Dictionary of Boston," and " Walks and Eides in the Country about Boston." 403 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Verily Mr. Bacon may well be considered an authority on Boston, ancient and modern. Then there is Louis C. Elson, musician, critic, journalist, lecturer, and the writer of " Famous Composers and Their Work " and several other entertaining books on musical topics and musical history. He, too, has been for many years connected with the Boston Advertiser as musical critic, and those who are familiar with that paper know well his criticisms, witty, entertaining, keenly appreciative, yet in- tolerant of slovenly work and sham pre- tence. Mr. Henry C. Lahee has also written books of merit on musicians, and his volumes on " Famous Singers of Yes- terday and To-Day " and " Famous Vio- linists of Yesterday and To-Day " are standard works. Another Boston writer along these lines 404 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY is Lewis Clinton Strang, dramatic editor of the Boston Journal. Mr. Strang has been associated with light opera and plays as well as with newspaper work; but he has done more enduring work, too, in his books on " Famous Actors of the Day," " Famous Actresses of the Day," and " Prima Donnas and Soubrettes of Light Opera and Musical Comedy in America." He was born in Westfield, and finished his education at the Boston University. With youth, health, and opportunity at his com- mand, Mr. Strang is destined to become even better known in his chosen field than he is now; and we may look to him to uphold worthily the laurels of his pro- fession. Still another prominent man who has come into literature by the way of the newspaper is Mr. Henry Austin Clapp, the recognised dramatic authority of Bos- 405 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY ton, whose summing up of a play or a player is regarded as final by the most cultured part of the city residents. Mr. Clapp is a descendant from the Puritans, his ancestor, the famous Roger Clap, for whom his only son is named, coming to Dorchester, now a portion of Boston, but for many years, until quite recently, in fact, an independent town- ship, more than two hundred and fifty years ago. If one may judge from the memoirs of this same Captain Eoger Clap the name was then spelled with but the one " p " - there were no sterner precisians among the immigrants than were the Clap family. What would this worthy have said had it been vouchsafed to him to know that one of his descendants would have been famous as an habitue of the theatre, whose avocation it was to discuss 406 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY plays ? It is, perhaps, fortunate that he was spared the knowledge, and that the world has grown more liberal since the days when he sought the wooded penin- sula below Boston town. Mr. Henry Clapp was born in Dorches- ter on the seventeenth of July, 1841, and was graduated from Harvard in 1800, and went from there to the Harvard Law School. In addition to his work as critic and as lecturer and commentator of Shake- speare, Mr. Clapp has for twenty-two years filled the office of court clerk in the Supreme Judicial Court. Most men would have been satisfied with this posi- tion,, for, except that it has long vaca- tions, it is as arduous as it is dignified and responsible. It implies a thorough training at the bar, which Mr. Clapp re- ceived, after his graduation from the Har- vard Law School, in the office of Hutchins 407 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY & Wheeler. It also implies a self -posses- sion and clearness of mind, which nature bestowed upon him, and it involves the acquisition of a judicial faculty from his constant habitude of the court-room. And it is this very judicial quality which has been of such service to him in his work as critic, and this training which has helped him to analyse, to sum up, to balance mental forces, all of which are necessary in correct, unbiased criticism. Mr. Clapp has always hidden the man behind the critic. He contends that only so can criticism be just. Unlike many another, he refrains from personally know- ing the people concerning whom he is to write, fearing lest he might be influenced by their personality, and so fail to do justice to their work. Consequently, his work has none of the flavour of the ad- vance agent, but is criticism pure and 408 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY simple, fine, intelligent, and, in the main, just. There is no better proof of this than the fact that, among the members of the profession, there is no one whose criticisms are so eagerly watched for as Mr. Clapp's, and what he says " settles it " in profes- sional vernacular. Besides being recognised as the leading critic, Mr. Clapp is regarded as the finest commentator of Shakespeare of modern time. His talks are eagerly listened to, and his monographs on characters and plays are widely read. They are thought- ful, logical, and scholarly, and are so full of a tender appreciation that they are among the most delightful literature which is presented to the Boston of to- day. Mr. Clapp's home is on Marlboro Street, in the beautiful Back Bay district of Boston. 