The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-07-06
HUB'S WRITING WOMEN.
zpARY LIGHTS WHO HELP
SPREAD BosToN's FAME.

ARh6AO
in the AthenRum over An
-. tonnes and Modern Magazines
1ulia Ward Howe and slzaoe'n
Peabody-Pross and Verse from
Many Pens.
OCopyright)
Ros,ox July ST. had not been at the
.+ho,s.um in ten years. This morning
tonnd seem!ngly the same women summer
iny in its classic atmosphere VINO winter Oh
there ten wears ago. They had cnanged no
mora than had the solemn ousts OF oulnher
-and Webster and Adams or the group repre-
senting DIR. Bowdi CHI at his studies lpeeleu
-, through the windows that overlook the
ssOld Granaryn burying grounds, where lie
4ba homes of Franklin's parents and other
xvortbies. and then l could have risen and
..rlo5 the woman next me if she remembered
.ha dav dropped an ancient tome with
hony from one of the mysterious upper al
.ooves The Athenaum is the Boston womans
Pantheon. her Louvre. her Borghese gallery,
her British museum. The old Athenaum
nos m her the visible representative or cult
- y To the new Athen8um come the
Roston University girls and the learned
Inaidens from the Harvard Annex ana the
women professors from Wellesley and the
BOSTON woman par ercettence, with her
rather slight figure and her sober face and
hen she is youug at leaSt-her mayfiower
connnlexion. The AthenBum is the Boston
1vorran's happy literary hunting ground.
Tera .TulIa Ward Howe, and Mary A. Liver
-,1ora and Louise Chandler Moulton, and
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-W ard, and Celia
Tnaxter, and Lucy Larcom and Mrs james
# Fields took to ink as naturally as duck
takes TO water, and here the women or the
t,o,,nger proup. Mrs Margaret Deland, and
Sora Orne Jewett, and Nora Perry, and
Ella Farman Pratt, and Edna G. Cheney
and their compeers do much OF their
browsing.
New York says Boston is losing its old
literary prestige. IT may be that the nation
alist group will never equal the Emerson
ans. but the reason Is so much the stronger
for cberishing the writers she still has, both
those of the old and of the new school.
Under the huge elms of the common yester-
day a white-haired woman, who Is herself
a writer, was talking TO me of julia w ard
Howe whom many women would call first
citizen of this New England republic OF
women.
Nv friend remembers Mrs. Howe as she
played the organ in james freeman
Tlarke's church in the prime of her young
matronhood. Though we think of her now
as uniting the literary worker with the best
type of the society woman, In those days
she let her intellectual. interests dwarf her
interests in millinery, and looked like ten
thousand frights, If it be not held sacrileg-
ious to quote such an opinion. One day
this story sounds as if it ought 20 be told
rather of Elizabeth Peabody--she came in
from walk quite Hurried. "Do tell me"
she asked hueriedly, lis there anything
wrong about my appearances 1t seemed to
me that people were staring"
"Well, mother, it is very likely" an
swered one of her daughters; your bonnet
is hind side before"
By the time she went on the lecture plat
form this defect-let me for once be frank
and say that / like woman the better for
it-had been i'll large measure remedied, and
my friend described for me the costume
worn by Mrs. Howe on her first appearance
in New York as a public speaker. 1t was a
mauve foulard spotted with brown, and for
her head she had lace couture at once
gracefully becoming and dignified.
At the time of the Sailors national fair
in Boston Mrs. Howe tended one of the
stalls, and have heard another woman,
who was then a young girl standing much
in awe of the distinguished writer, tell a
little story of one of the heartiest laughs OF
her lifetime. The booths were curtained at
the back, and behind the curtains were kept
reserve stock and all sorts of commodities.
Now it happened that Mrs. Howe, in an iu-
suspicious moment, stepped backward, lost
her balanceand fell through the draperies,
landing in a bushel basket, doubled up with
such scientific exactness as to be absolutely
powerless before the task of Strengthening
herself out again. The witness of this little
Incident retired behind the curtains of the
next booth and stuffed handkerchief into
her mouth for some minutes before she
could command properly respectful coun-
tenance with which to go and lend her fallen
idol helping hand.
An entertaining little passage between
Edwin Booth and Mrs Howe was related
by my white-haired friend under the elms
Mrs. Barrow was playing Desdemona tC
Booths Othello. Booth was invited to a re.
ception at the Beacon street house of DIR.
and Mrs. Howe. In course of the evening
Mrs Howe put on All air of great earnest
ness, and said: 'Mr. Booth. give me your
promise; you will do me favor
Booths face fell; he thought be was to be
called on for a speech or a recitation, de-
vices of the enemy which he hates as heartily
as if he had never spoken line before an
audience. He sighed but passed his word.
promise me-" said Mrs. Howe, that the
next time you bring that pillow down you'll
do 1t in earnest" The Desdemoua wasn't
very thrilling.
lne Oldest OF BOSCOn'S notable women is
Miss Elizabeth Peabody, who must be fully
81. Her personal eccentricities are as marked
as the eccentricities of her bonnets, but the
milk of human kindness is sweeter in bel
character than in that of most individuals Of
type more normal. She has outlived Mrs
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mrs Horace
Mann, who were her sisters, and waits with
? quiet patience, that is sometimes pathetic
for the end. She will not leave behind her
any literary achievement worthy OF her
gifts. but it was she who first brought to this
country from Germany the kindergarten
method of teaching children, and her in
nuence has been strong in the educational
world. Mrs. Horace Mann was one time
vice president of the New England Woman's
Club, which is older than Sorosis, and has
numbered Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson, and
MRS. Nathaniel P, Willis, and Mrs. Howe
and MISS Parkmau, and other notable name:
among Its officers. One associates her with
snowdrops, because when her son was q
coach" at Harvard she had always, when
tney could be found, snowdrops in every
room or her house in Cambridge.
Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward is g
woman whose personal appearance seems tc
ut III wonderfully with her writings. See
her give little talk to group of college
girls, her girls" she will call them AS she
slts by small table her chin rests in her
lett hand and her eyes are on the floor
one looks shy, delicate featured, and vet
There is strength in her forehead and in
the lines of the ayahroUS aod +ho ,.o4Lo-