Memories and Anecdotes

Whittier at that time spoke most cordially of her "earnest individuality, her warm, honest, happy, hopeful, human heart; her strong loves and deep hates."

E. P. Whipple, the Boston critic and essayist, when reviewing her poems, spoke of their "exceeding readableness"; and George Ripley, then of the New York Tribune, said:

One charm of her writings is the frankness with which she takes the reader into her personal confidence. She is never formal, never a martyr to artificial restraint, never wrapped in a mantle of reserve; but, with an almost childlike simplicity, presents a transparent revelation of her inmost thoughts and feelings, with perfect freedom from affectation.

She might have distinguished herself on the stage in either tragedy or comedy, but was dissuaded from that career by family friends. I remember seeing her at several receptions, reciting the rough Pike County dialect verse of Bret Harte and John Hay in costume. Standing behind a draped table, with a big slouch hat on, and a red flannel shirt, loose at the neck, her disguise was most effective, while her deep tones held us all. Her memory was phenomenal, and she could repeat today stories of good things learned years ago.

Her recitation was wonderful; so natural, so full of soul and power. I have heard many women read, some most execrably, who fancied they were famous elocutionists; some were so tolerable that I could sit and endure it; others remarkably good, but I was never before so moved as to forget where I was and merge the reader in the character she assumed.

Grace Greenwood probably made more puns in print than any other woman, and her conversation was full of them. It was Grace Greenwood who, at a tea-drinking at the New England Woman's Club in Boston, was begged to tell one more story, but excused herself in this way: "No, I cannot get more than one story high on a cup of tea."

Her conversation was delightful, and what a series of reminiscences she could have given; for she knew, and in many cases intimately, most of the leading authors, artists, politicians, philanthropists, agitators, and actors of her time in both her own land and abroad. In one of her letters she describes the various authors she saw while lounging in Ticknor's old bookstore in Boston.

Here, many a time, we saw Longfellow, looking wonderfully like a ruddy, hearty, happy English gentleman, with his full lips and beaming blue eyes. Whittier, alert, slender and long; half eager, half shy in manner; both cordial and evasive; his deep-set eyes glowing with the tender flame of the most humane genius of our time.

Emerson's manner was to her "a curious mingling of Athenian philosophy and Yankee cuteness."

Saxe was "the handsome, herculean punster," and so on with many others.

She resided with Miss Cushman in Rome, and in London she saw many lions—Mazzini, Kossuth, Dickens and Talfourd, Kingsley, Lover, the Howellses, Miss Mitford, Mrs. Muloch Craik, George Eliot, etc.

She was the first Washington correspondent of her sex, commencing in 1850 in a series of letters to a Philadelphia weekly; was for some years connected with the National Era, making her first tour in Europe as its correspondent, and has written much for The Hearth and Home, The Independent, Christian Inquirer, Congregationalist, Youth's Companion; also contributing a good deal to English publications, as Household Words and All the Year Round.

She was the special correspondent from Washington of the New York Tribune, and later of the Times. Her letters were racy, full of wit, sentiment, and discriminating criticism, plenty of fun and a little sarcasm, but not so audaciously personal and aggressive as some letter-writers from the capital. They attracted attention and were widely copied, large extracts being made for the London Times.

She lectured continually to large audiences during the Civil War on war themes, and subjects in a lighter strain; was the first woman widely received as a lecturer by the colleges and lyceums. With a commanding presence, handsome face, an agreeable, permeating voice, a natural offhand manner, and something to say, she was at once a decided favourite, and travelled great distances to meet her engagements. She often quoted that ungallant speech from the Duke of Argyle: "Woman has no right on a platform—except to be hung; then it's unavoidable"; and by her eloquence and wit proved its falsity and narrowness. Without the least imitation of masculine oratory, her best remembered lectures are, "The Heroic in Common Life," and "Characteristics of Yankee Humour." She always had the rare gift of telling a story capitally, with ease, brevity, and dramatic effect, certain of the point or climax. I cannot think of any other woman of this country who has caused so much hearty laughter by this enviable gift. She can compress a word-picture or character-sketch into a few lines, as when she said of the early Yankee: "No matter how large a man he was, he had a look of shrinking and collapse about him. It looked as if the Lord had made him and then pinched him." And a woman who has done such good work in poetry, juvenile literature, journalism, on the platform, and in books of travel and biography, will not soon be forgotten. There is a list of eighteen volumes from her pen.