409 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY If Mr. Edwin D. Mead were permitted the choice of characterisation by which he would prefer to be known, it, undoubtedly, would be that of " the good citizen," rather than that of author or litterateur. And yet he is both, arid philosopher as well. Some one has said that there was not a better nor more genuine Boston patriot than Edwin Mead; and yet he is a Bos- tonian only by adoption. He is of the Granite State, born in Chesterfield, in the somewhat famous Cheshire County, Sep- tember twenty-ninth, 1849. He was a farmer's son, a genuine country boy, who loved the woods, the fields, the hills, the farm life, and its associations, and who yet broke loose from them, because in the wide world outside there was work wait- ing for him to do. He was educated at the local schools, 410 LITEEARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY and then, while quite young, he went ac- tively to work in the store of his brother- in-law, studying in the evening, writing at his leisure for his own amusement, and conducting, quite by himself, a magazine in manuscript. He was editor, publisher, and contributor all in one, and was the entire subscription list. He was not without his inspirations, for, in the lovely Vermont town across the Connecticut from Chesterfield, lived his relatives, the family of Larkin G. Mead, known to all the country about as a 'Squire Mead." It was "'Squire Mead" who was instrumental in establishing in Brattleboro the first high school in Ver- mont, and was always interested in edu- cational matters. He was the typical good citizen of his time, a genuine Amer- ican through every fibre of his being. His nephew from over the river often vis- 411 LITERAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY, ited in the family, and he had as com- panions during his visits his cousins, one of whom is now Mrs. William D. Howells, another the sculptor, Larkin G. Mead, Jr., and still another, William, now of the New York firm of McKim, Mead, & White, architects. Through the kindly influence of Mr. Howells, he obtained a position in the famous " Old Corner Bookstore," which in those days, the palmy days of Ticknor and Fields, was a sort of authors' club. The " Immortals," as the Atlantic group were called, came and went in the most informal and mortal fashion, and they chatted with each other, and " jollied " the boys in the store in the most charmingly familiar fashion. It must have been a delight to have been a " boy " there, with the junior of the firm himself one of the illuminati, giving the tone to the estab- 412 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY lishment, and the nine years which Mr. Mead spent there, making friends with those whose friendship was an inspiration, were most happy ones. From there the young man went abroad, with the intention of studying to become an Episcopal clergyman, but he fell into the hands of the men interested in the " broad church " movement, became inter- ested in that movement himself, as he wrote home to some of the American mag- azines the accounts of some of its heroes, and he left that religious body in 1876, and took another course in life. He remained abroad for five years, studying in London at the British Mu- seum, in Cambridge and Oxford, and he became a liberal in politics and religion. When he came home he was a man ripe in general scholarship and in knowledge of the administration of charities and 413 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY municipal affairs. He had not studied books alone, but forms of government and people, philanthropies and reforms. Mr. Mead was intensely interested in Mrs. Hemenway's work for the preserva- tion of the Old South, and he assisted her in every way, giving generously of his time and his energy. He is the editor of the leaflets which are reprints of the doc- uments and historical extracts appropriate to the subjects of the Old South patriotic lectures, and these lectures he has ar- ranged, although they have been given under the auspices of a committee. In 1889, in connection with the Rev- erend Edward Everett Hale, Mr. Mead took hold of the New England Magazine, and in the next year he became its sole editor, resigning his position when he went abroad during the summer of 1901. In the " Drawer " of this magazine he 414 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY found periodical expression for his wise and stimulating words concerning the du- ties of the hour. Fearless in expression, he has often spoken words which have proven forerunners of some new advance movement, and many of these have been reprinted in leaflet form, and, to quote from one of his friends : " Mr. Mead's visitor will come away with his pockets as heavily laden with pamphlets as though he had paid a visit to a tract society." Mr. Mead is the founder and the con- trolling genius of the Twentieth Century Club, an organisation which does a social, an ethical, an educative work a sort of public and distributive " Round Table " which exists only for its own select membership, and yet which is coming to have a decided and marked influence upon the public mind. Does one say " Twen- tieth Century Club," all ears are open, for 415 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY something worth while is to be quoted. Through its various departments this club has much to do, and there are few burning questions neglected, from matters of life and death to the social fabric, to the cul- ture of the taste of the community in art and music and literature. The Municipal League, the School League, and the Good Citizenship Society are other sources of expression