The maiden name of this lady was Prince._Library of the best American literature Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

Puritan stock on both sides, and was born in Cumberland, near Portland,

Maine, on the twelfth day of August, 1806. At an early age Miss Prince

was married to Mr. Seba Smith, a newspaper editor whom she assisted

in his editorial work. Mr. Smith, himself, was a man of considerable

literary attainment, who, under the _nom de plume_ of “Jack Downing,”

obtained a national reputation. He is also the author of “Powhattan;

a metrical romance,” and several shorter poems which appeared in the

periodicals of the day. His magazine tales and essays were collected

in 1850 and published under the title of “Down East.”

Like most young women writers of that day, Mrs. Smith contributed

her early productions to various periodicals, anonymously. It was not

until her husband suffered business disaster that she commenced the

open profession of authorship as a means of support for her family.

Her first published work “Riches Without Wings” appeared in 1838;

“The Sinless Child and other poems” was collected and issued in book

form in New York, in 1841. In 1842, Mrs. Smith and her husband removed

to New York where they have afterwards resided and the same year she

published a novel entitled “The Western Captive” and also a fanciful

prose tale “The Salamander; a Legend for Christmas.”

Mrs. Smith is also the author of “The Roman Tribute, a tragedy in five

acts,” founded on the exemption of Constantinople from destruction by

a tribute paid by Theodosius to the conquering general, Attila. She

is also the author of a tragedy entitled “Jacob Leisler,” which is

founded upon a well known dramatic incident of the colonial history of

New York. Both of these plays enjoyed in their day popular favor upon

the stage. In 1847, she published “Woman and her needs,” and in 1852,

“Hints on Dress and Beauty.” Subsequent to these came “The Bald Eagle;

or the last of the Ramapaughs;” “The News Boy;” “Sagamor of Saco;”

“The Two Wives;” “Kitty Howard’s Journal,” and “Destiny, a Tragedy.”

Besides the above volumes, Mrs. Smith was the author of much fugitive

verse and was also a liberal contributor of the current magazines of

her day. The varied and peculiar merits of this author will appear to

the reader of her writings, who must be impressed that in the drama,

in the sonnet and in miscellaneous poems of imagination and fancy, she

has vindicated her right to a place among the first poets of her sex,

while her prose writings, though not largely read at this time, are

characterized by the same subtle insight, analysis and delicacy of

treatment which mark her poetry.

* * * * *

EXTRACTS FROM “THE SINLESS CHILD.”

It is difficult to select from a poem of which the parts make

one harmonious whole; but the history of “The Sinless Child” is

illustrated all through with panel pictures which are scarcely

less effective when separated from their series than when

combined, and the reader will be gratified with a few of those

which serve to exhibit the author’s graceful play of fancy,

and the pure vein of poetic sentiment as well as her manner and

style in treating this masterpiece of its author.

THE STEP-MOTHER.

(FROM “THE SINLESS CHILD.”)

YOU speak of Hobert’s second wife,

A lofty dame and bold:

I like not her forbidding air,

And forehead high and cold.

The orphans have no cause for grief,

She dare not give it now,

Though nothing but a ghostly fear

Her heart of pride could bow.

One night the boy his mother called:

They heard him weeping say――

“Sweet mother, kiss poor Eddy’s cheek,

And wipe his tears away!”

Red grew the lady’s brow with rage,

And yet she feels a strife

Of anger and of terror too,

At thought of that dead wife.

Wild roars the wind, the lights burn blue,

The watch-dog howls with fear;

Loud neighs the steed from out the stall:

What ♦form is gliding near?

No latch is raised, no step is heard,

But a phantom fills the space――

A sheeted spectre from the dead,

With cold and leaden face!

What boots it that no other eye

Beheld the shade appear?

The guilty lady’s guilty soul

Beheld it plain and clear!

It slowly glides within the room,

And sadly looks around――

And stooping, kissed her daughter’s cheek

With lips that gave no sound!

Then softly on the stepdame’s arm

She laid a death-cold hand,

Yet it hath scorched within the flesh

Like to a burning brand;

And gliding on with noiseless foot,

O’er winding stair and hall,

She nears the chamber where is heard

Her infant’s trembling call.

She smoothed the pillow where he lay,

She warmly tucked the bed,

She wiped his tears, and stroked the curls

That clustered round his head.

The child, caressed, unknowing fear,

Hath nestled him to rest;

The mother folds her wings beside――

The mother from the blest!

♦ ‘from’ replaced with ‘form’

* * * * *

GUARDIAN ANGELS.

(FROM “THE SINLESS CHILD.”)

WITH downy pinion they enfold

The heart surcharged with wo,

And fan with balmy wing the eye

Whence floods of sorrow flow;

They bear, in golden censers up,

That sacred gift a tear――

By which is registered the griefs

Hearts may have suffered here.

No inward pang, no yearning love

Is lost to human hearts――

No anguish that the spirit feels,

When bright-winged Hope departs.

Though in the mystery of life

Discordant powers prevail;

That life itself be weariness,

And sympathy may fail:

Yet all becomes a discipline,

To lure us to the sky;

And angels bear the good it brings

With fostering care on high.

Though human hearts may weary grow,

And sink to toil-spent sleep,

And we are left in solitude

And agony to weep:

Yet _they_ with ministering zeal

The cup of healing bring,

And bear our love and gratitude

Away, on heavenward wing;

And thus the inner life is wrought,

The blending earth and heaven――

The love more earnest in its glow

Where much has been forgiven!

* * * * *

THE BROOK.

WHITHER away, thou merry Brook,

Whither away so fast,

With dainty feet through the meadow green,

And a smile as you hurry past?”

The Brook leaped on in idle mirth,

And dimpled with saucy glee;

The daisy kissed in lovingness,

And made with the willow free.

I heard its laugh adown the glen,

And over the rocky steep,

Away where the old tree’s roots were bare

In the waters dark and deep;

The sunshine flashed upon its face,

And played with flickering leaf――

Well pleased to dally in its path,

Though the tarrying were brief.

“Now stay thy feet, oh restless one,

Where droops the spreading tree,

And let thy liquid voice reveal

Thy story unto me.”

The flashing pebbles lightly rung,

As the gushing music fell,

The chiming music of the brook,

From out the woody dell.

“My mountain home was bleak and high,

A rugged spot and drear,

With searching wind and raging storm,

And moonlight cold and clear.

I longed for a greeting cheery as mine,

For a fond and answering look

But none were in that solitude

To bless the little brook.

“The blended hum of pleasant sounds

Came up from the vale below,

And I wished that mine were a lowly lot,

To lapse, and sing as I go;

That gentle things, with loving eyes,

Along my path should glide,

And blossoms in their loveliness

Come nestling to my side.

“I leaped me down: my rainbow robe

Hung shivering to the sight,

And the thrill of freedom gave to me

New impulse of delight.

A joyous welcome the sunshine gave,

The bird and the swaying tree;

The spear-like grass and blossoms start

With joy at sight of me.

“The swallow comes with its bit of clay,

When the busy Spring is here.

And twittering bears the moistened gift

A nest on the eaves to rear;

The twinkling feet of flock and herd

Have trodden a path to me,

And the fox and the squirrel come to drink

In the shade of the alder-tree.

“The sunburnt child, with its rounded foot,

Comes hither with me to play,

And I feel the thrill of his lightsome heart

As he dashes the merry spray.

I turn the mill with answering glee,

As the merry spokes go round,

And the gray rock takes the echo up,

Rejoicing in the sound.

“The old man bathes his scattered locks,

And drops me a silent tear――

For he sees a wrinkled, careworn face

Look up from the waters clear.

Then I sing in his ear the very song

He heard in years gone by;

The old man’s heart is glad again,

And a joy lights up his eye.”

Enough, enough, thou homily brook!

I’ll treasure thy teachings well,

And I will yield a heartfelt tear

Thy crystal drops to swell;

Will bear like thee a kindly love

For the lowly things of earth,

Remembering still that high and pure

Is the home of the spirit’s birth.

* * * * *

THE APRIL RAIN.

THE April rain――the April rain――

I hear the pleasant sound;

Now soft and still, like little dew,

Now drenching all the ground.

Pray tell me why an April shower

Is pleasanter to see

Than falling drops of other rain?

I’m sure it is to me.

I wonder if ’tis really so――

Or only hope the while,

That tells of swelling buds and flowers,

And Summer’s coming smile.

Whate’er it is, the April shower

Makes me a child again;

I feel a rush of youthful blood

Come with the April rain.

And sure, were I a little bulb

Within the darksome ground,

I should love to hear the April rain

So gently falling round;

Or any tiny flower were I,

By Nature swaddled up,

How pleasantly the April shower

Would bathe my hidden cup!

The small brown seed, that rattled down

On the cold autumnal earth,

Is bursting from its cerements forth,

Rejoicing in its birth.

The slender spears of pale green grass

Are smiling in the light,

The clover opes its folded leaves

As if it felt delight.

The robin sings on the leafless tree,

And upward turns his eye,

As loving much to see the drops

Come filtering from the sky;

No doubt he longs the bright green leaves

About his home to see,

And feel the swaying summer winds

Play in the full-robed tree.

The cottage door is open wide,

And cheerful sounds are heard,

The young girl sings at the merry wheel

A song like the wilding bird;

The creeping child by the old, worn sill

Peers out with winking eye,

And his ringlets rubs with chubby hand,

As the drops come pattering by.

With bounding heart beneath the sky,

The truant boy is out,

And hoop and ball are darting by

With many a merry shout.

Ay, sport away, ye joyous throng――

For yours is the April day;

I love to see your spirits dance

In your pure and healthful play.

* * * * *

FLOWERS.

(FROM “THE SINLESS CHILD.”)

EACH tiny leaf became a scroll

Inscribed with holy truth,

A lesson that around the heart

Should keep the dew of youth;

Bright missals from angelic throngs

In every by-way left――

How were the earth of glory shorn,

Were it of flowers bereft!

They tremble on the Alpine height;

The fissured rock they press;

The desert wild, with heat and sand,

Shares, too, their blessedness:

And wheresoe’er the weary heart

Turns in its dim despair,

The meek-eyed blossom upward looks,

Inviting it to prayer.

* * * * *

EROS AND ANTEROS.

TIS said sweet Psyche gazed one night

On Cupid’s sleeping face――

Gazed in her fondness on the wight

In his unstudied grace:

But he, bewildered by the glare

Of light at such a time,

Fled from the side of Psyche there

As from a thing of crime.

Ay, weak the fable――false the ground――

Sweet Psyche veiled her face――

Well knowing Love, if ever found,

Will never leave his place.

Unfound as yet, and weary grown,

She had mistook another:

’Twas but Love’s semblance she had found――

Not Eros, but his brother!

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

LUCY LARCOM.

AUTHOR OF “HANNAH BINDING SHOES.”

HAD we visited the cotton mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, sixty years

ago, we perhaps would not have noticed anything peculiar or different

from other girls in the busy little body known as Lucy Larcom. She had

left school in her early teens to help support the family by serving

as an ordinary operative in a cotton factory. Yet this is where

Lucy Larcom did her first work; and to the experiences she gained

there can be traced the foundation of the literature――both prose and

poetry――with which she has delighted and encouraged so many readers.