She never established a salon, but the widespread, influential daily paper and the lecture hall are the movable salon to the women of genius in this Republic.

This is just a memory. After all, we are but "Movie Pictures," seen for a moment, and others take our place.

CHAPTER VI

In and Near Boston—Edward Everett Hale—Thomas Wentworth Higginson—Julia Ward Howe—Mary A. Livermore—A Day at the Concord School—Harriet G. Hosmer—"Dora D'Istria," our Illustrious Visitor.

Edward Everett Hale was kind to me, as he was to all who came within his radius. He once called to warn me to avoid, like poison, a rascally imposter who was calling on many of the authors in and near Boston to get one thousand dollars from each to create a publishing company, so that authors could have their books published at a much cheaper rate than in the regular way. This person never called on me, as I then had no bank account. He did utterly impoverish many other credulous persons, both writers, and in private families. All was grist that came to his mill, and he ground them "exceeding small."

I met Mr. Hale one early spring at Pinehurst, North Carolina, with his wife and daughter. He always had a sad face, as one who knew and grieved over the faults and frailties of humanity, but at this time he was recovering from a severe fall, and walked with a slow and feeble step. When he noticed me sitting on the broad piazza, he came, and taking a chair beside me, began to joke in his old way, telling comical happenings, and inquired if I knew where Noah kept his bees. His answer: "In the Ark-hives, of course." Once when I asked his opinion of a pompous, loud-voiced minister, he only said, "Self, self, self!"

I wonder how many in his audiences or his congregation could understand more than half of what he was saying. I once went to an Authors' Reading in Boston where he recited a poem, doubtless very impressive, but although in a box just over the stage, I could not get one word. He placed his voice at the roof of his mouth, a fine sounding board, but the words went no farther than the inside of his lips. I believe his grand books influence more persons for better lives than even his personal presence and Christ-like magnetism.

Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson never failed me. Once only I ventured alone into the Authors' Club Saturday meeting, and none of my own friends happened to be there. Evidently I was not known. Mr. Higginson saw the situation at once, and coming quickly to me escorted me to a comfortable seat. He ordered two cups of tea with wafers, and beckoned to some delightful men and women to whom he introduced me as his friend Miss Sanborn, thus putting me at my ease. He was also ever patient about my monomania of trying to prove that women possess both wit and humour. He spoke of his first wife as the wittiest woman he had ever known, giving convincing proof. A few men were on my side, but they could be counted on one hand omitting the thumb. But I worked on this theme until I had more than sufficient material for a good-sized volume. If a masculine book reviewer ever alluded to the book, it was with a sneer. He generally left it without a word, as men still ignore the fact when a woman wins in an essay-writing competition against men in her class or gets the verdict for her powers in a mixed debate. At last Mr. Higginson wrote me most kindly to stop battering on that theme. "If any man is such a fool as to insist that women are destitute of wit or humour, then he is so big a fool that it is not worth while to waste your good brains on him. T.W. Higginson." That reproof chilled my ardour. Now you can hardly find any one who denies that women possess both qualities, and it is generally acknowledged that not a few have the added gift of comedy.

As most biographers of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe dwell on her other gifts as philanthropist, poet, and worker for the equality of women with men, I call attention to her effervescent, brilliant wit. Julia Ward Howe was undeniably witty. Her concurrence with a dilapidated bachelor, who retained little but his conceit, was excellent. He said: "It is time now for me to settle down as a married man, but I want so much; I want youth, health, wealth, of course; beauty, grace—" "Yes," she interrupted sympathetically, "you poor man, you do want them all."

Of a conceited young man airing his disbelief at length in a magazine article, she said: "Charles evidently thinks he has invented atheism." After dining with a certain family noted for their chilling manners and lofty exclusiveness, she hurried to the house of a jolly friend, and, seating herself before the glowing fire, sought to regain a natural warmth, explaining: "I have spent three hours with the Mer de Glace, the Tête-Noire, and the Jungfrau, and am nearly frozen."