for Mr. Mead's active mind and acute public con- science. Such an one as he should never be spared from its service by the public. And yet he is of great use to the com- munity in his position ; the voluntary and independent associations in which he is so prominent are, as it were, good rings constructed to oppose and neutralise bad ones. With all this work of a busy life, it would seem as though there was little lei- 416 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY sure left for purely literary work, and yet Mr. Mead has been, even at this compara- tively early age, a prolific author. His first publication was a volume of sewnons by the Reverend Stopford Brooke, which he edited, and in the same year he pub- lished "The Philosophy of Carlyle." This was followed by " Martin Luther and the Reformation." " Outline Studies of Holland/' " Annotated Constitution of the United States," " Representative Gov- ernment," and " The Roman Catholic Church and the Public Schools " are among his works. Mr. Mead married Miss Lucia True Ames, who is as deeply interested in all philanthropic, civic, and reform work as is her husband, and she is also a writer of ability. Another prominent journalist who has written books that have been favourably 417 LITEEAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY received is Charles E. L. Wingate, man- aging editor of the Boston Journal. Mr. Wingate was born at Exeter, E". H., in 1861, so that he is still a young man. He is a Harvard graduate, and has been connected with Boston papers since taking his degree in 1883, also acting much of the time as Boston correspondent of the Critic and for some of the 'New York dailies. Besides a history of the Wingate family, he has written a " Playgoers' History," " Shakespeare's Heroines on the Stage," " Shakespeare's Heroes on the Stage," " Famous American Actors of To-Day," and a novel, "Can Such Things Be ? " He resides at Winchester, where he has a charming home, graced by a cultivated, congenial wife and an interesting family. The Boston Journal has furnished another writer of successful books in Mr. E. F. Harkins, author of " Little Pilgrimages 418 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY Among Men Who Have Written Famous Books " and " Little Pilgrimages Among Women Who Have Written Famous Books." The story of literary Boston would not be complete without mention of the vet- eran writer, traveller, and editor, Mr. Cur- tis Guild, who is a Bostonian of Bostoni- ans. He has travelled widely and much, and has written most entertainingly con- cerning those travels, and yet he is to his heart's core the devoted son of his native city. Does any one doubt this ? Then watch when some landmark of the old town is threatened, and see how speedily he comes to the rescue. He has spoken again and again to his own Bostonian Society, to his Club of Odd Volumes, to the Commercial Club, and to gatherings of school children concerning his travels, but oftener and with more elo- 419 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY quence about the local familiar things, their history, their lessons, their responsi- bility. It is hardly possible to estimate the values of that mental anchorage which the conservative mind imparts in this day of drifting and uprooting. The care for what is old and venerable is a wholesome one. Nobody understands the present or knows how to prepare for the future with- out a respectable knowledge of the past, and the kind of civic patriotism, which almost unconsciously grows up in the mind of a man whose studies have led him, as it were, to grow up with the town of his birth from its childhood of hundreds of years ago, is a more genuine way of grow- ing up with a place than only to fix one's immediate interests there. Mr. Guild's house is in Mt. Vernon Street, the street of all other Boston streets, peculiar, dignified, characteristic, 420 LITEKAKY BOSTON OF TO-DAY fitted in every way to be the home of such a man. Totally unfitted by its steep slope for any proper city use, quite indifferent to ordinary conveniences of access for traf- fic or business, its broad slope shaded by old trees, and bordered in part by gardens, Mt. Vernon lies peaceful and content above the world's highways. With a bit of the common and the bay visible from its upper windows, and under the shadow of the gilded dome, in a great, square, old- fashioned house, comfortable and roomy, solid, plain, and sober in its fittings, Mr. Guild is rounding out his busy, useful life, surrounded by books of all kinds, with one of the finest libraries in the city, and with material enough at his hand to write such a history of his native city as has rarely been written of any city under the sun. But he does not live altogether in the 421 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY past; he is the good, the progressive cit- izen, well disposed to every reform meas- ure, yet who brings to bear the sentiment of permanence as the essence of real prog- ress, and would build the structure of the present and the future upon the founda- tion of the past, and not " on the shining, shifting sands of accident." It is something over seventy-five years ago since Mr. Guild was born. Although his father was a Harvard man, circum- stances prevented the son from following his footsteps to Cambridge, and his edu- cation was at the public schools, the gram- mar and English High, from thence to the counting-room, the