The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1886-07-29
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PROSPECT COTTAGE, MRS. soUTHwoRTH's
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Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth is another
Washington novelist, and she is perhaps tho
most prolific writer in the country. She is 66
years old, and has written a novel for every
year of her life. All of her work is taken by
Robert Bonner, of The Ledger, and she has
not furnished a page of manuscript to any
other publisher for years. 1t is said that
Bonner pays her $40, 900 year for everything
that she writes, but l have no basis for this
statement except rumor There is no doubt
but that she is well paid, and the cottage
which she owns here on the Georgetown
Heights, though it lacks paint, is covered
with vines, and it makes very pleasant home.
1t commands view of the Potomac Airing
ton and the Virginia hills, and cool wind
from the south blows through it day and
night. Mrs. Southworth began her writing
at Washington, and her first story was pub
lished III The National Era. She writes the
| same character of stories to-day that she did
then. They are full of blood and thunder
and of love and longing. She turns them out
as though she were a machine, and is not de-
pendent at all upon her moods. She grinds
out everything with her own hands, writing
boldly with large gold pen. She revises her
proofs herself, and often works far into the
night. She writes generally from Tuesday
until Thursday night, and spends Friday and
Saturday in visiting, while on Monday she
revises her proofs. She is a close reader of
the newspapers, and like Charles Reade she
takes a great many of her stories from the
facts she finds in them.
Another woman writer of Washington is
Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren who owns one of the
best houses of the capital city. She lives just
across from Gen. Bob Schenck, our former
minister to England, and a little in front of
the house of Senator Conger, of Michigan.
She has written a book about South noun
tain, her country home, near here, giving
collection of weird stories and legends of the
romantic region in which it is located. Mrs.
Dahlgren is the widow of Admiral Dahlgren.
She is an Ohio girl, and her father was,
think, a member of congress. She is posted
on society matters, and is an authority on
Washington etiquette, about which she has
written book.
One of the queerest literary characters of
Washington is Joaquin Miller, who owns a
log cabin on one of the hills above the city
Mr.. Miller cultivates the wild eccentricties of
western life, and have thought at times that
he affects a good many Of these for the adj
vertisement it gives him. He goes about
Washington in a SLOUGH hat, with his panta-
looms in his boots and his long red hair flow
ing down upon his brawny shoulders. AS you
talk to him dreamy, far-off look will come
into his eyes, and he will make the most out
landish statements spiced with poetry, in re-
gard to matters in the conversation He used
to gallop about Washington on horseback,
soaring the children, in the costume of a west
ern cowboy, and a part of his attire was
pair of pantaloons made of the fulTed skin of
the Angora goat He had silver pommel to
his saddle as big as soap dish and his stir
rups were as big as half-peck measure Mil
Ter has received a good deal of money from
his writing, but he spends a great deal, and
doubt whether he owns much more than the
little property that he has here. The interior of
his cabin here is as queer as the outside. The
walls are made of wood logs and chinked
with plaster, and Mr. Miller keeps his papers
by lacking them to the walls with pins He |
has a couch under the window and there is a
bed covered with skins behind portiere
made of rich oriental cloths. Joaquin writes
on pine table, which probably cost about
81, and the implanted poplar chair he sits
upon could be bought anywhere for fifty
cents. There is no cloth upon the table, and
plain inkStand and steel pen are his only |
materials. He has no system in his writing,
and can only write when the humor seizes
him. His penmanship is harder to read than
the hieroglyphics of the obelisks, and he can
not write at all if there is any other person
present than himself He once told me that |
the presence of a child constrr:lo,! his hand |
and that he has found himself posing before |
every girl he talked to. 81 must be alone" |
he said, ito do good work, and | cannot die |
tate satisfactorily" joaquin Miller began
writing by sending letters to weekly news
paper in Oregon. The first pay he got for |
literary work was so for magazine article |
to The Overland Monthly, and he considers
his best work the novel he wrote called "One
Fair Woman"
One queer thing about Miller is that he
never allows telegram boys to deliver mes
sages to him at his cabin, and. he frightened
one nearly to death not long ago by threaten
ing to shoot if he came inside the gate.
Mr. Ainsworth Spofford, the librarian of
congress, is a book maker as well as a book
lender. He is dark faced man with 6. frame
made of wire and filled with activity. Be.
tween 80 and 60 years of age he does more
work than any young man of % in Washing
ton, and he never wastes an idle moment. He
understands bow to make other men work
for him, and he can dictate as smoothly as he
writes He has a brusque way of talking
and rather rough voice, but he is business
from the start, and he allows no one from
messenger to senator to consume his valuable
time fooishly He is always ready, however,
to give information, and that little dark head
of his seems to have packed away in its cells
the whole contents of the congressional IL
brary. Tell him what you want to know of
a subject He will put his finger upon an
electric bell, give word to one of his assist
ants, and in a moment you have before you
the very material you want. Mr.. Spoford
owns very pleasant home on Massachusetts
avenue in the most fashionable part of Wash
ington. 1t is a wide, red brick, and is worth
/ should say at least $4,000. He rides to this
every evening in the red Herdic. He always
carries green bag with him out of which he