Lucy Larcom was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1826. Her father,

a sea captain, died while she was a child, and her mother removed

with her several children to Lowell, Massachusetts. For a while Lucy

attended the public schools and at the age of ten years showed a

talent for writing verses. In the cotton mill, she tells us, her first

work was “doffing and replacing the bobbins in the machine. Next,” she

says, “I entered the spinning-room, then the dressing-room, where I

had a place beside pleasant windows looking toward the river. Later I

was promoted to the cloth-room, where I had fewer hours of confinement,

without the noisy machinery, and it was altogether neater.” The

last two years, of her eight years’ work in the mill, she served as

book-keeper, and, during her leisure hours, pursued her studies in

mathematics, grammar and English and German literature.

The female operatives in the Lowell mills published a little paper

entitled “Offering,” and it was to this that Miss Larcom contributed

her first literary production, which was in the shape of a poem

entitled “The River;” and many of her verses and essays, both grave

and gay, may be found in the old files of this paper. Her first volume,

“Similitudes,” was compiled from essays which appeared originally

in “Offering.” Since then her name has found an honored place among

the women writers of America. Among her early and best poems are

“Hannah Binding Shoes” and “The Rose Enthroned,” the latter being Miss

Larcom’s first contribution to the “Atlantic Monthly.” She did not

sign her name to the contribution and it was of such merit that one

of the reviewers attributed it to the poet Emerson. Both Mr. Lowell,

the editor of “The Atlantic Monthly,” and the poet, Whittier, to whose

papers she also contributed, praised her ability. Miss Larcom studied

at Monticello Female Seminary, Illinois, and afterwards taught in some

of the leading female schools in her native State. In 1859 appeared

her book entitled “Ships in the Mist and Other Stories,” and in 1866

was published “Breathings of a Better Life.” From 1866 to 1874 she

was editor of “Our Young Folks,” and in 1875 “An Idyl of Work, a Story

in Verse,” appeared. In 1880 “Wild Roses of Cape Ann and Other Poems”

was published, and in 1881 “Among Lowell Mill Girls” appeared. In

1885 her poetical works were gathered and published in one volume.

Of late, Miss Larcom’s writings have assumed deeply religious tones

in which the faith of her whole life finds ample expression. This

characteristic is strongly noticeable in “Beckonings” (1886), and

especially so in her last two books “As It Is In Heaven” (1891) and

“The Unseen Friend” (1892), both of which embody her maturest thought

on matters concerning the spiritual life.

One of the most admirable characteristics of Miss Larcom’s life and

her writings is the marked spirit of philanthropy pervading every

thing she did. She was in sentiment and practically the working

woman’s friend. She came from among them, had shared their toils,

and the burning and consuming impulse of her life was to better their

condition. In this, she imitated the spirit of Him, who, being lifted

up, would draw all men after Him.

* * * * *

HANNAH BINDING SHOES.

POOR lone Hannah,

Sitting at the window, binding shoes!

Faded, wrinkled,

Sitting stitching, in a mournful muse!

Bright-eyed beauty once was she,

When the bloom was on the tree:

Spring and winter

Hannah’s at the window, binding shoes.

Not a neighbor

Passing nod or answer will refuse

To her whisper,

“Is there from the fishers any news?”

Oh, her heart’s adrift with one

On an endless voyage gone!

Night and morning

Hannah’s at the window, binding shoes.

Fair young Hannah

Ben, the sunburnt fisher, gayly woos;

Hale and clever,

For a willing heart and hand he sues.

May-day skies are all aglow,

And the waves are laughing so!

For the wedding

Hannah leaves her window and her shoes.

May is passing:

Mid the apple-boughs a pigeon coos.

Hannah shudders,

For the mild south-wester mischief brews.

Round the rocks of Marblehead,

Outward bound, a schooner sped:

Silent, lonesome,

Hannah’s at the window, binding shoes.

’Tis November.

Now no tears her wasted cheek bedews.

From Newfoundland

Not a sail returning will she lose,

Whispering hoarsely, “Fisherman,

Have you, have you heard of Ben?”

Old with watching,

Hannah’s at the window, binding shoes.

Twenty winters

Bleach and tear the ragged shore she views.

Twenty seasons;――

Never has one brought her any news.

Still her dim eyes silently

Chase the white sail o’er the sea:

Hopeless, faithless,

Hannah’s at the window, binding shoes.

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

ALICE AND PHOEBE CARY.

“THE SISTER SPIRITS OF POESY.”

IT would be difficult to treat the two poetic Cary sisters separately.

Their work began, progressed through life and practically ended

together. Few persons have written under the circumstances which

at first appeared so disadvantageous. They had neither education

nor literary friends, nor was their early lot cast in a region of

literary culture――for they were reared in Cincinnati, Ohio, during

the formative period of that Western country. But surely in the wild

hills and valleys of their native West, they found

“Tongues in trees, books in running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

Alice Cary was born in Mount Healthy, near Cincinnati, April 20, 1820,

and her sister Phoebe at the same place four years later. The two

sisters studied at home together and, when eighteen years old, Alice

began to write poems and sketches of rural life under the _nom de

plume_ of Patty Lee, which attracted considerable attention and

displayed an ability which elicited encouragement from the editors

of the periodicals to which she contributed. In the mean time, Phoebe

Cary, following her sister’s example, began to contribute, and,

in 1850, the two sisters published their first volume of poems in

Philadelphia. A volume of prose sketches entitled “Clover Nook, or

Recollections of our Neighborhood in the West,” by Alice Cary followed

in 1851. In 1852, the Cary sisters removed to New York city where

they chiefly resided during the remainder of their lives, returning

occasionally to their early farm home. For some years they held

weekly receptions in New York, which were attended by leading artistic

and literary people. They earned by their pens――pure and womanly

pens――sufficient to provide a competence for all their wants. They

gathered a library, rich in standard works, to gratify their refined

tastes and did much to relieve the needy with their charity. In 1853,

Alice Cary issued a second series of her “Clover Nook Papers” and a

third gleaning from the same field appeared in 1855, entitled “Clover

Nook Children,” for the benefit of her more youthful readers. During

the prolific years, from 1852 to 1855, she also published “Lyra and

other Poems,” followed by “Hagar, a Story of To-day,” “Married, Not

Mated,” and “Hollywood,” a collection of poems. In 1854, Phoebe Cary,

also, published “Poems and Parodies.” In 1859 appeared her “Pictures

of Country Life,” a series of tales, and “The Bishop’s Son,” a novel.

In 1867, appeared her “Snowberries,” a book for young folks. In 1866,

Alice also published a volume entitled “Ballads, Lyrics and Hymns,”

which is a standard selection of her poetry and contains some of the

sweetest minor poems in the language. Alice’s “The Lover’s Diary”

appeared in 1868. It begins with the poem “Dreamland” and ranges

with a series of exquisite lyrics of love through all the phases of

courtship to married life. This was the last of her works published

during her lifetime. During the same year (1868), Phoebe published

the “Poems of Faith, Hope and Love,” a worthy companion volume to her

sister’s works, and in 1869 she aided her pastor, Chas. F. Deems, in

editing “Hymns for All Christians.”

In comparing the two sisters, it is noticeable that the poems of Alice

are more thoughtful and more melodiously expressed. They are also

marked with a stronger originality and a more vivid imagination. In

disposition, Alice was pensive and tender, while Phoebe was witty

and gay. Alice was strong in energy and patience and bore the chief

responsibility of their household, allowing her sister, who was less

passive and feminine in temperament, to consult her moods in writing.

The disparity in the actual intellectual productions of the two

sisters in the same number of years is the result, not so much of the

mental equality as of the superior energy, industry, and patience of

the elder.

The considerate love and delicacy with which Alice and Phoebe Cary

treated each other plainly indicated that they were one in spirit

through life, and in death they were not long separated. Alice died at

her home in New York City, February 12, 1871, in her fifty-first year.

Phoebe, in sorrow over this bereavement, wrote the touching verses

entitled “Light,” and in confidence said to a friend: “Alice, when

she was here, always absorbed me, and she absorbs me still. I feel

her constantly drawing me.” And so it seemed in reality, for, on the

thirty-first day of July, six months after Alice Cary was laid to rest

in Greenwood Cemetery, New York, Phoebe died at Newport, Rhode Island,

whence her remains were removed and laid by her sister’s side.

The two kindred sisters, so long associated on earth, were re-united.

The influence they have left behind them, embalmed in their hymns of

praiseful worship, their songs of love and of noblest sentiment, and

their stories of happy childhood and innocent manhood and womanhood,

will long remain to bless the earth and constitute a continual incense

to their memory.

Besides the published works named above, both Alice and Phoebe left at

their death uncollected poems enough to give each name two added

volumes. Alice also left the manuscript of a completed novel.

* * * * *

PICTURES OF MEMORY.

(ALICE CARY.)

AMONG the beautiful pictures

That hang on Memory’s wall,

Is one of a dim old forest,

That seemeth best of all:

Not for its gnarled oaks olden,

Dark with the mistletoe;

Not for the violets golden

That sprinkle the vale below;

Not for the milk-white lilies,

That lead from the fragrant hedge,

Coqueting all day with the sunbeams,

And stealing their golden edge;

Not for the vines on the upland

Where the bright red berries rest,

Nor the pinks, nor the pale, sweet cowslip,

It seemed to me the best.

I once had a little brother,

With eyes that were dark and deep――

In the lap of that old dim forest

He lieth in peace asleep:

Light as the down of the thistle,

Free as the winds that blow,

We roved there the beautiful summers,

The summers of long ago;

But his feet on the hills grew weary,

And, one of the autumn eves,

I made for my little brother

A bed of the yellow leaves.

Sweetly his pale arms folded

My neck in a meek embrace,

As the light of immortal beauty

Silently covered his face:

And when the arrows of sunset

Lodged in the tree-tops bright,

He fell, in his saint-like beauty,

Asleep by the gates of light.

Therefore, of all the pictures

That hang on Memory’s wall,

The one of the dim old forest

Seemeth the best of all.

* * * * *

NOBILITY.

(ALICE CARY.)

HILDA is a lofty lady,

Very proud is she――

I am but a simple herdsman

Dwelling by the sea.

Hilda hath a spacious palace,

Broad, and white, and high;

Twenty good dogs guard the portal――

Never house had I.

Hilda hath a thousand meadows――

Boundless forest lands:

She hath men and maids for service――

I have but my hands.

The sweet summer’s ripest roses

Hilda’s cheeks outvie――

Queens have paled to see her beauty――

But my beard have I.

Hilda from her palace windows

Looketh down on me,

Keeping with my dove-brown oxen

By the silver sea.

When her dulcet harp she playeth,

Wild birds singing nigh,

Cluster, listening, by her white hands――

But my reed have I.

I am but a simple herdsman,

With nor house nor lands;

She hath men and maids for service――

I have but my hands.

And yet what are all her crimsons

To my sunset sky――

With my free hands and my manhood

Hilda’s peer am I.

* * * * *

THE GRAY SWAN.

(ALICE CARY.)

(_From the Poetical Works of Alice and Phœbe Cary, 1876._)

OH tell me, sailor, tell me true,

Is my little lad, my Elihu,

A-sailing with your ship?”