Journal office, the Traveller, and in 1857 the Commercial Bulletin, the paper which has been iden- tified with him, rather than he with it, in all the years since. He has been a councilman and an alderman of his native 422 LITEKARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY city, doing it public service of the purest and most devoted kind. His books have chiefly been chronicles of his travels abroad, but most delightfully told, with all the freedom of the friend who knows that he has a sympathetic listener, and yet carrying with them a most delightful literary flavour. It is indeed a fortunate community which possesses such a citizen as Boston has in Mr. Curtis Guild. The Boston Herald has several strong editorial writers who have written books, among them being the Reverend Francis Tiffany, whose cheerful messages of prac- tical philosophy reach thousands of read- ers every week. His books are " Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix," " Bird Bolts," and " This Goodly Frame," a book of travel. Mr. Tiffany was for many years a Unita- rian preacher at West Newton, but ex- changed the pulpit for the wider audience 423 LITEKABY BOSTON OF TO-DAY gained through journalism and literature a number of years ago, making his resi- dence in old Cambridge. Sylvester Baxter is more widely known as a contributor to leading magazines and author of books on topics of municipal interest than as a member of the Herald staff, which he was for many years. At present he is devoting all his time to gen- eral literature, living and working in a delightful home in Maiden, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. It was he who first suggested the organisation of Greater Bos- ton, aiding the project by pen and personal influence. He was secretary of the Met- ropolitan Park System of Boston when it was first started, and is a park commis- sioner for Maiden. Truly Boston has much for which to thank Mr. Baxter. Another Herald attache who is known to literature is Edmund Noble, who had an 424 LITEKAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY interesting career on European journals before coming to this country. Mr. Noble was born in Glasgow in 1853. He began his newspaper career on St. Helens News- paper, and was later connected with Lon- don journals, and was in Eussia several years as correspondent. While there he met a beautiful young Russian woman, whom he has since married, and in collab- oration with her he has written a book on Russia. Previously, however, he had written books and magazine articles on that country, besides a number of volumes on topics of general interest. The story of literary Boston would not be complete without another mention of the Atlantic Monthly and the man who stands at the pilot-wheel which keeps it along its peculiar course on the sea of belles-lettres. From the days when James T. Fields and Oliver Wendell Holmes 425 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY launched it, the Atlantic has had famous men in its editorial chair. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, William Dean Howells, Horace Scudder, Walter Hines Page, Bliss Perry, -where can be found a group of men better fitted for that position? During its forty odd years the Atlantic has occu- pied a place unique in American litera- ture; and the present incumbent of the editorial chair is amply capable of main- taining the high standard set for it so many years ago by its founders. Bliss Perry was born in Williamstown, Massa- chusetts, in 1860, graduating from Will- iams College when he was twenty-one years old. After a iew years' study in Berlin and Strasburg universities, he returned to his alma mater to become professor of English, a post he occupied seven years. He went next to Princeton, New Jersey, where he discharged the duties incident to 426 BLISS PERRY LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY the occupancy of the chair of English for six years. During this time he edited vol- umes of Scott, Burke, and other standard authors, and also did much original work. Five books, four of them novels and short stories, are credited to him, all bearing the hall-mark of the highest literary cul- ture; and those who knew the young Princeton professor and his work were not surprised when he was offered the editor- ship of the Atlantic Monthly. He came to Boston in 1899, and resides in Cam- bridge. He is on the executive board of the Authors' Club and a valued member of that organisation. Readers of the At- lantic need not be told how well he is carrying out the idea of the founders of that famous monthly, nor be assured that it is in safe hands. 