Pathos and humour as twins are exemplified by her tearful horror over the panorama of Gettysburg, and then by her saying, when urged by Mrs. Livermore to dine with her: "O no! my dear, it's quarter past two, and Mr. Howe will be wild if he does not get—not his burg—but his dinner."

Mrs. Howe's wit never failed her. I once told her I was annoyed by seeing in big headlines in the morning's paper, "Kate Sanborn moralizes," giving my feeble sentiments on some subject which must have been reported by a man whom I met for the first time the evening before at a reception, though I was ignorant of the fact that I was being interviewed. She comforted me by saying: "But after all, how much better that was than if he had announced, 'Kate Sanborn demoralizes.'" Or when Charles Sumner refusing to meet some friends of hers at dinner explained languidly: "Really, Julia, I have lost all my interest in individuals." She retorted, "Why, Charles, God hasn't got as far as that yet!" Once walking in the streets of Boston with a friend she looked up and read on a public building, "Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary." She said: "I did not know there were any charitable eyes and ears in Boston." She showed indomitable courage to the last. A lady in Boston, who lived opposite Mrs. Howe's home on Beacon Street, was sitting at a front window one cold morning in winter, when ice made the steps dangerous. A carriage was driven up to Mrs. Howe's door to take her to the station to attend a federation at Louisville. She came out alone, slipped on the second step, and rolled to the pavement. She was past eighty, but picked herself up with the quickness of a girl, looked at her windows to see if anyone noticed it, then entered the carriage and drove away.

Was ever a child as unselfish as Mary Rice, afterwards Mary Livermore? Sliding on ice was for her a climax of fun. Returning to the house after revelling in this exercise, she exclaimed: "Splendid, splendid sliding." Her father responded: "Yes, Mary, it's great fun, but wretched for shoes."

Those words kept ringing in her ears, and soon she thought how her father and mother had to practise close economy, and she decided: "I ought not to wear out my shoes by sliding, when shoes cost so much," and she did not slide any more. There was no more fun in it for her.

She would get out of bed, when not more than ten years old, and beseech her parents to rise and pray for the children. "It's no matter about me," she once said to them, "if they can be saved, I can bear anything."

She was not more than twelve years old, when she determined to aid her parents by doing work of some kind; so it was settled that she should become a dressmaker. She went at once into a shop to learn the trade, remained for three months, and after that was hired at thirty-seven cents a day to work there three months more. She also applied for work at a clothing store, and received a dozen red flannel shirts to make up at six and a quarter cents a piece. When her mother found this out, she burst into tears, and the womanly child was not allowed to take any more work home. We all know Mrs. Livermore's war record and her power and eloquence as an orator.

I would not say she was a spiritualist, but she felt sure that she often had advice or warning on questions from some source, and always listened, and was saved from accidents and danger. And she said that what was revealed to her as she rested on her couch, between twilight and dusk, would not be believed, it was so wonderful.

Mrs. Livermore had a terrible grief to bear,—the lifelong illness of her daughter from a chronic and incurable disease. She told me, when I was at her house, that she kept on lecturing, and accepting invitations, to divert her mind somewhat. She felt at times that she could not leave her unfortunate child behind, when she should be called from earth, but she was enabled to drive that thought away. From a child, always helping others, self-sacrificing, heroic, endowed with marvellous energy and sympathy, hers was a most exceptional life; now "Victor Palms" are her right.

I spent one day at the famous Concord School of Philosophy during its first season. Of course I understood nothing that was going on.

Emerson, then a mere wreck of his former self, was present, cared for by his wife or his daughter Ellen. Alcott made some most remarkable statements, as: "We each can decide when we will ascend." Then he would look around as if to question all, and add: "Is it not so? Is it not so?" I remember another of his mystic utterances: "When the mind is izzing, it is thinking things. Is it not so? Is it not so?" Also, "When we get angry or lose our temper, then fierce four-footed beasts come out of our mouths, do they not, do they not?"

After Mr. Harris, the great educational light, had closed his remarks, and had asked for questions, one lady timidly arose and inquired: "Can an atom be said to be outside or inside of potentiality?"