The sailor’s eyes were dim with dew,――

“Your little lad, your Elihu?”

He said with trembling lip,――

“What little lad? what ship?”

“What little lad! as if there could be

Another such an one as he!

What little lad, do you say?

Why, Elihu, that took to the sea

The moment I put him off my knee!

It was just the other day

The _Gray Swan_ sailed away.”

“The other day?” the sailor’s eyes

Stood open with a great surprise,――

“The other day? the _Swan_?”

His heart began in his throat to rise.

“Aye, aye, sir, here in the cupboard lies

The jacket he had on.”

“And so your lad is gone?”

“Gone with the _Swan_.” “And did she stand

With her anchor clutching hold of the sand,

For a month, and never stir?”

“Why, to be sure! I’ve seen from the land,

Like a lover kissing his lady’s hand,

The wild sea kissing her,――

A sight to remember, sir.”

“But, my good mother, do you know

All this was twenty years ago?

I stood on the _Gray Swan’s_ deck,

And to that lad I saw you throw,

Taking it off, as it might be, so!

The kerchief from your neck.”

“Aye, and he’ll bring it back!”

“And did the little lawless lad,

That has made you sick and made you sad,

Sail with the _Gray Swan’s_ crew?”

“Lawless! the man is going mad!

The best boy mother ever had,――

Be sure he sailed with the crew!

What would you have him do?”

“And he has never written a line,

Nor sent you word, nor made you sign

To say he was alive!”

“Hold! if ’twas wrong, the wrong is mine;

Besides, he may be in the brine,

And could he write from the grave?

Tut, man, what would you have?”

Gone twenty years――a long, long cruise,――

’Twas wicked thus your love to abuse;

But if the lad still live,

And come back home, think you can

Forgive him?” “Miserable man,

You’re mad as the sea,――you rave,――

What have I to forgive?”

The sailor twitched his shirt so blue,

And from within his bosom drew

The kerchief. She was wild.

“My God! my Father! is it true?

My little lad, my Elihu!

My blessed boy, my child!

My dead, my living child!”

* * * * *

TO THE EVENING ZEPHYR.¹

ALICE CARY.

¹ Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

I SIT where the wild-bee is humming,

And listen in vain for thy song;

I’ve waited before for thy coming,

But never, oh, never so long!

How oft with the blue sky above us,

And waves breaking light on the shore,

Thou, knowing they would not reprove us,

Hast kissed me a thousand times o’er!

Alone in the gathering shadows,

Still waiting, sweet Zephyr, for thee,

I look for the waves of the meadows,

And dimples to dot the blue sea.

The blossoms that waited to greet thee

With heat of the noontide oppressed,

Now flutter so light to meet thee,

Thou’rt coming, I know, from the west.

Alas! if thou findest me pouting,

’Tis only my love that alarms;

Forgive, then, I pray thee, my doubting,

And take me once more to thine arms!

* * * * *

DEATH SCENE.¹

(PHOEBE CARY.)

¹ Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

DYING, still slowly dying,

As the hours of night rode by,

She had lain since the light of sunset

Was red on the evening sky;

Till after the middle watches,

As we softly near her trod,

When her soul from its prison fetters

Was loosed by the hand of God.

One moment her pale lips trembled

With the triumph she might not tell,

As the sight of the life immortal

On her spirit’s vision fell;

Then the look of rapture faded,

And the beautiful smile was faint,

As that in some convent picture,

On the face of a dying saint.

And we felt in the lonesome midnight,

As we sat by the silent dead,

What a light on the path going downward

The feet of the righteous shed;

When we thought how with faith unshrinking

She came to the Jordan’s tide,

And taking the hand of the Saviour,

Went up on the heavenly side.

* * * * *

MEMORIES.¹

(PHOEBE CARY.)

“_She loved me, but she left me._”

¹ Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

MEMORIES on memories! to my soul again

There come such dreams of vanished love and bliss

That my wrung heart, though long inured to pain,

Sinks with the fulness of its wretchedness:

Thou, dearer far than all the world beside!

Thou, who didst listen to my love’s first vow――

Once I had fondly hoped to call thee bride:

Is the dream over? comes that awakening now?

And is this hour of wretchedness and tears

The only guerdon for my wasted years?

And I did love thee――when by stealth we met

In the sweet evenings of that summer time,

Whose pleasant memory lingers with me yet,

As the remembrance of a better clime

Might haunt a fallen angel. And oh, thou――

Thou who didst turn away and seek to bind

Thy heart from breaking――thou hast felt ere now

A heart like thine o’ermastereth the mind:

Affection’s power is stronger than thy will――

Ah, thou didst love me, and thou lovest me still.

My heart could never yet be taught to move

With the calm even pulses that it should:

Turning away from those that it should love,

And loving whom it should not, it hath wooed

Beauty forbidden――I may not forget;

And thou, oh thou canst never cease to feel;

But time, which hath not changed affection yet,

Hath taught at least one lesson――to conceal;

So none but thou, who see my smiles, shall know

The silent bleeding of the heart below.

* * * * *

“EQUAL TO EITHER FORTUNE.”¹

(PHOEBE CARY.)

¹ Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

EQUAL to either fortune!” This should be

The motto of the perfect man and true――

Striving to stem the billow fearlessly,

And keeping steadily the right in view,

Whether it be his lot in life to sail

Before an adverse or a prosperous gale.

Man fearlessly his voice for truth should raise,

When truth would force its way in deed or word;

Whether for him the popular voice of praise,

Or the cold sneer of unbelief is heard:

Like the First Martyr, when his voice arose

Distinct above the hisses of his foes.

“Equal to either fortune,” Heaven designs,

Whether his destiny be repose or toil――

Whether the sun upon his palace shines,

Or calls him forth to plant the furrowed soil:

So shall he find life’s blessings freely strewn

Around the peasant’s cottage as the throne.

Man should dare all things which he knows are right,

And fear to do no act save what is wrong;

But, guided safely by his inward light,

And with a permanent belief, and strong,

In Him who is our Father and our friend,

He should walk steadfastly unto the end.

Ready to live or die, even in that day

Which man from childhood has been taught to fear,

When, putting off its cumbrous weight of clay,

The spirit enters on a nobler sphere:

And he will be, whose life was rightly passed,

“Equal to either fortune” at the last.

* * * * *

LIGHT.¹

(PHOEBE CARY.)

This is one of the last poems. It was written after the death

of her sister Alice, in 1871.

¹ Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

WHILE I hid mine eyes, I feared;

The heavens in wrath seemed bowed;

I look, and the sun with a smile breaks forth,

And a rainbow spans the cloud.

I thought the winter was here,

That the earth was cold and bare,

But I feel the coming of birds and flowers,

And the spring-time in the air.

I said that all the lips

I ever had kissed were dumb;

That my dearest ones were dead and gone,

And never a friend would come.

But I hear a voice as sweet

As the fall of summer showers;

And the grave that yawned at my very feet

Is filled to the top with flowers!

As if ’t were the midnight hour,

I sat with gloom opprest;

When a light was breaking out of the east

And shining unto the west.

I heard the angels call

Across from the beautiful shore;

And I saw a look in my darling’s eyes,

That never was there before.

Transfigured, lost to me,

She had slipped from my embrace;

Now, lo! I hold her fast once more,

With the light of God on her face!

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

NO modern poet among American women stands higher in the estimation

of her literary peers, or in the social scale than does the author

of “Bedtime Stories,” “Some Women’s Hearts,” and “In the Garden of

Dreams.” Mrs. Moulton enjoys the triple distinction of being a writer

of the most popular stories for children, of popular novels for grown

people, and of some of the best poetry which any woman has contributed

to our literature. In herself she presents the conscientious poet who

writes for the purpose of instructing and benefiting, and, at the same

time, one whose wares are marketable and popular. Not a few critics

have placed her sonnets at the head of their kind in America. Her

poetry has for its main characteristic a constant but not a rebellious

sorrow expressed with such consistent ease and melody that the reader

is led on with a most pleasurable sensation from stanza to stanza and

arises from the reading of her verses with a mellower and softer

sympathy for his fellow-beings.

Louise Chandler was born at Pomfret, Connecticut, April 5, 1835, and

her education was received in that vicinity. Her first book entitled

“This, That and Other Poems” appeared when she was nineteen years of

age. It was a girlish miscellany and sold remarkably well. After its

publication, she passed one year in Miss Willard’s Seminary at Troy,

New York, and it was during her first vacation from this school that

she met and married the well-known Boston journalist, William Moulton.

The next year was published “Juno Clifford,” a novel, without her name

attached. Her next publication, issued in 1859, was a collection of

stories under the title of “My Third Book.” Neither of these made a

great success, and she published nothing more until 1873, when her now

famous “Bedtime Stories for Children” was issued and attracted much

attention. She has written five volumes of bright tales for children.

In 1874 appeared “Some Women’s Hearts” and “Miss Eyre from Boston.”

After this Mrs. Moulton visited Europe, and out of the memories of her

foreign travel, she issued in 1881 a book entitled “Random Rambles,”

and six years later came “Ours and Our Neighbors,” a book of essays

on social subjects, and the same year she issued two volumes of poems.

In 1889 she published simultaneously, in England and America, her most

popular work, entitled “In the Garden of Dreams,” which has passed

through many editions with increased popularity. Mrs. Moulton has also

edited three volumes of the poems of Philip Burke Marseton.

Mrs. Moulton’s residence has been in Boston since 1855, with the

exception of sixteen consecutive summers and autumns which she

passed in Europe. In London she is especially at home, where she

lives surrounded by friends and friendly critics, who value both her

winning personality and her literary art. She has been throughout her

life a systematic worker, devoting a part of each day to literary

labor. Aside from her books, she has done much writing for newspapers

and periodicals. From 1870 to 1876 she was the Boston literary

correspondent for the New York “Tribune,” and for nearly five years

she wrote a weekly letter reviewing new books and literary people for

the Boston “Sunday Herald,” the series of these letters closing in

December, 1891.

Mrs. Moulton, while not admitting herself to be a hero worshipper, is

full of appreciation of the great bygone names of honor, and enjoys

with a keen relish the memory of the personal friendship she had with

such immortals as Whittier, Longfellow and Lowell, on this side of the

Atlantic, and with Swinburne, Tennyson and others, in Europe.

* * * * *

“IF THERE WERE DREAMS TO SELL.”¹

“If there were dreams to sell,

What would you buy?”――BEDDOES.

¹ Copyright, Roberts Bros.

IF there were dreams to sell,

Do I not know full well

What I would buy?

Hope’s dear delusive spell,

Its happy tale to tell――

Joy’s fleeting sigh.

I would be young again――

Youth’s madding bliss and bane

I would recapture――

Though it were keen with pain,

All else seems void and vain

To that fine rapture.

I would be glad once more――

Slip through an open door

Into Life’s glory――

Keep what I spent of yore,

Find what I lost before――

Hear an old story.

As it of old befell,

Breaking Death’s frozen spell,

Love should draw nigh:――

If there were dreams to sell,

Do I not know too well

_What_ I would buy?

* * * * *

WIFE TO HUSBAND.¹

¹ Copyright, Roberts Bros.

WHEN I am dust, and thou art quick and glad.

Bethink thee, sometimes, what good days we had,

What happy days, beside the shining seas,

Or by the twilight fire, in careless ease,

Reading the rhymes of some old poet lover,

Or whispering our own love-story over.