427 CHAPTER XIX. LITERARY BOSTON OF THE FUTURE all, what is literature ? Is it a collection of words euphoni- ously arranged to indicate a cer- tain number of harmonious ideas which shall convey more or less of delight to its readers, or, perhaps, enforce an obvious truth in a way which becomes impressive ? Or is it made up of another set of words, so arranged as to present striking pictures to the retina of the mind with such force as to create a demand only to be gratified by advertising of a more or less sensa- tional nature with consequent commercial value? In these days the thoughtful 428 LITERARY BOSTON OF TO-DAY reader may well stop to ask himself these questions; and in the answer lies some inkling of the future of American litera- ture. Says John Burroughs : " A man does not live out half his days without a cer- tain simplicity of life. Excesses, irregu- larities, violences, kill him. It is the same with books; they, too, are under the same law ; they hold the gift of life on the same terms. Only an honest book can live; only absolute sincerity can stand the test of time." And yet he says again, speak- ing of the time when every writer must lay down his pen and join the silent throng of the past : " How is it going to fare with Lowell, Longfellow and Whittier and Emerson and all the rest of them ? How has it fared with so many names in the past that were in their own days on all men's tongues? Of the names just men- 429 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO-DAY tioned, Whittier and Emerson drew more from the spirit of the times in which they lived, shared more in a particular move- ment of thought and morals, than the other two, and to that extent are they in dan- ger of dropping out and losing their vogue. The fashions of this world pass away, fashions in thought, style, in humour, in morals, as well as in anything else." And so, although Boston may not have to-day its Emerson, its Holmes, its Low- ell, there are numerous workers in litera- ture who have already established a world- wide fame, and, better yet for its literary future, an ever-widening group of earnest young toilers, who have a long stretch of years before them in which to work out their young ambitions. Already the names of some of these are familiar in the higher ranks of literature, and to them we look for a continuance of Boston's literary 430 LITEEAEY BOSTON OF TO -DAY fame. To them we look for the earnest purpose which shall find highest pleasure in artistic creation, and to look on a fresh idea as a " watcher of the skies when a new planet swings into his ken." If the creative impulse is theirs, combined with the sincerity of purpose and the persever- ance of soul, they have already grasped the greatest good of the literary worker. To them we commend the words of Mrs. Browning's poem : " Sit still upon your thrones, O ye poetic ones : And if, sooth, the world decry you, Let it pass unnoticed by you, Ye to yourselves suffice, Without its flatteries." THE END. 431 INDEX Adams, Charles Follen, German dialect, 309 ; " Yaw- cob Strauss," 310 ; early life and literary work, 310 314. Adams, Charles Francis, 386. Adams, Oscar Fay, literary work, 326 ; education and connections, 327. Advertiser, Boston, 38, 159, 160, 202, 398, 403, 404. Agassiz, Alexander, work at Harvard, 268 ; literary work, 268. Agassiz, Mrs. Louis, 268. Ayitator, 236. Alcott, Louisa M., 369. Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, place of birth, 17 ; residences, 16, 17, 19 ; his Boston home, 19, 20, 21, 23 ; personal appearance, 16 ; editorial connections, 17, 18 ; list of books, 18, 19, 150, 426. Allen, Stillman B., 333. Allen, Willis Boyd, devotion to literature, 332 ; birth- place, 333 ; books, 334 ; home and social life, 335. American Historical Review, 270. Amherst, Mass., 315. Anagnos, Julia Romana, 47, 48, 52. Anagnos, Michael, 48. Andover, Maine, 197. Andover, Mass., 109. Arlington, Mass., 119, 122, 256. Arlington Heights, 352, 376. Ashley, Prof., 271. Aspinwall, Mrs. Thomas (Alicia Towne), 197. Atlantic Monthly, 61, 69, 125, 127, 136, 149, 150, 187, 190, 209, 217', 258, 324, 379, 412, 425, 426, 427. Bacon, Edwin Munroe, journalistic work, 403 ; books, 403404. Bancroft, George, 20. 433 INDEX Barnard, P. A. P., 382, 383. Bates, Arlo, early life, 172-174 ; editorial connections, 174 176 ; literary work, 176 177. Bates, Katharine Lee, 274. Baxter, Sylvester, 424. Beecher, Henry Ward, 88. Belmont, Mass., 120, 256. Berwick, Me., 66, 67, 69, 152. Blake, Mary E., 351, 352. Bohemian, The, 314. Boston Author's Club, 51, 93, 156, 178, 222, 224, 300, 327 351 427 Boston Latin School, 34, 168, 264, 315. Boston, streets and localities, 19, 20, 25, 43, 46, 48, 57, 58, 61, 64, 66, 74, 77, 79. 88, 99, 106, 137, 170, 171, 172, 186, 202, 205, 219, 220, 221, 226, 227, 269, 283, 288, 291, 301, 352, 353, 409, 420. Boston University," 275, 405. Brattleboro, Vt., 411. Brookline, 191, 197. Brooklyn, N. Y., 339. Brooks, Elbridge S., 223, 253. Brooks, Geraldine, work and education, 223, 224. Brooks, Phillips, 14, 105, 106, 304. Brown, Abbie Farwell, 224. Brown, Alice, editorial work, 73 ; short stories and novels, 73-76. Brown University, 308. Bryant, William Cullen, 384. Buckham, James, early life, 323 ; literary work, 324 ; home life, 324. Budget, Boston, 359, 360. Burns, Anna L., 367. Burroughs, John, 128, 187, 429. Butterworth, Hezekiah, qualities as a writer, 131 133 ; birthplace and early life, 133. 134 ; literary work, 133137 ; lecture work, 138, 318, 319. Catholic Union and Times, 363. Cambridge, 25, 27, 119. 197, 207, 209, 221, 258, 265, 266, 268, 269, 271, 350. Century Magazine, 136. 150, 281. Commercial Bulletin, 442. Commercial, Cincinnati, 357. Channing, Blanche M., 196. Cheney, Edna Dow, philanthropic work, 250, 253; birthplace, education, and marriage, 250 ; literary work, 253. Cheney, Seth Wells, 250. Chesterfield, N. II.. 410, 411. Chicago, 11, 12, 13, 189, 231, 235, 236. Choate. Rufus, 91. Churchm.an, The, 253. 