He calmly replied that "it could be said to be either inside or outside potentiality, as we might say of potatoes in a hat; they are either inside or outside the hat." That seemed to satisfy her perfectly.

Mr. Frank B. Sanborn read his lecture on American Literature, and I ventured to ask: "How would you define literature?"

He said: "Anything written that gives permanent pleasure." And then as he was a relative, I inquired, but probably was rather pert: "Would a bank check, if it were large enough, be literature?" which was generally considered as painfully trifling.

Jones of Jacksonville was on the program, and talked and talked, but as I could not catch one idea, I cannot report.

It was awfully hot on that hill with the sun shining down through the pine roof, so I thought one day enough.

As I walked down the hill, I heard a man who seemed to have a lot of hasty pudding in his mouth, say in answer to a question from the lady with him: "Why, if you can't understand that, you can have no idea of the first principles (this with an emphatic gesture) of the Hegelian philosophy."

Alcott struck me as a happy dreamer. He said to me joyously: "I'm going West in Lou's chariot," and of course with funds provided by his daughter.

An article written by her, entitled "Transcendental Wild Oats," made a great impression on my mind.

It appeared in a long-ago Independent and I tried in vain to find it last winter. Houghton and Mifflin have recently published Bronson Alcott's "Fruitlands," compiled by Clara Endicott Sears, with "Transcendental Wild Oats" by Louisa M. Alcott, so it is brought to the notice of those who will appreciate it.

I called once on Miss Hosmer, who then was living with relatives in Watertown, Massachusetts, her old home; the house where she was born and where she did her first modelling. Recently reading in Miss Whiting's record of Kate Field's life, of Miss Hosmer as a universal favourite in Rome, a dearly loved friend of the Brownings, and associated with the literary and artistic coterie there, a living part of that memorable group, most of whom are gone, I longed to look in her eyes, to shake her hand, to listen to her conversation. Everyone knows of her achievements as a sculptor.

After waiting a few minutes, into the room tripped a merry-faced, bright-eyed little lady, all animation and cordiality as she said: "It is your fault that I am a little slow in coming down, for I was engrossed in one of your own books, too much interested to remember to dress."

The question asked soon brought a flow of delightful recollection of Charlotte Cushman, Frances Power Cobbe, Grace Greenwood, Kate Field, and the Brownings. "Yes," she said, "I dined with them all one winter; they were lovely friends." She asked if we would like to see some autograph letters of theirs. One which seemed specially characteristic of Robert Browning was written on the thinnest of paper in the finest hand, difficult to decipher. And on the flap of the envelope was a long message from his wife. Each letter was addressed to "My dearest Hattie," and ended, "Yours most affectionately." There was one most comical impromptu sent to her by Browning, from some country house where there was a house party. They were greatly grieved at her failure to appear, and each name was twisted into a rhyme at the end of a line. Sir Roderick Murchison, for instance, was run in thus:

As welcome as to cow is fodder-rick
Would be your presence to Sir Roderick.

A poor pun started another vein. "You must hear some of Miss Cobbe's puns," said Miss Hosmer, and they were so daringly, glaring bad, as to be very good. When lame from a sprain, she was announced by a pompous butler at a reception as "Miss Cobble." "No, Miss Hobble," was her instant correction. She weighed nearly three hundred pounds and, one day, complaining of a pain in the small of her back her brother exclaimed: "O Frances, where is the small of your back?"

Miss Hosmer regarded Grace Greenwood (Mrs. Lippincott) as one of the best raconteurs and wittiest women she had known. She was with her at some museum where an immense antique drinking cup was exhibited, large enough for a sitz bath. "A goblet for a Titan," said Harriet. "And the one who drained it would be a tight un," said Grace.

She thought the best thing ever said about seasickness was from Kate Field, who, after a tempestuous trip, said: "Lemonade is the only satisfactory drink on a sea voyage; it tastes as well coming up as going down."

The last years of this brilliant and beloved woman were devoted to futile attempts to solve the problem of Perpetual Motion. I wish she had given us her memories instead.

Helen Ghika was born at Bucharest, Wallachia, the 22nd of January, 1829. The Ghika family is of an ancient and noble race. It originated in Albania, and two centuries ago the head of it went to Wallachia, where it had been a powerful and ruling family. In 1849, at the age of twenty, the Princess was married to a Russian, Prince Koltzoff Massalsky, a descendant of the old Vikings of Moldavia; her marriage has not been a congenial one.

