The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-10-19
MAUD HOWE.
Something About the Clever New Writer,
Daughter of Julia Ward.

Daughter of Julia Ward.
Chicago Rambler.
This new novelist, who has come upon the
stage during the last year, is not going to dis
appear from our sight with her first two efforts.
She is very clever and determined young
woman, and is the child Of parents alike distin-
guished for high culture, generous ambitions
and successful careers.
Mr.. lowe was the preux chevalier of his day,
and lived a life of romantic adventure with
Byron in Greece, and at home spent his days in
untiring benevolence until his death.
Julia Ward Howe still wields her quiet iniu-
ence and speaks in her quiet, lady-like voice
above the turbulent meetings of Woman's
OF it all Her elder daughters give
their fragments of beautiful verse to the
world, and now this youngest child is fol
lowing the example of her cousin, Mr.. f. Marion
Crawford, and is writing stories for us. To
speak personally of her, she is endowed with a
wonderful beauty of type and expression. She
can hardly be called a blonde, although her
brown hair shines gold in the clinging curves
and curls in which it falls; and her eyes, al
though blue, are deep and dark, and sparkle
with that clear, intellectual flash which
illumines alone the windows of Just
such minds as hers. She is of me-
dunn height and has beautiful round hands and
arms. Her portrait, painted by Porter, has
been hung In the Corcoran art gallery IN Wash
ington for several years. The lines of her head
and face are very classic, and remind one of old
portraits and statutes. Her forehead is law and
broad, and her lips have a little pathetic droop
over the firm chin.
She has travelled a great deal with Mrs. Howe
and has seen and done everything. The house
in Beacon street, i'll Boston, in which they live,
is crowded with treasures from everywhere,
and mementoes from everybody. The house was
given to Mrs. Howe by her brother, the late
well known Sam Ward, andis built, as very many
of the Boston houses are, with a small recep-
tion-room, dining-room and kitchen on the first
floor, drawingroom and library on the second
and bedrooms on the third. The room which
they use for writing is square and sunny. and
very interesting in its promiscuous disorder.
There. is a great square mahogany table in the
middle of the room, strewn with books, magazines
and manuscripts. Among them is a book flied
with poems written for Miss Howe, one of which
isa charming little thing by wv Story. In one
corner of the room there is an old carved oak
desk, Uttered with papers, and not far from it
an italian prize -dieu, with prayer-book and
rosary. On the walls are hung small specimens
of the present school of New York artists. A
very bright rug in reds ard yellows, with a fire
in the old fashioned CRATE, make the room warm.
Miss Howe is a good deal touched with the
usual theory of literary women to aim at the
picturesque in dress without much regard for the
dressmaker. The result IN her case is some
times successful and sometimes not. Even
such beauty as hers succumbs sometimes to
her independence of the laws which. rule her
sex. She wears in the house long, clinging
cashmeres, in odd colors, deepened
here and there with velvet, and deco
rated at the open throat with old Italian lace.
She wears ivy always on her head at balls, and
dresses much in tulle and flowers. During the
summer they live in their Newport house, by
the sea. In the winter in Boston they receive
every Thursday afternoon, and there may be
found a mixture of artists, professors, literrtti
and the haute monde, whom they receive and
entertain with the utmost tact.
During the past ten years in their travels
thew have seen and experienced much that is
most interesting. They have been feted all over
Europe. Miss Howe might tell you how she
danced with the King of Greece, and went out to
dinner with Robert Browning, who asked to sit
next the beautiful American. Shehas lived alone
to her thirtieth year, and now devotes herself
beautiful woman as she is, with the warmest
heart in all the world-to a life of hard literary
labor. Some say there is a reason for the pathetic
droop OF her beautiful hps-but who shall sayl