434 INDEX Clapp, Henry A., dramatic criticism, 405 ; birthplace and ancestry, 406, 407 ; place in literature, 409 ; home, 409. Clark, Rev. Edward L., 305. Clarke, Helen Archibald, childhood, 283; education, 284 ; musical work, 285 ; collaboration with Miss Porter, 286, 287 ; home, 288. Clement, Edward H., dedication ; birthplace and edu- cation, 397 ; journalistic and literary work, 398 401 ; personality, 402 ; home, 403. Cleveland, Ohio, 189. Colby University, 321. Columbia University, 53, 382. Coman, Katherine, 274. Connecticut, 82, 83. Converse, Florence, 274, 353. Conway, Katharine Eleanor, Boyle O'Reilly's estimate, 362 ; birthplace and education, 362 ; editorial con- nections, 363 365 ; personal character, 365 366 ; books, 366 367. Cooke, George Willis, work in the pulpit, 301 302 ; literary work, 301 304 ; birthplace and education, 302 ; books, 303304. Cornell University, 141. Cosmopolitan, 217. Courier, Boston Sunday, 174. Critic, The, 418. Crothers, Rev. Samuel, 274. Cummings, Edward, 36, 305. Dana, Paul, 293. Dana, Richard H., 293. Dartmouth College, 128, 178, 339. Davis, Prof., 272. Dedham, Mass., 163, 165. Deland, Margaret, beginning of her literary career, 94 97 ; her books, 97, 98, 101, 102 ; personality, 98 ; her two homes, 99, 108. Delineator, The, 215. Derby, Lucy, 95, 96. Detroit Free Press, 312, 313. Devereux, Mary, 205. Diaz, Abby Morton, ancestry, 253, 254 ; anti-slavery and suffrage work, 254 ; literary work, 254 ; home, 256. Dickinson, Anna, 88. Dix, Beulah Marie, home, 210 ; ancestry 211 ; edu- cation, 212 ; literary work, 212 216. Dix, Edwin Asa, 211. Dole, Rev. Charles F., 301. Dole, Nathan Haskell, collaboration, 218 ; birthplace, 292 ; education, 293 ; literary career, 293 300. Donald, Rev. E. W., 305. 435 INDEX Dorchester, 92, 207, 220, 314. Dresser, Horatio, 391, 393. Dreyfus, Mrs. Carl (Lillian Shuman), birthplace and education, 221 222 ; marriage, 222 ; club-life, 222 ; literary work, 222, 223. Dreyfus, Carl, 222. Dubuque, la., 232, 233, 235. Duxbury, 220, 228. East Gloucester, 112. Eastman, Julia, 275. Eliot, President, connection with Harvard, 284; lit- erary work, 264, 265 ; home in Cambridge, 265 267. Elliott, John, 55. Elliott, Maud Howe, 44, 54, 55. Elson, Louis C., musical and literary work, 404. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 14, 15, 59, 141, 219, 249, 369, 391, 429, 430. Erzeroum, Turkey, 314. Everett, Edward, 25. Exeter, N. H., 418. Fall River, Mass., 229. Farlow, Professor, 269. Farquhar, Anna (Mrs. Bergengren), birthplace and early life, 354 ; books, 354, 355 ; personality and home life, 355. Fenollosa, Ernest, 293. Fields, James T., 14, 18, 57, 60, 61, 64, 425. Fields, Mrs. James T., her home, 56 60; her mar- riage to Mr. Fields, 60 ; her books, 61 ; her philan- thropies, 61 63. Field, Roswell, 11, 12, 23. Fiske, John, 258. Ford, Paul Leicester. 325. Ford, Worthington C., 325. Foss, Sam Walter, poetry, 305, 306; early life, 306; education, 307 ; editorial connections, 307 ; library work, 308 ; books, 308, 309. Fox, E. W., 371. Framingham, Mass., 122. Frye, Emma Sheridan, 204. Fuller, Anna, qualities as a writer, 197, 198; begin- ning of literary work, 198; books, 197202; method of work. 200 203. Fuller, Margaret, 26, 29, 49. Gardiner, Me., 54. Oilman, Arthur, connection with Radcliffe, 270 ; lit- erary work, 271. Gilman, Nicholas P., 316. Globe, Boston, 217. Globe-Democrat, 360. Goodale, Prof. G. L., 272. Goodwin, Lavinia S., 367. 436 INDEX Gordon, Rev. George, 804. Grant, Robert, 162 ; the creator of Selma White, 167 ; birth and education, 168 ; literary work, 169 ; home life, 170. Gray, Prof. Asa, 272. Greeley, Horace, 387. Guild, Curtis, public and literary work, 419 423; home, 420 421 ; early life, 422. Guiney, Louise Imogen, 76 ; quality of work, 288 ; postmistress of Auburndale, 288 ; education and home life, 289 ; literary work, 288 290. Guiney, General P. R., 289. Hale, Edward Everett, 25 ; "Dean of Literary Boston," 31 ; home life, 32 34 ; birth and school-days, 34 35 ; his ministry, 35 ; philanthropies, 36 37 ; lit- erary work, 37 39. Hall, David Prescott, 52. Hall, Florence Howe, 52. Halstead, Murat, 357. Hampton Falls, 74, 140. Hanover, N. H., 178, 339. Harbour, J. L., birthplace and early life, 318 ; liter- ary work, 317 322 ; lecture platform, 321 322. Harkins, E. A., 418. Harper's Magazine, 136, 150, 217. Hart, Albert Bushnell, 270. Harvard Advocate, 371. Harvard Graduates' Magazine, 270. Harvard University, 17, 34, 52, 141 159, 163, 168, 179, 186, 213, 258, 259, 264, 265, 267, 268, 269, 270. 271, 293, 333, 350, 371, 407, 418. Haverhill, Mass., 397. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 14, 15, 26, 59, 219, 369. Hazard, Caroline, 274. Herald, Boston, 88, 423, 424. Herald, Neiv York, 398. Herrick, Rev. Samuel, 305. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 23 ; early life, 23 27 ; his work in the ministry, 27 28 ; literary work, 28 30 ; home and family, 28 ; Mrs. Higgin- son, 28. Hingham, Mass., 294. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 14, 15, 57, 59, 219, 258, 425, 430. Horton, Rev. E. A., 305. Hovey, William A., 399. Howe, Henry Marion, 52, 53. Howe, Julia Ward, 25 ; position, 39 41 ; private life, 42 45 ; birthplace and early life, 45 46 ; her marriage, 46 ; children, 47, 51 55 ; her Boston homes, 48, 49 ; residence in London, 46 ; in Italy, 47 ; club-life, 42, 50, 51 ; her books, 49, 50. 