A sketch of the distinguished woman, Helen Ghika, the Princess Massalsky, who, under the nom de plume of Dora D'Istria, has made for herself a reputation and position in the world of letters among the great women of our century, will at least have something of the charm of novelty for most American readers. In Europe this lady was everywhere known, beloved by many personal friends, and admired by all who had read her works. Her thought was profound and liberal, her views were broad and humane. As an author, philanthropist, traveller, artist, and one of the strongest advocates of freedom and liberty for the oppressed of both sexes, and of her suffering sisters especially, she was an honour to the time and to womanhood. The women of the old world found in her a powerful, sympathizing, yet rational champion; just in her arguments in their behalf, able in her statements of their needs, and thoroughly interested in their elevation and improvement.

Her works embrace a vast range of thought, and show profound study and industry. The subjects are many. They number about twenty volumes on nationality, on social questions more than eight, on politics eighteen or twenty. Her travels fill fifteen books, and, beside all this, she wrote three romances, numerous letters and articles for the daily papers, and addresses to be read before various learned societies, of which she was an honoured member. M. Deschanel, the critic of the Journal des Débats, has said of her that "each one of her works would suffice for the reputation of a man." As an artist, her paintings have been much admired. One of her books of travel, A Summer on the Banks of the Danube, has a drawing by its author, a view of Borcia in Roumania. From a notable exhibition at St. Petersburg she received a silver medal for two pictures called "The Pine" and "The Palm," suggested to her by Heine's beautiful little poem:

This princess was the idol of her native people, who called her, with the warm enthusiasm of their race, "The Star of Albania." The learned and cultivated also did her homage. Named by Frederika Bremer and the Athenians, "The New Corinne," she was invested by the Greeks with the citizenship of Greece for her efforts to assist the people of Candia to throw off the oppressor's yoke, this being the first time this honour had ever been granted to a woman.

The catalogue of her writings fills several pages, the list of titles given her by learned societies nearly as many more and, while born a princess of an ancient race and by marriage one also, she counted these titles of rank as nothing compared with her working name, and was more widely known as Dora D'Istria than as the Princess Koltzoff Massalsky.

There is a romantic fascination about this woman's life as brilliant as fiction, but more strange and remarkable in that it is all sober truth—nay, to her much of it was even sad reality. Her career was a glorious one, but lonely as the position of her pictured palm-tree, and oftentimes only upheld by her own consciousness of the right; she has felt the trials of minds isolated by greatness. Singularly gifted by nature with both mental and physical, as well as social superiority, the Princess united in an unusual degree masculine strength of character, grasp of thought, philosophical calmness, love of study and research, joined to an ardent and impassioned love of the grand, the true, and the beautiful. She had the grace and tenderness of the most sensitive of women, added to mental endowments rare in a man. Her beauty, which had been remarkable, was the result of perfect health, careful training, and an active nature. Her physical training made her a fearless swimmer, a bold rider, and an excellent walker—all of which greatly added to her active habits and powers of observation in travelling, for she travelled much. Only a person of uncommon bodily vigour can so enjoy nature in her wildest moods and grandest aspects.

This quotation is from a long article which Mrs. Grace L. Oliver, of Boston, published in an early number of Scribner's Magazine. I never had known of the existence of this learned, accomplished woman, but after reading this article I ventured to ask her to send me the material for a lecture and she responded most generously, sending books, many sketches of her career, full lists of the subjects which had most interested her, poems addressed to her as if she were a goddess, and the pictures she added proved her to have been certainly very beautiful. "She looked like Venus and spoke like Minerva."

My audience was greatly interested. She was as new to them as to me and all she had donated was handed round to an eager crowd. In about six months I saw in the papers that Dora D'Istria was taking a long trip to America to meet Mrs. Oliver, Edison, Longfellow, and myself!