When thou hast mourned for me a seemly space,

And set another in my vacant place,

Charmed with her brightness, trusting in her truth,

Warmed to new life by her beguiling youth,

Be happy, dearest one, and surely know

I would not have thee thy life’s joys forego.

Yet think of me sometimes, where, cold and still,

I lie, who once was swift to do thy will,

Whose lips so often answered to thy kiss,

Who, dying, blessed thee for that bygone bliss:

I pray thee do not bar my presence quite

From thy new life, so full of new delight.

I would not vex thee, waiting by thy side;

My presence should not chill thy fair young bride;

Only bethink thee how alone I lie:

To die and be forgotten were to die

A double death; and I deserve of thee

Some grace of memory, fair howe’er _she_ be.

* * * * *

THE LAST GOOD-BYE.¹

¹ Copyright, Roberts Bros.

HOW shall we know it is the last good-bye?

The skies will not be darkened in that hour,

No sudden light will fall on leaf or flower,

No single bird will hush its careless cry,

And you will hold my hands, and smile or sigh

Just as before. Perchance the sudden tears

In your dear eyes will answer to my fears;

But there will come no voice of prophecy:

No voice to whisper, “Now, and not again,

Space for last words, last kisses, and last prayer,

For all the wild, unmitigated pain

Of those who, parting clasp hands with despair.”

“Who knows?” we say, but doubt and fear remain,

Would any _choose_ to part thus unaware?

* * * * *

NEXT YEAR.

THE lark is singing gaily in the meadow, the sun is rising

o’er the dark blue hills;

But she is gone, the music of whose talking was sweeter than

the voice of summer rills.

Sometimes I see the bluebells of the forest, and think of her

blue eyes;

Sometimes I seem to hear the rustle of her garments: ’tis but

the wind’s low sighs.

I see the sunbeams trail along the orchard, and fall in

thought to tangling up her hair;

And sometimes round the sinless lips of childhood breaks

forth a smile, such as she used to wear;

But never any pleasant thing, around, above us, seems to me

like her love――

More lofty than the skies that bend and brighten o’er us, more

constant than the dove.

She walks no more beside me in the morning; she meets me not

on any summer eve;

But once at night I heard a low voice calling――“Oh, faithful

friend, thou hast not long to grieve!”

Next year, when larks are singing gaily in the meadow, I shall

not hear their tone;

But she in the dim, far-off country of the stranger, will walk

no more alone.

* * * * *

MY MOTHER’S PICTURE.

(FROM “IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS.”)

HOW shall I here her placid picture paint

With touch that shall be delicate, yet sure?

Soft hair above a brow so high and pure

Years have not soiled it with an earthly taint,

Needing no aureole to prove her saint;

Firm mind that no temptation could allure;

Soul strong to do, heart stronger to endure;

And calm, sweet lips that uttered no complaint.

So have I seen her, in my darkest days

And when her own most sacred ties were riven,

Walk tranquilly in self-denying ways,

Asking for strength, and sure it would be given;

Filling her life with lowly prayer, high praise――

So shall I see her, if we meet in heaven.

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

WELL-KNOWN ESSAYISTS, CRITICS AND SKETCH WRITERS.

Illustration: DISTINGUISHED ESSAYISTS AND LITERARY CRITICS.

CHAS. DUDLEY WARNER

WASHINGTON IRVING • THOS. WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

HAMILTON W. MABIE

IK MARVEL • EDMUND C. STEDMAN

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

WASHINGTON IRVING.

THE FIRST AMERICAN AUTHOR OF RENOWN.

“_The Cervantes of the New World._”

THE first American who openly adopted literature as a calling and

successfully relied upon his pen for support was Washington Irving,

and the abiding popularity of this author is the best guarantee of

his permanent place in the world of letters. Since 1802, when Irving

begun to write, empires have arisen and passed away; new arts have

been invented and adopted, and have pushed the old out of use; the

household economy of mankind has undergone a revolution; science

has learned a new dialect and forgotten the old; but the words of

this charming writer are still as bright and even more read by men

and women to-day than when they came fresh from his pen and their

brilliant author was not only the literary lion of America, but was

a shining light in the circles of the old World. The pages of Irving

are a striking illustration of the fact that the language of the

heart never becomes obsolete, that Truth, and Good, and Beauty,

the offspring of God, are not subject to the changes which beset

the empire of man, and we feel sure that Washington Irving, whose

works were the delight of our grandparents and parents, and are now

contributing to our own happiness, will also be read with the same

eager pleasure by those who come after us.

It was on the 3rd of April, 1783, when the British were in possession

of New York City and George Washington was exerting his forces to

drive them away, that young Irving was born. Like Benjamin Franklin,

he was the youngest of many sons. His father was a Scotchman and his

mother an Englishwoman, who emigrated to America soon after their

marriage and settled in New York about the year 1770. The Irvings were

staunch patriots and did what they could to relieve the sufferings

of American prisoners while the British held the city, and their son

was not christened until the English evacuated the town and George

Washington came in and took possession. In her exultation over this

event Mrs. Irving exclaimed: “Washington’s work is ended and this

child shall be named after him.” Six years later, in 1789, George

Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the

United States, in New York, which was then the capital of the country.

Shortly after this the Scotch servant girl with little Irving in

charge, seeing the President on the street called out: “Please,

your honor, here’s a bairn was named after you.” Washington bade her

bring the boy to him, and placing his hands on his head gave him his

blessing.

As a boy Irving was playful rather than studious. His delicate health

prevented his entering college, and the educational training which he

received was at sundry small schools, and this ceased at the age of

sixteen, at which time he began to study law. Irving’s opportunity

came in 1802, when his brother, Dr. Peter Irving, established a

daily paper, to which Washington, then only nineteen, contributed a

series of essays under the signature of “Jonathan Oldstyle.” They were

written in a humorous vein and met an instant success, being quoted

and copied as far and wide as the sayings of Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor

Richard” had been fifty years before.

In 1804 Irving’s failing health compelled him to abandon his legal

studies and he went abroad, spending two years in European travel,

and gathering a stock of material for his future writings. In 1806 he

returned to New York, took up again the study of law and was admitted

to the bar, but never practised the profession. The next year, with

his brother and James K. Paulding, he started the “Salmagundi; or,

Whim-Whams and Opinions of ♦Launcelot Langstaff, Esq.,” which was

published fortnightly and ran through twenty numbers. This humorous

magazine, intended by its authors only to “hit off” the gossip of that

day, has now become an amusing history of society events a century ago,

and is still widely read. The next two years were occupied in writing

his “Knickerbocker’s History of New York,” which was published in

December, 1809. This was to have been the joint work of Washington

Irving and his brother, Peter, but the latter was called away to

Europe, and Washington did it alone. To introduce this book, Irving,

with genuine Yankee shrewdness, advertised in the newspapers some

months in advance of its publication for an old gentleman by the name

of Knickerbocker, who had suddenly disappeared, leaving behind him

the manuscript of a book and his board bill unpaid. It was finally

announced that his landlord had decided to publish the book in the

hope of realizing enough profit to satisfy his claim for board against

the author. It proved to be the most readable book which had yet

appeared in America and was received with enthusiasm by the public.

Abroad it created almost as great a sensation. Sir Walter Scott read

it aloud to his family, and it first revealed to the critics of the

Old World that America was to have a literature of its own. This book

quickly brought its author both reputation and money, and with bright

hopes he entered the business firm of his brother as a silent partner.

♦ ‘Lancelot’ replaced with ‘Launcelot’

During the War of 1812 Irving was editorially connected with the

“Analectic Magazine” in Philadelphia, for which he wrote a number

of articles. He was stanchly patriotic throughout the war, though he

deplored its existence. In 1815, after peace was proclaimed, he made

a second voyage across the Atlantic, intending to remain only a short

while, but the failure of his brother’s firm blasted his business

hopes and necessitated his return to literature. He, therefore,

remained abroad for seventeen years, and it was in the Old Country

that he wrote his famous “Sketch Book,” published in parts in New

York in 1819, and in book form in London in 1820, the author receiving

for the copyright four hundred pounds (nearly $2,000). In 1822 he

published “Bracebridge Hall, or, The Humorist;” and in 1824 the “Tales

of the Traveler.” From 1826 to 1829 Irving spent much time in Spain,

where he gathered material for the “Life of Christopher Columbus”

(1828); “Chronicles of the Conquest of Granada,” and “The Alhambra,

or, The New Sketch Book,” which appeared in 1832.

Illustration: SUNNYSIDE, THE HOME OF WASHINGTON IRVING.

During the last two years of Irving’s stay abroad he was Secretary

of the United States Legation at London, and on his return to America

in 1832 was received with great public honor. His books now brought

him an adequate income, and he built for himself a handsome villa at

Irvington, New York――which he named “Sunnyside”――where he continued

to reside until his death, with the exception of four years (1842–46),

during which time he represented the United States at the Court

of Madrid. While residing at Sunnyside he wrote the “Tours of the

Prairies” (1835); “Astoria” (1836); “Adventures of Captain Bonneville”

(1837). After his return from the Court of Spain he edited a new

edition of his complete works, issued in 1850. He also published

in 1849 and 1850 “Oliver Goldsmith: a Biography,” and “Mahomet and

His Successors.” From 1850 to 1859 he published only two books,

namely, “♦Wolfert’s Roost and Other Papers” and the “Life of George

Washington;” the latter issued just before his death, which occurred

at Sunnyside, November 28, 1859. His nephew, P. H. Irving, afterwards

prepared the “Life and Letters of Washington Irving” (1863), and

also edited and published his “Spanish Papers and Other Miscellanies”

(1866.)

♦ “Wolfret’s” replaced with “Wolfert’s”

That Irving never married may be attributed to the fact that his

fiancé, Miss Matilda Hoffman, a charming and beautiful girl, to whom

he was devotedly attached, died suddenly soon after they were engaged.

Irving, then twenty-six, bore the blow like a man, but he carried the

scar through life.

The fame of Irving becomes the more resplendent when we remember

that he was the first great pioneer in American letters. Franklin

was the only man of any note who had preceded him, and his writings

were confined to a much smaller scope. It was while Bryon and Scott

were leaders of English letters that Irving, without the advantage

of a college education, went to England and met and associated with

the greatest of English authors, issued several of his books and

made good his own title to an honorable position in literature among

them, not only leaving his impress upon English society but he created

an illustrious following among her authors that any man should be

proud of; for it is from Irving’s “Sketch Book” that the revival of

Christmas feasts was inaugurated, which Dickens afterwards took up and

pursued to further lengths, making Irving his model in more ways than

is generally supposed. Sir Walter Scott and Thackeray were his friends

and admirers. The latter calls Irving the “first ambassador whom the

new world of letters sent to the old.” At home Irving’s influence was

even greater. His tales like “Rip Van Winkle” and its fellows became

the first fruits of an abundant harvest, rich in local flavor, which

later American story-tellers like Hawthorne, Poe, Bret Harte and Cable,

all in their own way, following in his footsteps, have gathered after

him.