43T INDEX Howe, Samuel Gridley, 46, 49, 141. Howells, William Dean, 18, 375, 426. Howells, Mrs. William D., 412. Independent, N. Y., 112, 217. International Review, 182 185. Irving, Washington, 26, 342. Jackson, Prof. C. L., 372. Jackson, Edward Payson, books, 314 316; birth- place, 314. Jamaica Plain, 217, 219, 250, 300. James, Prof. William, 273. Jewett, Sarah Orne, friendship with Mrs. Fields, 63 65 ; personality, 64 ; methods of work, 65 67 ; home-life in Berwick, Me., 67 69 ; literary work, 6972. Jewett, Sophie, 275. Johnson, Rev. William, 274. Journal, Boston, 405, 418, 422. Journal, Providence, 174. Journal of Economics, Quarterly, 270. Journal of Ethics, International, 282. Journal of Social Science, 141. Kennebunkport, Me., 101, 106, 122. King, Wm. Basil, 274. Kittery Point, 333. Knowles, Frederic Lawrence, editorial and literary work, 325. Lahee, Henry C., 404. Langdell, C. C., Harvard connections, 268 ; literary work, 268. Lanman, Prof., 273. Lanza, Gaetano, 275. Lee, Sarah White, 367. Lexington, 302, 397. Lincoln, Mary J., 367. Lippincott's Magazine, 213, 215, 217. Livermore, Daniel P., 229. Livermore, Mary A., 88 ; work, 226 ; birthplace, 227 ; education, 227 228 ; marriage, 229 ; work with Sanitary Commission, 230 237 ; other philan- thropic work, 238, 239 ; home life, 239241 ; lit- erary work, 236 241. Lloyd, Henry Demarest, fighting the trusts, 378, 379 ; literary work, 379 390 ; ancestry, 380 ; birthplace, 381 ; college training, 382 384 ; polit- ical economic work, 384 387 ; books, 388 ; style, 389 390 ; connections, 390 ; marriage, 390. Lodge, Henry Cabot, birthplace, 179 ; Washington and Nahant homes, 179 181 ; connection with the law, 182 ; literary work, 181 184 ; political career, 184185. London, 78, 81. 438 INDEX Longfellow, Henry W., 14, 26, 28, 59, 219, 258, 259, 260, 261, 369, 429. Lowell, James Russell, 14, 15, 59, 219, 258, 259, 260, 261, 429, 430. Lowell, Percival, Boston connections, 177 ; literary work, 177. Lynn Saturday Union, 308. Lyon, Prof., 272. McCracken, Elizabeth, 224. McKenzie, Rev. Alexander, 274. Maine, 115 152, 172, 173, 174, 293, 353. Maiden, Mass., 424. Mansfield, Richard, 155, 204. Marean, Emma Endicott, 290. Morgan, Forrest, 218. Mead, Edwin D., birthplace and early life, 410 413 ; life abroad, 413 ; philanthropic work, 414 416 ; literary work, 414 417. Mead, Mrs. (Lucia True Ames), 417. Mead, Larkin G., 411, 412. Medford, 370, 372. Melrose, 239, 242, 324. Michigan, 302, 346, 347. Milton, 246. Morse, John Torrey, Jr., birthplace, 185 ; connection with law and literature, 186 ; historical work, 186 ; Boston home, 186. Moulton, Louise Chandler. Boston home, 77 81 ; London connections, 8182 ; birthplace and early life, 82 ; beginning of her literary career, 82 86 ; marriage, 86 ; her kindness to young authors, 89 90 ; friendship with Mrs. Spofford, 114. Moulton, William U., husband of Louise Chandler ; editor True Flag, 86. Munsterberg, Prof., 273. Myers, James J., 372. Nahant, Mass., 180, 181. National Magazine, 353. Newburyport, Mass., 115. New Hampshire, 74, 140, 302, 307. Neivs, Savannah, 398. Newton Centre, Mass., 113. New York, 17, 45, 49, 53, 122, 189, 207, 214, 344, 381, 385, 398. Niagara Falls, 294. Noble, Edmund C., 424, 425. North American Review, 182, 259, 260, 379. Norton, Charles Eliot, 126 ; birth, 259 ; education and editorial work, 259 ; connection with Harvard Uni- versity, 259 ; literary work, 26O 264. O'Reilly, John Boyle, 147, 148, 149, 150, 362, 363, 364. 439 INDEX Oskaloosa, la., 318. Outlook, The, 136, 320. Page, Walter Hines, 426. Paine, Robert Treat, 20, 61. Palfrey, John G., 26. Pall Mall Gazette, 200. Palmer, Alice Freeman, 267 ; birthplace and early life, 344 346 ; college life, 345 349 ; marriage, 350. Palmer, George Herbert, Cambridge home, 266 ; edu- cation and Harvard connections, 266 : literary work, 266, 267, 350. Papyrus Club, 151, 152, 158, 166, 226. Paris, 75, 124. Parkman, Francis, 376. Parsons, Charles, 27. Peabody, Josephine Preston, quality of work, 206 210 ; birthplace and education, 207 ; present home, 209; books, 209. Peabody, Prof., 273. Penhallow, Charles, 293. Perry, Bliss, editor of Atlantic Monthly, 425 426, 427 ; birthplace and education, 426* 427 ; literary work, 427. Phillips, Wendell, 88, 100, 369. Picayune, New Orleans, 360. Pickering, Prof., 273. Pidgin, Charles Felton, books, 330 ; statistician, 330, 331 ; birthplace, 332. Pier, Arthur Stanwood, 323. Pilot, The, 147 148, 361, 362, 363, 365. Plymouth, Mass., 254. Poet-Lore, 278, 282, 283, 285. Pomfret, Conn., 82, 83. Ponkapog, 16, 17. Poor, Agnes Blake, literary work, 196, 197; home life, 197 ; nom-de-plume, 197. Porter. Charlotte, birthplace and early life, 276 279 ; education, 280, 281 ; literary work, 281 ; connec- tion with Poet-Lore, 282, 283 ; collaboration with Miss Clarke, 286. Portsmouth, N. H., 17, 22, 67, 307. Post, Chicago Evening, 11. Post, N. Y. Evening, 199. Potter, Mary Knight, 205. Prince, Helen Choate, granddaughter of Rufus Choate, 91 ; early life, 91 ; her books, 9293. Pritchett, Henry S., 275. Proctor, Edna Dean, place of residence, 93 ; connec- tion with literary Boston, 93. Radcliffe College, 202, 207, 212, 213, 224, 270, 291. 346. 