I called on her later at a seashore hotel near Boston. She had just finished her lunch, and said she had been enjoying for the first time boiled corn on the cob. She was sitting on the piazza, rather shabbily dressed, her skirt decidedly travel-stained. Traces of the butter used on the corn were visible about her mouth and she was smoking a large and very strong cigar, a sight not so common at that time in this country. A rocking chair was to her a delightful novelty and she had already bought six large rocking chairs of wickerwork. She was sitting in one and busily swaying back and forward and said: "Here I do repose myself and I take these chairs home with me and when de gentlemen and de ladies do come to see me in Florence, I do show them how to repose themselves."

Suddenly she looked at me and began to laugh immoderately. "Oh," she explained, seeing my puzzled expression, "I deed think of you as so deeferent, I deed think you were very tall and theen, with leetle, wiggly curls on each side of your face."

She evidently had in mind the typical old maid with gimlet ringlets! So we sat and rocked and laughed, for I was equally surprised to meet a person so "different" from my romantic ideal. Like the two Irishmen, who chancing to meet were each mistaken in the identity of the other. As one of them put it, "We looked at each other and, faith, it turned out to be nayther of us."

The Princess Massalsky sent to Mrs. Oliver and myself valuable tokens of her regard as souvenirs.

CHAPTER VII

Elected to be the First President of New Hampshire Daughters in Massachusetts and New Hampshire—Now Honorary President—Kind Words which I Highly Value—Three, but not "of a Kind"—A Strictly Family Affair—Two Favourite Poems—Breezy Meadows.

On May 15, 1894, I was elected to be the first president of the New Hampshire Daughters in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and held the position for three years. Was then made Honorary President.

Some unsolicited approval:

Hers was a notable administration, and brought to the organization a prestige which remains. Rules might fail, but the brilliant president never. She governed a merry company, many of them famous, but she was chief. They loved her, and that affection and pride still exist.

A daughter of the "Granite State," who can certainly take front rank among business women, is Kate Sanborn, the beloved president of New Hampshire's Daughters.

Another thing that has occupied Miss Sanborn's time this summer aside from farming and writing is the program for the coming winter's work for the Daughters of New Hampshire. It is all planned, and if all the women's clubs carry such a program as the one which Miss Sanborn has planned, and that means that it will be carried out, the winter's history of women's clubs will be one of unprecedented prosperity.

If New Hampshire's daughters now living out of their own State do not keep track of each other, and become acquainted into the bargain, it will not be the fault of their president, who has carried on correspondence with almost every one of them, and who has planned a winter's work that will enable them to learn something about their own State, as well as to meet for the promoting of acquaintance.

OUR FIRST MEETING

This meeting was presided over by our much loved First-President, Kate Sanborn, and it was the most informal, spontaneous, and altogether enjoyable organization meeting that could be imagined, and the happy spirit came that has guided our way and helped us over the rough places leading us always to the light.

Our first resolve was to enjoy to the utmost the pleasure of being together, and with it to do everything possible to help our native State. To these two objects we have been steadfastly true in all the years; and how we have planned, and what we have done has been recorded to our credit, so that we may now say in looking back, "We have kept the faith and been true."

At this time there are so many memories, all equally precious and worthy of mention here, but we must be brief and only a few can be recalled.

In our early years our Kate Sanborn led us through so many pleasant paths, and with her "twin President," Julia K. Dyer, brought the real New Hampshire atmosphere into it all.

That was a grand Dartmouth Day, when the good man, Eleazar Wheelock, came down from his accustomed wall space to grace our program and the Dartmouth Sons brought their flag and delighted us with their college songs.

Since then have come to us governors, senators, judges, mayors, and many celebrities, all glad to bring some story with the breath of the hills to New Hampshire's Daughters. Kate Sanborn first called for our county tributes, to renew old acquaintances and promote rivalry among the members. We adorned ourselves with the gold buttercup badges, and adopted the grey and garnet as our colors.

NEW HAMPSHIRE'S DAUGHTERS

Members of the Society Hold an Experience Meeting.

The first meeting of the season of New Hampshire's Daughters was held at the Hotel Vendome, Boston, Saturday afternoon, and was a most successful gathering, both in point of attendance and of general interest. The business of the association was transacted under the direction of the president, Miss Kate Sanborn, whose free construction of parliamentary law and independent adherence to common sense as against narrow conventionality, results in satisfactory progress and rapid action. The 150 or more ladies present were more convinced than ever that Miss Sanborn is the right woman in the right place, although she herself indignantly repudiates the notion that she is fitted to the position.