The genius of Irving was not of that stalwart, rugged character which

conquered by admiration. It rather won its way softly and by the aid

of genial sentiment, human sympathy and pungent humor. His heart was

quick to catch the sentiment, and his imagination as quick to follow

the thread of an incident to its most charming conclusion. He it

was who peopled the green nooks of “Sleepy Hollow” and the rocky

crags of the Catskills, describing landscape and character with a

charm which no later American writer has surpassed; and it was his

delicate subtlety and keen insight which called into being in his

“Knickerbocker’s History” a civilization, giving to the legend the

substance of truth, and presenting a fiction so that it passed for

a fact. This is a feat which very few authors have accomplished.

That Irving might have been a successful historian is evinced by his

“Life of Columbus” and “Life of Washington,” in which his exhaustive

inquiry into details and his treatment of the same leave nothing

new in the lives of these great men to be told; but it is on his

descriptive essays, such as we find in his “Sketch Book,” “The

Alhambra” and “Knickerbocker’s History,” that his title to enduring

fame most securely rests.

The poet, Lowell, in his “Fable for Critics,” thus happily

characterizes Washington Irving:

“What! Irving? thrice welcome warm heart and fine brain,

You bring back the happiest spirit from Spain,

And the gravest sweet humor, that ever were there

Since Cervantes met death in his gentle despair;

Nay, don’t be embarrassed, nor look so beseeching,

I shan’t run directly against my own preaching,

And having just laughed at their Raphaels and Dantes,

Go to setting you up beside matchless Cervantes;

But allow me to speak what I honestly feel,

To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele,

Throw in all of Addison, minus the chill,

With the whole of that partnership’s stock and good-will,

Mix well, and while stirring, hum o’er, as a spell,

The ‘fine old English Gentleman,’ simmer it well,

Sweeten just to your own private liking, then strain,

That only the finest and clearest remain.

Let it stand out of doors till a soul it receives

From the warm lazy sun loitering down through green leaves,

And you’ll find a choice nature not wholly deserving

A name either English or Yankee――just Irving.”

* * * * *

THE ORGAN OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

FROM THE SKETCH BOOK.

THE sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. I could only

hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest repeating the

evening service, and the faint responses of the choir; these paused

for a time, and all was hushed. The stillness, the desertion and

obscurity that were gradually prevailing around, gave a deeper and

more solemn interest to the place:

For in the silent grave no conversation,

No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers,

No careful father’s counsel――nothing’s heard,

For nothing is, but all oblivion,

Dust, and an endless darkness.

Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear,

falling with double and redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it were,

huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord

with this mighty building! With what pomp do they swell through its

vast vaults, and breathe their awful harmony through these caves

of death, and make the silent sepulchre vocal! And now they rise in

triumph and acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant

notes, and piling sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft

voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar

aloft, and warble along the roof, and seem to play about these lofty

vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves

its thrilling thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it

forth upon the soul. What long-drawn cadences! What solemn sweeping

concords! It grows more and more dense and powerful――it fills the

vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls――the ear is stunned――the

senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up in full jubilee――it

is rising from the earth to heaven――The very soul seems rapt away and

floated upwards on this swelling tide of harmony!

I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain of

music is apt sometimes to inspire: the shadows of evening were

gradually thickening round me; the monuments began to cast deeper and

deeper gloom; and the distant clock again gave token of the slowly

waning day.

* * * * *

BALTUS VAN TASSEL’S FARM.

ICHABOD Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex; and it is

not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in

his eyes; more especially after he had visited her in her paternal

mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving,

contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either

his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but

within those everything was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was

satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself

upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived.

His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of

those green, sheltered, fertile nooks, in which the Dutch farmers are

so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree spread its branches over it,

at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest

water, in a little well formed of a barrel; and then stole sparkling

away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that bubbled along

among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast

barn, that might have served for a church; every window and crevice

of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm; the

flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night; swallows

and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons,

some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with

their heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others

swelling and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the

sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwielding porkers were grunting in the

repose and abundance of their pens; whence sallied forth, now and then,

troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of

snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets

of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard,

and guinea fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives,

with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the barn door strutted

the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine

gentleman, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and

gladness of his heart――sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet,

and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and

children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.

The pedagogue’s mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous

promise of winter fare. In his devouring mind’s eye, he pictured to

himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly

and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a

comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese

were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in

dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion

sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon

and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed

up, with its gizard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of

savory sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling

on his back, in a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that

quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great

green eyes over the fat meadowlands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye,

of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy

fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart

yearned after the damsel, who was to inherit those domains, and his

imagination expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned

into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land and

shingle palaces in the wilderness.

Nay, his busy ♦fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to him

the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted on the

top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles

dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with

a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord

knows where.

♦ ‘fanciy’ replaced with ‘fancy’

* * * * *

COLUMBUS AT BARCELONA.

(FROM “LIFE OF COLUMBUS.”)

THE letter of Columbus to the Spanish monarchs had produced the

greatest sensation at court. The event he announced was considered

the most extraordinary of their prosperous reign, and, following so

close upon the conquest of Granada, was pronounced a signal mark of

divine favor for that triumph achieved in the cause of the true faith.

The sovereigns themselves were for a time dazzled by this sudden and

easy acquisition of a new empire, of indefinite extent and apparently

boundless wealth.

* * * * *

About the middle of April Columbus arrived at Barcelona, where

every preparation had been made to give him a solemn and magnificent

reception. The beauty and serenity of the weather in that genial

season and favored climate contributed to give splendor to this

memorable ceremony. As he drew near the place, many of the more

youthful courtiers and hidalgos, together with a vast concourse of

the populace, came forth to meet and welcome him. His entrance into

this noble city has been compared to one of those triumphs which the

Romans were accustomed to decree to conquerors. First were paraded the

Indians, painted according to their savage fashion, and decorated with

their national ornaments of gold; after these were borne various kinds

of live parrots, together with stuffed birds and animals of unknown

species, and rare plants supposed to be of precious qualities; while

great care was taken to make a conspicuous display of Indian coronets,

bracelets, and other decorations of gold, which might give an idea

of the wealth of the newly discovered regions. After this followed

Columbus on horseback, surrounded by a brilliant cavalcade of Spanish

chivalry. The streets were almost impassable from the countless

multitude; the windows and balconies were crowded with the fair; the

very roofs were covered with spectators. It seemed as if the public

eye could not be sated with gazing on these trophies of an unknown

world, or on the remarkable man by whom it had been discovered. There

was a sublimity in this event that mingled a solemn feeling with the

public joy. It was looked upon as a vast and signal dispensation of

Providence in reward for the piety of the monarchs; and the majestic

and venerable appearance of the discoverer, so different from the

youth and buoyancy generally expected from roving enterprise, seemed

in harmony with the grandeur and dignity of his achievement.

To receive him with suitable pomp and distinction, the sovereigns

had ordered their throne to be placed in public, under a rich canopy

of brocade of gold, in a vast and splendid saloon. Here the king

and queen awaited his arrival, seated in state, with the Prince Juan

beside them, and attended by the dignitaries of their court, and

the principal nobility of Castile, Valencia, Catalonia, and Aragon,

all impatient to behold the man who had conferred so incalculable

a benefit upon the nation. At length Columbus entered the hall,

surrounded by a brilliant crowd of cavaliers, among whom, says Las

Casas, he was conspicuous for his stately and commanding person, which,

with his countenance rendered venerable by his gray hairs, gave him

the august appearance of a senator of Rome. A modest smile lighted

up his features, showing that he enjoyed the state and glory in which

he came, and certainly nothing could be more deeply moving to a mind

inflamed by noble ambition, and conscious of having greatly deserved,

than these testimonials of the admiration and gratitude of a nation or

rather of a world. As Columbus approached, the sovereigns rose, as if

receiving a person of the highest rank. Bending his knees, he offered

to kiss their hands; but there was some hesitation on their part to

permit this act of homage. Raising him in the most gracious manner,

they ordered him to seat himself in their presence; a rare honor in

this proud and punctilious court.

At their request he now gave an account of the most striking events

of his voyage, and a description of the islands discovered. He

displayed specimens of unknown birds and other animals; of rare

plants of medicinal and aromatic virtues; of native gold in dust,

in crude masses, or labored into barbaric ornaments; and, above

all, the natives of these countries, who were objects of intense

and inexhaustible interest. All these he pronounced mere harbingers

of greater discoveries yet to be made, which would add realms of

incalculable wealth to the dominions of their majesties, and whole

nations of proselytes to the true faith.

When he had finished, the sovereigns sank on their knees, and, raising

their clasped hands to heaven, their eyes filled with tears of joy

and gratitude, poured forth thanks and praises to God for so great

a providence; all present followed their example; a deep and solemn

enthusiasm pervaded that splendid assembly, and prevented all common

acclamations of triumph. The anthem _Te Deum laudamus_, chanted by the

choir of the royal chapel, with the accompaniment of instruments, rose

in full body of sacred harmony, bearing up as it were the feelings and

thoughts of the auditors to heaven, “so that,” says the venerable Las

Casas, “it seemed as if in that hour they communicated with celestial

delights.” Such was the solemn and pious manner in which the brilliant

court of Spain celebrated this sublime event; offering up a grateful

tribute of melody and praise, and giving glory to God for the

discovery of another world.

* * * * *

THE GALLOPING HESSIAN.

THE revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together

their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling

along the hollow roads and over the distant hills. Some of the

damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their

light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed

along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter until they

gradually died away――and the late scene of noise and frolic was all

silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the

custom of country lovers, to have a _tête-à-tête_ with the heiress,

fully convinced that he was now on the high road to success. What

passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for, in fact,

I do not know. Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong,

for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an

air quite desolate and chapfallen. Oh these women! these women! Could

that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was

her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her

conquest of his rival? Heaven only knows, not I! Let it suffice to

say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a

hen-roost, rather than a fair lady’s heart. Without looking to the

right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth on which he had

so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several

hearty cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most uncourteously from the

comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of

mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover.

It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted

and crestfallen, pursued his travels homewards, along the sides of

the lofty hills which rise above Tarrytown, and which he had traversed

so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself.

Far below him the Tappan Zee spread its dusk and indistinct waste of

waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop riding quietly at

anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight he could even hear

the barking of the watch-dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson;

but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance

from this faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn

crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off,

from some farmhouse away among the hills――but it was like a dreaming

sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally

the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a

bullfrog, from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably, and

turning suddenly in his bed.

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the

afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew

darker and darker, the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and

driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt

so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place

where many of the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the

centre of the road stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered like a

giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind

of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to

form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth and

rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story

of the unfortunate André, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was

universally known by the name of Major André’s tree. The common people

regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of

sympathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the

tales of strange sights and doleful lamentations told concerning it.

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle; he

thought his whistle was answered; it was but a blast sweeping sharply

through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought

he saw something white hanging in the midst of the tree――he paused and

ceased whistling; but, on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was

a place where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white

wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan――his teeth chattered, and

his knees smote against the saddle; it was but the rubbing of one huge

bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed

the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.

About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed the road,

and ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen, known by the name

of Wiley’s Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for

a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road where the brook

entered the wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with

wild grape-vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this

bridge was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that

the unfortunate André was captured, and under the covert of those

chestnuts and vines were the sturdy ♦yeoman concealed who surprised

him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful

are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark.

