The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-08-09

ribbon, . rne = tis sof je1oHy in her life. She told nc she neser allouod the expense of her wardrobe b eDceed $$o . year. In the summer she usually wore q gingham gosn that cost about dollar, with sunbcnnet 10 match and once she paid s fcr yard of velyef out of which she made a bonnet that she wore seven years While in office doing editorial work she wore net scarf tied under her chin which looked like a cap. She didn't affect this originality of costume because she vas eccentric, but to avoid the dubi- ous felicity of being "talked abou, r-to coufuse by her appearance as well as her conduct any lie that any blackguard might set ahoaf about her. She wanted to be able to lock man straight h the face while she talked with him, and never for an instant have him think tha, she was anything more than a mind in . waskerwoman's druss.
 For the sane reason sAe never accept cd the slightest attention from any eentle- man. To all offer os neing her to . carriage or car she answered that she needed no sucA courtesy. Whon she went to the ofiSce or easewAaz0 sa night she toak small office bsy vllh her as escoet.
 With all her severe plainness of attire she never looked les tAan an empress. She had beauty q 6gure and face and . majes<y of carriage tAat common gar ments could not conceal She was an illustrates ot how little, aller all, we are indebted to clothes for oar appearance. She had an oval facs, with a broad, smooth forehead. dark, archsd eyebrows, big, clear. gray-hlue syes, . prfectly straight noee and . laSRe, fsm mouth SAe couldnt grow old. Her spirit vas too full of fife. Even to the lase her once beautiful brown hair vas but half gray In conversation she vas charming. She talked as she wrote, with choice of Ian. guage at once powerful and beautiful, and in voice strikingly international, clear and deep, with no high keys and no womanish quavers in it.
 Mrs. Swisshelm's chirography is a sors Of photograph Q. her character. It is a cuious, original and beautiful hand straight, strong and without a superfiu- ous line. Besides some of the affected furries oi younger writers it looks like a leaf from an engraver's book of samples This sphere-jumping woman was deep ly religious She had no reverence fcr the horrors of a saw-teeth theology which both her reason and her culture repu- diated: but a conscientious piety per. vaded her whole life. Once in conversa- ton she said to me, God is the great faet in the universe. dont know what he will do with the world and its entangle- ments but I'm sure hen do something that's good"
 Neaxly four years ago, just after he, book, Half Century, was published
 asked her if, taking into consideration all the abuse she had borne and all the
 disappointments she had suffered, she thought her life had paid. "Yes." shs answered, "it has paid gloriously.
 would not give up what have accom-. plished for this world and another on< like it. Oh, there never was such a pay.
 master as the Lord" She looked like q high priestesx as she said this-a roya soul that counted suffering as nothing since it could rise above it.
 l am sure this woman was above all the shafts of spite and hate. The opin. ions of others, she declared, were abso. lutely nothing to her. It would not have given her a moments uneasiness to know that everybody condemned her Sh< would as soon live in poorhouse as not she said.
 Did she care fdr appreciation?" Yes, she thought she did. She had wept ovel some of the kind notices of her autobio. Egraphy, but she would not have been un. happy without this appreciation.
 The most pathetic part of Jane Swiss helms history is. the surrender of her lovs of art to the ignorant prejudice of hes time. She never saw any paintings unti after she was married. A travelling artis, stopped at the village; she saw his pictures and new world vas opened te her-opened only to be rudely closed again in her face. She tried painting and was as once lost to all other interests but the sentiment of the times wal against a married woman doing anything but housework. While she was ,expesi. menting on canvas and hesitating in her mind about the line of duty, she mel one Of those newspaper paragraphs with which men are won't to pelt women into subjection: "A man does not many ar artist, but housekeeper." This 6tted my case" she said, and my doom wal sealed. Iput away my brushes resolute- ly cruci6ed my divine gift, and while 1, hung withering on the cross, spent my best years and power cooking cabbage A servant of servants shall she be, must have been written of women, not nc. groes'" Again she said: "I have never cared for literary fame have avoided rather than sought it; have enjoyed the abuse of the psess more than its praise have held my pen with feeling Of CO., tempt for its feebleness, and never could be % occupied with it as to forget . domestic duty; while have never visited . picture gallery, but have bowed in deep repentance for the betrayal of q trust"
 The Choicest Garment.
 Washington Hafrhet.I
 Colonel William O'Brien, of Solazis, is