440 ' INDEX Reed, Helen Leah, work at " Harvard Annex," 202 ; editorial work, 202 ; books, 202, 203. Republican,, Springfield, 141. Register, Christian, 191, 290. Register, Harvard, 263. Rhode Island, 133 134. Rhodes, James Ford, historical work, 188 189 ; birth- place and education, 189. Richards, Laura E., 53, 54. Richards, Henry, 53. Robinson, Edith, literary work, 224 ; books, 225. Roche, James Jeffrey, personality, 143 145 ; birth and education, 145, 146 ; editorial connections, 147 149; books, 150, 302. Rolfe, William H., 271. Royce, Josiah II., 273. Roxbury, 33, 158, 221, 332. Sanborn, Edwin D., 339 Sanborn, Franklin Benjamin, birthplace, 140 ; grad- uation, 141 ; literary and public work, 141 142. Sanborn, Kate, Good Cheer, 337, 338 ; birthplace and early life, 339, 340 ; literary work, 340 342 ; coun- try home, 343. Sawyer, Walter Leon, 323. Scribner's Magazine, 150. Scudder, Horace, 258, 271, 426. Scudder, Samuel, 271. Scudder, Vida, 210 275. Searle, Arthur, 272. Sears, Richard, 293. Severance, Caroline, 50. Shakespeariana, 281, 282. Shaler, Nathaniel, connection with Harvard, 267 ; lit- erary work, 267. Shillaber, B. P., 123, 124. Smith College, 141, 340, 346. Smith, Justin Harvey, Boston connections, 178 ; col- lege work, 178 ; literary work, 178. Somerville, 224, 308. Sowle. Henrietta, 367. Sparhawk, Frances C., 367. Spofford, Harriet Prescott, Boston's claim upon her, 114; birthplace, 114; marriage and home at Deer Isle, 115 ; her books and her personality, 116. Spofford, Richard S.. 115 116. Stan wood. Edward. 322 Stearns, Frank Preston, estimate, 368 ; birth and an- tecedents, 369, 370 : education, 370 ; college train- ing, 371 372; life abroad, 373 375; literary work, 375 376 ; home, 376 377 ; personality, 378. Stearns, George Luther,. 369. Stedman, E. C., 83. 441 INDEX Stimson, Frederic Jesup, novelists and the law, 161 ; birthplace, 163 ; his books, 164 16B ; his home in Dedham, 165166. St. Nicholas, 136. Storer, Bellamy, 373. Strang, Lewis C., journalistic and literary work, 405. Sullivan, Thomas Russell, ancestry, 152 153 ; birth and education, 153, 154 ; play-writing, 154, 155 ; other literary work, 155 158. Sumichrast, Prof., 269. Sumner, Charles, 88. Sutherland, Evelyn Greenleaf, newspaper work, 203 ; nom-de-plume, 203 ; stories and plays, 203, 204 ; home life, 204, 216. Sutherland, Dr. J. P., 203. Swett, Sophie, 352, 353. Swett, Susan Hartley, 352. Switzerland, 374. Taussig, Prof., 270. Technology, Massachusetts Institute of, 52, 175, 252, 265, 275. Thaxter, Celia, 369. Thayer, Prof., 273. Thoreau, Henry, 141. Ticknor, Benjamin H., 217. Ticknor, Caroline, home, 217 ; literary work, 217, 218, 219 ; home life, 219. Ticknor, George, 26. Ticknor, William D., 237. Tiffany, Rev. Francis, 423. Time and The Hour, 32, 56, 102, 179, 298, 403. Times, N. Y. Sunday, 124. Times, New York, 386. Torrey, Bradford, birthplace, 187 ; present home, 187, 188 ; literary work, 187, 188. Train, Elizabeth Phipps, first literary work, 219 ; list of books, 219 220. Transcript, Boston Evening, 70, 203, 217, 293, 294, 304, 367, 397, 399. Traveller, 358, 422. Tribune, Chicago, 360, 386, 387, 390. Tribune, N. Y., 87, 217. 397. Trine, Ralph Waldo, 391, 393. Trowbridge, John Townsend, 25 : his first book, 118 ; his home in Arlington, 119, 122 130; birthplace and early life, 122, 123; beginnings of literary work, 123, 124 ; life abroad, 124 : his connection with the " Abolitionists," and novels of that period, 125 ; editorial connections, 124, 126 ; methods of work, 128. Trowbridge, Prof. John, 270. Tufts College, 275, 397. 442 INDEX University of Vermont, 323. Vermont, 323, 328, 329. Waltham, Mass., 112. Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, birthplace and early life, 109 ; marriage, 110 ; her books, 110 112 ; her homes, 113. Ward, Helen Alden, 291. Ward, Herbert Dickinson, birthplace and education, 112 ; marriage, 112 ; books and social life, 113. Ward, May Alden, president of State Federation Women's Clubs, 290 ; literary work, 290 ; birth- place and education, 290 ; home life, 291. Ward, Samuel, 49. Ward, William G., literary work, 290 291. Ward, William Hayes, 112113. Warner, Charles Dudley, 128 Warren, Cornelia, literary work, 220 ; Settlement House life, 220. Warren, R. I., 133. Waters, Clara Erskine Clement, 364. Webster, Daniel, 339. Webster, Ezekiel, 339. Wellesley College, 141, 210, 274, 346, 348, 353. Wellesley, Wellesley Hills, 187. Wells, David A., 384. Wendell, Barrett, 269. W'eymouth, Mass., 187. Wheelwright, John T., birthplace, 158 ; graduation and editorial connections, 159 ; books, 160. White, Eliza Orne, first work, 190 ; Brookline home, 191, working habits, 192 194 ; books, 195, 196. White, Sallie Joy, 367. Whiting, Lillian, estimate of work, 355 ; early life, 356, 357 ; newspaper connections, 357 360 ; books, 360 S61. Whitman, Walt, 128. Whitney, Adeline Train, contrast with Mrs. Liver- more, 242 ; literary work, 243 249 ; birthplace, 245; education, 245; marriage, 246. Whitney, Anne, 240. Whitney, Seth D., 246. Whittier, John Greenleaf, 14, 15, 59, 249, 369, 429. Whiton-Stone, Mrs., 367. Wide-AwaJce, 353. Wilkins, Mary E., work contrasted with Miss Jewett's, 72 ; marriage, 72. Willard, Ashton R., 328, 329. Williams, Prof., 272. Williamstown, Mass., 426. Willis, N. P., 17. Wingate, Charles E. L., literary work, education, and list of books, 418. 443 INDEX Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, 238, 255. Woman's Journal, 236. Wood, Henry, 391, 393. Woods, Kate Tannatt, home and birthplace, 256 ; lit- erary work, 256, 257. Wright, Carroll D., 330. Wright, Josiah H., Harvard connections, 221, 269. Wright, Mary Tappan, literary work. 221 ; home life, 221. Worcester, 27, 35, 294, 327. Yankee Blade, 307. Young, John Russell, 398. Youth's Companion, 73, 133, 134, 135, 188, 217, 318, 319, 320, 322, 324. Zakrzewska, Dr. Marie, 252. 444 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW RENEWED BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE RECALL ? 1019 3 Jinn low, H. LIterarv to -dav. -.os ton of Call Number: B6 280193