♦ ‘yoemen’ replaced with ‘yeoman’

As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump; he summoned up,

however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in

the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but instead

of starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement,

and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased

with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily

with the contrary foot; it was all in vain; his steed started, it is

true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into

a thicket of brambles and alder-bushes. The schoolmaster now bestowed

both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who

dashed forward, snuffing and snorting, but came to a stand just by

the bridge, with a suddenness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling

over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the

bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the

grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen,

black and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the

gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler.

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror.

What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and, besides,

what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was,

which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore,

a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents――“Who are you?”

He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated

voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides

of the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with

involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of

alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound stood at

once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal,

yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained.

He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a

black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or

sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on

the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and

waywardness.

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and

bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping

Hessian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind.

The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod

pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind――the other did

the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume

his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth,

and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and

dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and

appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising

ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveler in relief

against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod

was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless!――but his horror

was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have

rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of the

saddle: his terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower of kicks

and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give his

companion the slip――but the spectre started full jump with him. Away

then they dashed, through thick and thin; stones flying and sparks

flashing at every bound. Ichabod’s flimsy garments fluttered in the

air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse’s head,

in the eagerness of his flight.

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but

Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it,

made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong down the hill to the left.

This road leads through a sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a

quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story,

and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed

church.

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider an

apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got half-way

through the hollow the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it

slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored

to hold it firm, but in vain; and he had just time to save himself

by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to

the earth, and he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For

a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper’s wrath passed across his

mind――for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty

fears; the goblin was hard on his haunches; and (unskilful rider that

he was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat; sometimes slipping on

one side, sometimes on the other, and sometimes jolted on the high

ridge of his horse’s backbone, with a violence that he verily feared

would cleave him asunder.

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church

bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the

bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls

of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the

place where Brom Bones’ ghostly competitor had disappeared. “If I can

but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he

heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even

fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the

ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the

resounding planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a

look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in

a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in

his stirrups and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod

endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered

his cranium with a tremendous crash――he was tumbled headlong into the

dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider passed by

like a whirlwind.

The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and with

the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master’s

gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast――dinner-hour

came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled in the schoolhouse, and

strolled idly about the banks of the brook; but no schoolmaster. Hans

Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor

Ichabod and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent

investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road

leading to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the

tracks of horses’ hoofs deeply dented in the road, and evidently at

furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank

of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black,

was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a

shattered pumpkin.

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be

discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his estate, examined the

bundle, which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two

shirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worsted

stockings; an old pair of corduroy smallclothes; a rusty razor; a book

of psalm tunes, full of dog’s ears; and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the

books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they belonged to the community,

excepting Cotton Mather’s History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac,

and a book of dreams and fortune-telling: in which last was a sheet

of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts

to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These

magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the

flames by Hans Van Ripper; who from that time forward determined to

send his children no more to school, observing that he never knew

any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the

schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quarter’s pay but a

day or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of

his disappearance.

The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the

following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in

the churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and

pumpkin had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole

budget of others, were called to mind; and when they had diligently

considered them all, and compared them with the symptoms of the

present case, they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion that

Ichabod had been carried off by the Galloping Hessian. As he was a

bachelor, and in nobody’s debt, nobody troubled his head any more

about him, the school was removed to a different part of the Hollow,

and another pedagogue reigned in his stead.

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.

HUMORIST AND JOURNALIST.

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER belongs to a class of writers which has been

aptly called the meditative school in American literature, but few

of the so-called meditative writers so sparkle with humor as does the

genial and humane author of “My Summer in a Garden,” and few writers

of any school have so succeeded in presenting wholesome truth and

lofty thought in the pleasing form of humorous conversation on such

common subjects as gardening, back-log fires, and the every-day life

of the farmer-boy.

He is one of our leading apostles of culture, and he is himself a

glowing example of the worth of culture, for he has steadily raised

himself from the flat levels of life to a lofty pinnacle of influence

and power simply because he possessed in high degree a keen insight,

a dainty lightness of touch, a delicacy of thought and style, a

kindly humor, and a racy scent for “human nature.” It was a long time

before he discovered his own powers and he labored at a distasteful

profession until his nature cried out for its true sphere, but his

early life in many respects was imperceptibly ministering to the man

that was to be.

He was born of English non-conformist stock, in the hill country of

Plainfield, Massachusetts, in 1829――a lineal descendent of a “Pilgrim

Father” and the son of a well-to-do farmer, of more than ordinary

mental parts. He had his period in the New England district school,

and in 1851 he was graduated from Hamilton College, New York, where

he had gained a college reputation as a writer.

Had he not been a “born writer” the next period of his life would

have made a literary career impossible for him. A winter in Michigan,

ending in dismal failure, two years of frontier life as a surveyor,

and then the pursuit of legal studies, followed by the practice of law

in Chicago seemed to have been hostages to fortune against the pursuit

of fame in the field of pure literature.

But he had the blood of the “Brahman caste” and it was certain to

assert itself. In 1860, his friend Hawley (now United States Senator

from Connecticut) invited him to accept the position of assistant

editor on the Hartford “Press,” and his talents for successful

journalism were at once apparent, from which he stepped quite

naturally into the narrower circle――“the brotherhood of authors.”

“My Summer in a Garden” (1870), his first literary work, was first

written as a series of weekly articles for the Hartford “Courant,”

and their reception at once made him a man of note.

This work is a delightful prose pastoral, in which the author

described his experiences with gardening and finds quaint and

subtle connections between “pusley” and “original sin,” while its

humorous touches of nature and human nature give it a peculiar charm.

“Saunterings,” a volume of reminiscences of European travel, was also

published the same year.

“Back-Log Studies” (1872), written in praise of the sweet and kindly

influences of the home fireside, appeared first as a series in

“Scribner’s Magazine” and added much to the author’s reputation, as

it marked a decided advance in style and elegance of diction.

His carefully prepared occasional addresses, on such subjects as

Education, Culture and Progress, show that he has deep convictions

and an earnestness of heart, as well as the delicate fancy and playful

humor which first made him a favorite author. If he is an apostle of

culture, he is no less the herald of the truth that “the scholar must

make his poetry and learning subserve the wants of the toiling and

aspiring multitude.”

“Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing” (1874) is a delightful sketch of

travels, a field of literature in which Warner is a master. “My Winter

on the Nile” (1876), “In the Levant” (1877), “In the Wilderness”

(1878), “Roundabout Journey” (1883), and “Their Pilgrimage” (1886)

are his other contributions to this department of literature.

In 1884 he became coeditor of “Harper’s Magazine,” to which he has

contributed a valuable series of papers on “Studies in the South,”

“Studies in the Great West,” and “Mexican Papers,” critically

discussing the educational, political, and social condition of these

states.

He is the author of “Captain John Smith,” and of “Washington Irving”

in the “Men of Letters Series” of which he is editor.

Nowhere is his humor more free and unrestrained than in “Being A Boy”

and in “How I Shot the Bear.”

His home is at Hartford, Conn.

* * * * *

THE MORAL QUALITY OF VEGETABLES.¹

FROM “MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN.”

¹ Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

I AM more and more impressed with the moral qualities of vegetables,

and contemplate forming a science which shall rank with comparative

philology――the science of comparative vegetable morality. We live in

an age of Protoplasm. And, if life matter is essentially the same in

all forms of life, I propose to begin early, and ascertain the nature

of the plants for which I am responsible. I will not associate with

any vegetable which is disreputable, or has not some quality which can

contribute to my moral growth....

Why do we respect some vegetables and despise others, when all of

them come to an equal honor or ignominy on the table? The bean is a

graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you never can put beans into

poetry nor into the highest sort of prose. There is no dignity in the

bean. Corn――which in my garden grows alongside the bean, and, so far

as I can see, with no affectation of superiority――is, however, the

child of song. It waves in all literature. But mix it with beans, and

its high tone is gone. Succotash is vulgar. It is the bean in it. The

bean is a vulgar vegetable, without culture, or any flavor of high

society among vegetables.

Then there is the cool cucumber――like so many people, good for nothing

when its ripe and the wildness has gone out of it. How inferior

to the melon, which grows upon a similar vine, is of a like watery

consistency, but is not half so valuable! The cucumber is a sort of

low comedian in a company where the melon is a minor gentleman. I

might also contrast the celery with the potato. The associations are

as opposite as the dining-room of the duchess and the cabin of the

peasant. I admire the potato both in vine and blossom; but it is not

aristocratic....

The lettuce is to me a most interesting study. Lettuce is like

conversation: it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you

scarcely notice the bitter in it. Lettuce, like most talkers, is

however apt to run rapidly to seed. Blessed is that sort which comes

to a head, and so remains――like a few people I know――growing more

solid and satisfactory and tender at the same time, and whiter at

the centre, and crisp in their maturity. Lettuce, like conversation,

requires a good deal of oil, to avoid friction, and keep the company

smooth; a pinch of Attic Salt, a dash of pepper, a quantity of mustard

and vinegar, by all means――but so mixed that you will notice no sharp

contrast――and a trifle of sugar. You can put anything――and the more

things the better――into salad, as into conversation; but everything

depends upon the skill in mixing. I feel that I am in the best society

when I am with lettuce. It is in the select circle of vegetables. The

tomato appears well on the table; but you do not want to ask its

origin. It is a most agreeable _parvenu_.

Of course, I have said nothing about the berries. They live in another

and more ideal region; except perhaps the currant. Here we see that

even among berries there are degrees of breeding. The currant is well

enough, clear as truth, and exquisite in color; but I ask you to

notice how far it is from the exclusive _hauteur_ of the aristocratic

strawberry, and the native refinement of the quietly elegant raspberry.

* * * * *

Talk about the Darwinian theory of development, and the principle of

natural selection! I should like to see a garden let to run in

accordance with it. If I had left my vegetables and weeds to a free

fight, in which the strongest specimens only should come to maturity,

and the weaker go to the wall, I can clearly see that I should have

had a pretty mess of it. It would have been a scene of passion and

license and brutality. The “pusley” would have strangled the

strawberry; the upright corn, which has now ears to hear the guilty

beating of the hearts of the children who steal the raspberries, would

have been dragged to the earth by the wandering bean; the snakegrass

would have left no place for the potatoes under ground; and the

tomatoes would have been swamped by the lusty weeds. With a firm hand

I have had to make my own “natural selection.”

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

DONALD GRANT MITCHELL.

AUTHOR OF “REVERIES OF A BACHELOR” AND “DREAM LIFE.”

UNDER the pen name of “Ik Marvel,” Donald G. Mitchell is among the

best known literary men of the world. His chief works consist of a

dozen volumes or more ranging back for fifty years; but readers who

know the “Reveries of a Bachelor” and “Dream Life,” possess a clear

comprehension of this author. In learning those books they have

learned him by heart. Except that he has mellowed with age there is

little change in his charming style from his first book issued in 1847

to his last――“American Land and Letters”――which appeared in 1897.

Washington Irving spoke of being drawn to Donald G. Mitchell, by the

qualities of head and heart which he found in his writings. No doubt

if Irving had named these qualities he would have agreed with the

general verdict that they consisted in a clearness of conception with

which he grasped his theme, the faithfulness with which his thought

pursued it, the sympathy with which he treated it and the quality of

modesty, grace, dignity and sweetness which characterized his style.

Says one of his critics: “Mitchell is a man who never stands in front

of his subject, and who never asks attention to himself.” Washington

Irving had the same characteristics and it was natural that they

should be drawn together. In early life, Mitchell seems to have been

much under Irving. “Dream Life” was dedicated to that veteran, and

some of the best sketches that can now be found of Irving are in

Mitchell’s written recollections of him. The disciple however, was

not an imitator. Mitchell’s papers on “The Squire” and “The Country

Church” are as characteristic as any thing in the “Sketch Book,” but

their writer’s style is his own.

Donald G. Mitchell was born in Norwich, Connecticut, April 12, 1822.

He graduated at Yale in 1841 and afterwards worked three years on his

grandfather’s farm, thus acquiring a taste for agriculture which has

clung to him through life, and which shows itself in his “Edgewood”

books. His first contributions were to the “Albany Cultivator,” a

farm journal. He begun the study of law in 1847, but abandoned it for

literature.

Mr. Mitchell has been several times abroad, always returning with

something refreshing for his American readers. He has also lectured

on literature at Yale College. In 1853, he was appointed United

States Consul to Venice by President Pierce, but resigned after a

few months. His home has been, since 1855, on his charming country

place, “Edgewood,” near New Haven, Connecticut, and nearly all his

books――except “English Lands and Letters” (1890), and “American Lands

and Letters” (1897)――are fragrant with the breath of the farm and

rural scenery.

Mr. Mitchell was married in 1853 to Miss Mary F. Pringle, of

Charleston, South Carolina, who accompanied him when he went as

Consul to Venice.

Mr. Mitchell filled a number of semi-public positions, and was one

of the first members of the council of the Yale Art School at its

establishment in 1865. He was also one of the judges of Industrial

Art at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, and was United States

Commissioner at the Paris Exposition in 1878. His contributions to

“The Atlantic Monthly,” to “Harper’s Magazine,” and other periodicals,

his lectures and addresses on Literature and Agriculture have always

been well received.

Among his books not already mentioned are “The Seven Stories with

Basement and Attic,” a series of tales of travel; “A Single Novel;”

“Doctor Johns;” one juvenile story “About Old Story-Tellers,” and an

elaborate genealogy of his mother’s family entitled “The Woodbridge

Record.”

* * * * *

WASHINGTON IRVING.

(FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO “DREAM LIFE.”)

IN the summer of 1852 Mr. Irving made a stay of a few weeks at

Saratoga; and, by good fortune, I chanced to occupy a room upon the

same corridor of the hotel, within a few doors of his, and shared many

of his early morning walks to the “Spring.” What at once struck me

very forcibly in the course of these walks was the rare alertness and

minuteness of his observation. Not a fair young face could dash past

us in its drapery of muslin, but the eye of the old gentleman――he

was then almost seventy――drank in all its freshness and beauty, with

the keen appetite and the graceful admiration of a boy; not a dowager

brushed past us, bedizened with finery, but he fastened the apparition

in his memory with some piquant remark, as the pin of an entomologist

fastens a gaudy fly. No rheumatic old hero-invalid, battered in long

wars with the doctors, no droll marplot of a boy, could appear within

range, but I could see in the changeful expression of my companion the

admeasurements and quiet adjustment of the appeal which either made

upon his sympathy or his humor. A flower, a tree, a burst of music, a

country market man hoist upon his wagon of cabbage――all these by turns

caught and engaged his attention, however little they might interrupt

the flow of his talk.

He was utterly incapable of being “lionized.” Time and again, under

the trees in the court of the hotel, did I hear him enter upon some

pleasant story, lighted up with that rare turn of his eye and by his

deft expressions; when, as chance acquaintances grouped around him,

as is the way of watering-places, and eager listeners multiplied, his

hilarity and spirit took a chill from the increasing auditory, and

drawing abruptly to a close, he would sidle away with a friend, and

be gone....

I saw Mr. Irving afterwards repeatedly in New York, and passed two

delightful days at Sunnyside. I can never forget a drive with him

on a crisp autumn morning through Sleepy Hollow and all the notable

localities of his neighborhood, in the course of which he called my

attention, in the most unaffected and incidental way, to those which

had been specially illustrated by his pen, and with a rare humor

recounted to me some of his boyish adventures among the old Dutch

farmers of that region.

Most of all it is impossible for me to forget the rare kindliness of

his manner, his friendly suggestions, and the beaming expression of

his eye. I met it last at the little stile from which I strolled away

to the railway station. When I saw the kind face again, it was in the

coffin at the little church where he attended services. But the eyes

were closed, and the wonderful radiance of expression gone. It seemed

to me that death never took away more from a living face. It was but a

cold shadow lying there of the man who had taught a nation to love him.

* * * * *

GLIMPSES OF “DREAM-LIFE”

By Ik Marvel

_With original illustrations by Corwin K. Linson._

PSHAW!――said my Aunt Tabithy――have you not done with dreaming?

Illustration: “PSHAW! SAID MY AUNT TABITHY”

My Aunt Tabithy, though an excellent and most notable person, loves

occasionally a quiet bit of satire. And when I told her that I

was sharpening my pen for a new story of those dreamy fancies, and

half-experiences, which lie grouped along the journeying hours of my

solitary life, she smiled as if in derision.

It is very idle to get angry with a good-natured old lady: I did

better than this: I made her listen to me.

Exhausted, do you say, Aunt Tabithy? Is life then exhausted, is hope

gone out, is fancy dead?

No, no, Aunt Tabithy――this life of musing does not exhaust so easily.

It is like the springs on the farm-land, that are fed with all the

showers and the dews of the year, and that from the narrow fissures

of the rock send up streams continually. Dream-land will never

be exhausted until we enter on the land of dreams; and until, in

“shuffling off this mortal coil,” thought will become fact and all

facts will be only thought.

Illustration: “ISAAC, YOU ARE A SAD FELLOW”

It was warm weather, and my aunt was dozing. “What is this all to be

about?” said she, recovering her knitting-needle.

“About love, and toil, and duty, and sorrow,” said I.

My aunt finished the needle she was upon――smoothed the stocking-leg

over her knee, and went on to ask me in a very bantering way, if my

stock of youthful loves was not nearly exhausted.

A better man than myself――if he had only a fair share of vanity――would

have been nettled at this; and I replied somewhat tartly, that I

had never professed to write my experiences. Life after all is but a

bundle of hints, each suggesting actual and positive development, but

rarely reaching it. And as I recall these hints, and in fancy, trace

them to their issues, I am as truly dealing with life, as if my life

had dealt them all to me.

Illustration: “MY AUNT WAS DOZING”

This is what I would be doing in the present book;――I would catch

up here and there the shreds of feeling, which the brambles and

roughnesses of the world have left tangling on my heart, and weave

them out into those soft and perfect tissues, which――if the world had

been only a little less rough――might now perhaps enclose my heart

altogether.

“Ah,” said my Aunt Tabithy, as she smoothed the stocking-leg again,

with a sigh――“there is after all but one youth-time; and if you put

down its memories once, you can find no second growth.”

My Aunt Tabithy was wrong. There is as much growth in the thoughts

and feelings that run behind us, as in those that run before us. You

may make a rich, full picture of your childhood to-day; but let the

hour go by, and the darkness stoop to your pillow with its million

shapes of the past, and my word for it, you shall have some flash of

childhood lighten upon you that was unknown to your busiest thought of

the morning.

* * * * *

Illustration: “THE JUSTICE OF THE PEACE”

I know no nobler forage-ground for a romantic, venturesome,

mischievous boy, than the garret of an old family mansion on a day

of storm. It is a perfect field of chivalry. There is great fun in

groping through a tall barrel of books and pamphlets, on the look-out

for startling pictures; and there are chestnuts in the garret, drying,

which you have discovered on a ledge of the chimney; and you slide a

few into your pocket, and munch them quietly――giving now and then one

to Nelly, and begging her to keep silent;――for you have a great fear

of its being forbidden fruit.

Illustration: “A PERFECT FIELD OF CHIVALRY”

Old family garrets have their stock, as I said, of cast-away clothes,

of twenty years gone by; and it is rare sport to put them on;

buttoning in a pillow or two for the sake of good fulness; and then

to trick out Nelly in some strange-shaped headgear and old-fashioned

brocade petticoat caught up with pins; and in such guise, to steal

cautiously down stairs, and creep slyly into the sitting-room――half

afraid of a scolding, and very sure of good fun;――trying to look very

sober, and yet almost ready to die with the laugh that you know you

will make. And your mother tries to look harshly at little Nelly for

putting on her grandmother’s best bonnet; but Nelly’s laughing eyes

forbid it utterly, and the mother spoils all her scolding with a

perfect shower of kisses.

Illustration: “TRICKED OUT”

After this, you go marching, very stately, into the nursery; and

utterly amaze the old nurse; and make a deal of wonderment for the

staring, half-frightened baby, who drops his rattle, and makes a bob

at you, as if he would jump into your waistcoat pocket.

* * * * *

Illustration: “THERE IS AFTER ALL BUT ONE YOUTH-TIME”

You have looked admiringly many a day upon the tall fellows who play

at the door of Dr. Bidlow’s school; you have looked with reverence.

Dr. Bidlow seems to you to belong to a race of giants; and yet he is

a spare, thin man, with a hooked nose, a large, flat, gold watch-key,

a crack in his voice, a wig, and very dirty wristbands.

Illustration: “LONG, WEARY DAYS OF CONFINEMENT”

You, however, come very little under his control; you enter upon the

proud life in the small-boys’ department――under the dominion of the

English master. He is a different personage from Dr. Bidlow: he is

a dapper, little man, who twinkles his eye in a peculiar fashion,

and steps very springily around behind the benches, glancing now and

then at the books――cautioning one scholar about his dog’s ears, and

startling another from a doze by a very loud and odious snap of his

forefinger upon the boy’s head.

There are some tall trees that overshadow an angle of the schoolhouse;

and the larger scholars play surprising gymnastic tricks upon their

lower limbs.

Illustration: “OLD BID”

In time, however, you get to performing some modest experiments

yourself upon the very lowest limbs,――taking care to avoid the

observation of the larger boys, who else might laugh at you: you

especially avoid the notice of one stout fellow in pea-green breeches,

who is a sort of “bully” among the small boys.

One day you are well in the tops of the trees, and being dared by the

boys below, you venture higher――higher than any boy has gone before.

You feel very proud, so you advance cautiously out upon the limb: it

bends and sways fearfully with your weight: presently it cracks: you

try to return, but it is too late; then comes a sense of dizziness――a

succession of quick blows, and a dull, heavy crash!

Illustration: “STARTLING ANOTHER FROM A DOZE”

After this, come those long, weary days of confinement, when you lie

still, through all the hours of noon, looking out upon the cheerful

sunshine, only through the windows of your little room. Yet it seems

a grand thing to have the whole household attendant upon you; and when

you groan with pain, you are sure of meeting sad, sympathizing looks.