The Daughters declare that the rapid growth of the organization is due to Miss Sanborn more than to any other influence. Her ability, brightness, wit, happy way of managing, and her strong personality generally are undoubtedly at present the mainstays of the Daughters' organization. She is ably assisted by an enthusiastic corps of officers.

My Dear Kate Sanborn:

Your calendar about old age is simply au fait. After reading it, I want to hurry up and grow old as fast as I can. It is the best collection of sane thoughts upon old age that I know in any language. Life coming from the Source of Life must be glorious throughout. The last of life should be its best. October is the king of all the year. A man should be more wonderful at eighty than at twenty; a woman should make her seventieth birthday more fascinating than her seventeenth. Merit never deserts the soul. God is with His children always.

Yours for a long life and happiness,
PETER MACQUEEN.

PETER MACQUEEN

Dear Kate Sanborn:

The "Indian Summer Calendar" is the best thing you have done yet. I have read it straight through twice, and now it lies on my desk, and I read daily selections from it, as some of the good people read from their "Golden Treasury of Texts."

Mary A. Livermore.

Dear Miss Sanborn:

It gives me pleasure to offer my testimonial to your unique, original, and very picturesque lectures. The one to which I recently listened, in the New England Conservatory of Music, was certainly the most entertaining of any humorous lecture to which I have ever listened, and it left the audience talking, with such bright, happy faces, I can see it now in my mind. And they continued to repeat the happy things you said; at least my own friends did. It was not a "plea for cheerfulness," it was cheerfulness. I hope you may give it, and make the world laugh, a thousand times. "He who makes what is useful agreeable," said old Horace of literature, "wins every vote." You have the wit of making the useful agreeable, and the spirit and genius of it.

Sincerely,
HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.

I published a little volume, A Truthful Woman in Southern California, which had a large sale for many years. Women tourists bought it to "enlarge" with their photographs. Stedman wrote me, after I had sent him my book:

My Dear Kate Sanborn:

I think it especially charming that you should so remember me and send me a gift-copy of Truthful Kate's breezy and fascinating report of Southern California. For I had been so taken with your adoption of that Abandoned Farm that I had made a note of your second book. Your chapters give me as vivid an idea of Southern California as I obtained from Miss Hazard's watercolors, and that is saying a good deal. We all like you, and indeed who does not? And your books, so fresh and sparkling, make us like you even more. Believe that I am gratified by your unexpected gift, and by the note that convoyed it.

Edmund C. Stedman.

New York Public Library,
Office of Circulation Department,
209 West 23rd Street,
February 19,1907.

MISS KATE SANBORN,
    Metcalf, Mass.
DEAR MISS SANBORN:

You may be interested to know that your book on old wall-papers is included in a list of books specially recommended for libraries in Great Britain, compiled by the Library Association of the United Kingdom, recently published in London. As there seems to be a rather small proportion of American works included in the list, I think that this may be worthy of note.

With kindest regards, I remain,
Very truly yours,

Arthur E. Bostwick.

Chief of the Circulation Department.

My Dear Miss Kate Sanborn:

How kind and generous you are to my books, and therefore, to me! How thoroughly you understand them and know why I wrote them!

When a book of mine is sent out into the cold world of indifferent reviewers, I read their platitudinous words, trying to be grateful; but waiting, waiting, knowing that ere long I shall get a little clipping from the Somerville Journal, written by Kate Sanborn; and then I shall know what the book is. If it's good, she'll say so, and if it isn't, I think she would say so; but that alternative never has come to me. But I would far rather have her true words of dispraise than all machine-made twaddle of nearly all the book columns of our great American press.

It is such generous minds as yours that have kept me writing. I should have stopped long ago if I had not had them.

Alice Morse Earle.

It is impossible to give you a perfect pen picture of Breezy Meadows or of its mistress, Kate Sanborn, just as it is impossible to paint the tints of a glorious sunset stretching across the winter sky. Breezy Meadows is an ideal country home, and the mistress of it all is a grand woman—an honor to her sex, and a loyal friend. Her whole life seems to be devoted to making others happy, and a motto on one of the walls of the house expresses better than I can, her daily endeavour:

"Let me, also, cheer a spot,
Hidden field or garden grot,
Place where passing souls may rest,
On the way, and be their best."