* * * * *

Illustration: “AND EAT A DINNER IN A TAVERN”

To visit, is a great thing in the boy-calendar:――to go away on a visit

in a coach, with a trunk, and a greatcoat, and an umbrella:――this is

large! As you journey on, after bidding your friends adieu, and as you

see fences and houses to which you have not been used, you think them

very odd indeed; but it occurs to you, that the geographies speak of

very various national characteristics, and you are greatly gratified

with this opportunity of verifying your study.

Illustration: “AWAY ON A VISIT IN A COACH”

Your old aunt, whom you visit, you think wears a very queer cap, being

altogether different from that of the old nurse, or of Mrs. Boyne,

――Madge’s mother. As for acquaintances, you fall in the very first day

with a tall boy next door, called Nat, which seems an extraordinary

name. Besides, he has traveled; and as he sits with you on the summer

nights under the linden trees, he tells you gorgeous stories of the

things he has seen. He has made the voyage to London; and he talks

about the ship (a real ship) and starboard and larboard, and the

spanker, in a way quite surprising; and he takes the stern oar in the

little skiff, when you row off in the cove abreast of the town, in a

most seaman-like way.

Illustration: “IT IS RATHER A PRETTY NAME TO WRITE”

Besides Nat, there is a girl lives over the opposite side of the way,

named Jenny, with an eye as black as a coal. She has any quantity

of toys, and she has an odd old uncle, who sometimes makes you stand

up together, and then marries you after his fashion,――much to the

amusement of a grown-up housemaid, whenever she gets a peep at the

performance. And it makes you somewhat proud to hear her called your

wife; and you wonder to yourself, dreamily, if it won’t be true some

day or other.

Jenny is romantic, and talks of Thaddeus of Warsaw in a very touching

manner, and promises to lend you the book. She folds billets in a

lover’s fashion, and practices love-knots upon her bonnet strings.

She looks out of the corners of her eyes very often, and sighs. She

is frequently by herself, and pulls flowers to pieces.

All this time, for you are making your visit a very long one,

so that autumn has come, and the nights are growing cool, and

Jenny and yourself are transferring your little coquetries to the

chimney-corner;――poor Charlie lies sick at home. Boyhood, thank Heaven,

does not suffer severely from sympathy when the object is remote.

Illustration: “THE DOCTOR LIFTS YOU IN HIS ARMS”

It is on a frosty, bleak evening, when you are playing with Nat, that

the letter reaches you which says Charlie is growing worse, and that

you must come to your home. It is quite dark when you reach home,

but you see the bright reflection of a fire within, and presently at

the open door Nelly clapping her hands for welcome. But there are sad

faces when you enter. Your mother folds you to her heart; but at your

first noisy outburst of joy, puts her finger on her lip, and whispers

poor Charlie’s name. The Doctor you see, too, slipping softly out

of the bed-room door with glasses in his hand; and――you hardly know

how――your spirits grow sad, and your heart gravitates to the heavy air

of all about you.

Illustration: “WHO SOMETIMES MAKES YOU STAND UP TOGETHER”

You drop to sleep after that day’s fatigue, with singular and

perplexed fancies haunting you; and when you wake up with a shudder

in the middle of the night, you get up stealthily and creep down

stairs; the bed-room door stands open, a little lamp is flickering

on the hearth, and the gaunt shadow of the bedstead lies dark upon

the ceiling. Your mother is in her chair, with her head upon her

hand――though it is long after midnight. The Doctor is standing with

his back toward you, and looks very solemn as he takes out his watch.

He is not counting Charlie’s pulse, for he has dropped his hand; and

it lies carelessly, but oh, how thin! over the edge of the bed.

He shakes his head mournfully at your mother; and she springs forward,

and lays her fingers upon the forehead of the boy, and passes her hand

over his mouth.

“Is he asleep, Doctor?” she says, in a tone you do not know.

“Dear Madam, he will never waken in this world.”

There is no cry――only a bowing down of your mother’s head upon the

body of poor, dead Charlie!――and only when you see her form shake and

quiver with the deep, smothered sobs, your crying bursts forth loud

and strong.

Illustration: “LISTENING ATTENTIVELY TO SOME GRIEVOUS COMPLAINT”

The Doctor lifts you in his arms, that you may see――that pale

head,――those blue eyes all sunken,――that flaxen hair gone,――those

white lips pinched and hard!――Never, never, will the boy forget his

first terrible sight of Death!

* * * * *

Illustration: “SOME OF BIDLOW’S BOYS”

Frank has a grandfather living in the country, a good specimen of the

old-fashioned New England farmer. He is a Justice of the Peace, and

many are the country courts that you peep upon, with Frank, from the

door of the great dining-room. You watch curiously the old gentleman,

sitting in his big arm-chair, with his spectacles in their silver

case at his elbow, and his snuff-box in hand, listening attentively

to some grievous complaint; you see him ponder deeply――with a pinch of

snuff to aid his judgment,――and you listen with intense admiration, as

he gives a loud, preparatory “Ahem,” and clears away the intricacies

of the case with a sweep of that strong practical sense which

distinguishes the New England farmer,――getting at the very hinge

of the matter, without any consciousness of his own precision,

and satisfying the defendant by the clearness of his talk, as much

as by the leniency of his judgment. He farms some fifteen hundred

acres,――“suitably divided,” as the old-school agriculturists say,

into “woodland, pasture, and tillage.” The farm-house, a large

irregularly built mansion of wood, stands upon a shelf of the hills

looking southward, and is shaded by century-old oaks. The barns and

outbuildings are grouped in a brown phalanx a little to the northward

of the dwelling. Between them a high timber gate opens upon the

scattered pasture-lands of the hills. Opposite to this, and across the

farmyard, which is the lounging-place of scores of red-necked turkeys,

and of matronly hens, clucking to their callow brood, another gate of

similar pretensions opens upon the wide meadow-land.

Illustration: “A SQUIRE”

So it is, that as you lie there upon the sunny greensward, at the old

Squire’s door, you muse upon the time when some rich-lying land, with

huge granaries and cozy old mansion sleeping under the trees, shall

be yours;――when the brooks shall water your meadows, and come laughing

down your pasture-lands;――when the clouds shall shed their spring

fragrance upon your lawns, and the daisies bless your paths.

Illustration: “SOME TIDY OLD LADY IN BLACK”

You will then be a Squire, with your cane, your lean-limbed hound,

your stocking-leg of specie, and your snuff-box. You will be the

happy and respected husband of some tidy old lady in black and

spectacles,――a little phthisicky, like Frank’s grandmother,――and an

accomplished cook of stewed pears, and Johnny-cakes!

* * * * *

Illustration: THE CHOIR

The country church is a square old building of wood, without paint or

decoration, and of that genuine, Puritanic stamp, which is now fast

giving way to Greek porticos, and to cockney towers. The unpainted

pews are ranged in square forms, and by age have gained the color of

those fragmentary wrecks of cigar-boxes, which you see upon the top

shelves in the bar-rooms of country taverns. The minister’s desk is

lofty, and has once been honored with a coating of paint;――as well

as the huge sounding-board, which, to your great amazement, protrudes

from the wall, at a very dangerous angle of inclination, over the

speaker’s head.

The singing has a charm for you. There is a long, thin-faced,

flax-haired man, who carries a tuning-fork in his waistcoat pocket,

and who leads the choir. His position is in the very front rank of

gallery benches, facing the desk; and by the time the old clergyman

has read two verses of the psalm, the country chorister turns around

to his little group of aids――consisting of the blacksmith, a carroty

headed school-master, two women in snuff-colored silks, and a girl in

a pink bonnet, somewhat inclined to frivolity,――to announce the tune.

Illustration: “FAT OLD LADIES IN IRON SPECTACLES”

This being done in an authoritative manner, he lifts his long

music-book,――glances again at his little company, clears his throat

by a powerful “Ahem,” followed by a powerful use of a bandanna

pocket-handkerchief,――draws out his tuning fork, and waits for

the parson to close his reading. He now reviews once more his

company,――throws a reproving glance at the young woman in the pink

hat, who at the moment is biting off a stout bunch of fennel,――lifts

his music-book, thumps upon the rail with his fork, listens keenly,

gives a slight “Ahem,” falls into the cadence,――swells into a strong

_crescendo_,――catches at the first word of the line, as if he were

afraid it might get away,――turns to his company,――lifts his music-book

with spirit,――gives it a powerful slap with the disengaged hand, and,

with a majestic toss of the head, soars away, with half the women

below straggling on in his wake, into some such brave old melody

as――LITCHFIELD!

Illustration: THE DEACON

Being a visitor, and in the Squire’s pew, you are naturally an object

of considerable attention to the girls about your age; as well as

to a great many fat old ladies in iron spectacles, who mortify you

excessively by patting you under the chin after church; and insist

upon mistaking you for Frank; and force upon you very dry cookies,

spiced with caraway seeds.

Illustration: “IN TONES OF TENDER ADMONITION”

Illustration: (‡ Prayer book)

The farmers you have a high respect for;――particularly for one

weazen-faced old gentleman in a brown surtout, who brings his whip

into church with him, who sings in a very strong voice, and who drives

a span of gray colts. Another townsman, who attracts your attention

is a stout deacon, who before entering always steps around the corner

of the church and puts his hat upon the ground to adjust his wig in

a quiet way. He then marches up the broad aisle in a stately manner,

and plants his hat, and a big pair of buckskin mittens, on the little

table under the desk. When he is fairly seated in his corner of the

pew, with his elbow upon the top-rail――almost the only man who can

comfortably reach it,――you observe that he spreads his brawny fingers

over his scalp, in an exceedingly cautious manner; and you innocently

think again, that it is very hypocritical in a deacon to be pretending

to lean upon his hand when he is only keeping his wig straight.

Illustration: “THE OLD MEN GATHER ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE BUILDING”

After the morning service, they have an “hour’s intermission,” as

the preacher calls it; during which the old men gather on a sunny

side of the building, and, after shaking hands all around, and asking

after the “folks” at home, they enjoy a quiet talk about the crops,

branching off, now and then, it may be, into politics.

Little does the boy know, as the tide of years drifts by, floating

him out insensibly from the harbor of his home upon the great sea of

life,――what joys, what opportunities, what affections, are slipping

from him.

Illustration: “THE FIRELIGHT GLIMMERS UPON THE WALLS OF YOUR HOME”

But _now_, you are there. The fire-light glimmers upon the walls of

your cherished home, like the Vestal fire of old upon the figures of

adoring virgins, or like the flame of Hebrew sacrifice, whose incense

bore hearts to heaven. The big chair of your father is drawn to

its wonted corner by the chimney-side; his head, just touched with

gray, lies back upon its oaken top. Little Nelly leans upon his knee,

looking up for some reply to her girlish questionings. Opposite, sits

your mother; her figure is thin, her look cheerful, yet subdued;――her

arm perhaps resting on your shoulder, as she talks to you in tones of

tender admonition, of the days that are to come.

Illustration: (‡ fireplace hearth)

The cat is purring on the hearth; the clock is ticking on the mantel.

The great table in the middle of the room, with its books and work,

waits only for the lighting of the evening lamp, to see a return to

its stores of embroidery, and of story.

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.

PATRIOT AND MAN OF LETTERS.

Library of the best American literature Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers · 第 8 / 16 章

The maiden name of this lady was Prince. She is descended from old