Barbara Galpin.

As a lecturer, Miss Kate Sanborn is thoroughly unique. Whatever her topic, one is always sure there will be wit and the subtlest humour in her discourse, bits of philosophy of life, and the most practical common sense, flashes of laughable personal history, and gems of scholarship. It is always certain that the lecture will be rendered in inimitably bright and cheery style that will enliven her audience, which, while laughing and applauding, will listen intently throughout. No wonder she is a favourite with lecture goers, for few can give them so delightful an evening as she.—MARY A. LIVERMORE.

There is only one Kate Sanborn. Her position as a lecturer is unique. In the selection and treatment of her themes she has no rival. She touches nothing that she does not enliven and adorn. Pathos and humour, wit and wisdom, anecdote and incident, the foibles, fancies, freaks, and fashions of the past and present, pen pictures of great men and famous women, illustrious poets and distinguished authors, enrich her writings, as if the ages had laid their wealth of love and learning at her feet, and bidden her help herself. With a discriminating and exacting taste, she has brought together, in book and lecture, the things that others have overlooked, or never found. She has been a kind of discoverer of thoughts and things in the by-paths of literature. She also understands "the art of putting things." But vastly more than the thought, style, and utterance is the striking personality of the writer herself. It is not enough to read the writings of Miss Sanborn, though you cannot help doing this. She must be heard, if one would know the secret of her power—subtle, magnetic, impossible of transfer to books. The "personal equation" is everything—the strong, gifted woman putting her whole soul into the interpretation and transmission of her thought so that it may inspire the hearts of those who listen; the power of self-radiation. It is not surprising that Miss Sanborn is everywhere greeted with enthusiasm when she speaks.—ARTHUR LITTLE.

Miss Kate Sanborn is one of the best qualified women in this country to lecture on literary themes. The daughter of a Dartmouth professor, she was cradled in literature, and has made it in a certain way the work of her life. There is nothing, however, of the pedantic about her. She is the embodiment of a woman's wit and humour; but her forte is a certain crisp and lively condensation of persons and qualities which carry a large amount of information under a captivating cloak of vivacious and confidential talk with her audience, rather than didactic statement.

J. C. CROLY, "Jenny June."

One of the friends I miss most at the farm is Sam Walter Foss. He was the poet, philosopher, lecturer and "friend of man." His folk songs touched every heart and even the sombre vein lightened with pictures of hope and cheer. He was humorous and even funny, but in every line there is a dignity not often reached by writers of witty verse or prose. Mr. Foss was born in Candia, N.H., in June, 1858. Through his ancestor, Stephen Batcheller, he had kinship with Daniel Webster, John Greenleaf Whittier, and William Pitt Fessenden.

Mr. Foss secured an interest in the Lynn Union, and it was while engaged in publishing that newspaper that he made the discovery that he could be a "funny man." The man having charge of the funny column left suddenly, and Mr. Foss decided to see what he could do in the way of writing something humorous to fill the column. He had never done anything of this kind before, and was surprised and pleased to have some of his readers congratulate him on his new "funny man." He continued to write for this column and for a long time his identity was unknown, he being referred to simply as the "Lynn Union funny man." His ability finally attracted the attention of Wolcott Balestier, the editor of Tit-Bits, who secured Mr. Foss's services for that paper. Before long he became connected with Puck, Judge, and several other New York periodicals, including the New York Sun.

Mr. Foss's first book was published in 1894, and was entitled Back Country Poems and has passed through several editions. Whiffs from Wild Meadows issued in 1896 has been fully as successful. Later books are Dreams in Homespun, Songs of War and Peace, Songs of the Average Man.

SAM WALTER FOSS

He had charge of the Public Library at Somerville, Massachusetts, and his influence in library matters extended all over New England.

His poems are marked by simplicity. Most of his songs are written in New England dialect which he has used with unsurpassed effect. But this poetry was always of the simplest kind, of the appealing nature which reaches the heart. Of his work and his aim, he said in his first volume: