The morning call., 1890-07-07
THE HUBS
WRITING WOMEN.
Some Literary Lights Who Help
Spread BostOn's Fame.
Browsing in the Athsr@um Over Ancient
Tones and Modern Magazines - Julia
Ward Howe and Elizabsth Peabody.
Special to THE MORNING CALL.

the Athenaum in ten years. This morn
ing l found seemingly the same women
summering in its classic atmosphere
who wintered there ten years ago. They
had changed no more than had the solemn
busts of Sumner and Webster and Adams
or the group representing DR.. Bowditch at
his studies. L peered out through the
windows that overlook the '..Old Granary"
burying grounds, where lie the bones
of Frank1in's parents and other worthless,
and then 1 could have risen and
asked the woman next me il she remem-
bered the day l dropped an ancient tome
with bang from one of the mysterious
upper alcoves. The Athenaum is the
Boston woman's Pantheon, her Louvre,
her Borghese Gallery. her British Museum.
The old Athen8um was to her the visible
representative of culture" To the new
Athen@um come the Boston University
girls and the learned maidens from the
Harvard Annex and the women professors
from Wellesley and the Boston woman
par excellence, with her rather slight
figure and her sober face and-when she
is young at least-her mayhower com
pleXion. The Athen@um is the Boston
wOman's happy literary hunting-grc und.
Here Julia Ward Howe and Mary A. Liver
more and Louise Chandler Mouiton and
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-Ward and Celia
IhaXter and Lucy Larcom and Mrs.
James T. Fields took to ink as naturally as
a duck takes to water, and here the women
OF the younger group, Mrs. Margaret De-
land and Sara Orne Jewett and Norah
Perry aud Ella Farman Pratt and Edna ID.
Cheney and their compeers do much of
their browsing.
New York says Boston is losing It's old
literary prestige. 1t may be that the Ma
tionalIst group will never equal the Emer-
Sonians. but the reason is so much the
stronger Tor cherishlng the writers she still
has, both those of the old and of the new
school. Under the huge elms of the Com
mon yesterday white haired woman, who
is herself writer, was talking to me of
Julia Ward Howe, whom many women
would call first citizen of this
NEW ENGLAND REPUBLIC OF WOMEN.
My friend remembers Mrs. Howe as
she played the organ in James Freeman
Clarke'S church in the prime of her young
matrOnh0od. 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
interest in millinery. and looked like ten
thousands frignts," If 1t be not held sacri-
legiOus to quote such an opinion. One day
this story sounds as if it ought to be told
rather OF Elizabeth Peabody-she came in
from walk quite Hurried. g Do tell me-"
she asked hurriedy. lis there anything
wrong about my appearancep 1t seemed to
me that people were staring"
"N ell, 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 Onee be frank
and say that like woman the better for
it-had been in large measure remedied,
and my friend described for me the costume
worn by Mrs. Howe on her first appearance
in New York as public speaker. 1t was a
mauve fOulard spotted with brown. and for
! her head she had lace couture at once
gracefully becoming and dgnlted.
Al the time Of the Sailors National Fair
in Boston, Mrs Howe tended one of the
stalls, and l have heard another woman
who was then 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 COM
modities. Now it happened that Mrs.
Howe in an inauspicious moment stepped
| backward. lost her balance and fell through
the dlaperies, 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
A properly respectful countenance with
which to 60 and lend her fallen idol help
ing hand.
An entertaining little passage between
Edwin Booth and Mrs. Howe was related
by my wiite-halred friend under the elms.
Mrs. Barrow was playing Desdemona to
Booths OF clio. Booth was invited to a
reception at the Beacon-street house of DR..
| and Mrs. Howe. In the course of the even
ing Mrs. Howe put Oh an air Of great earn
eStneSS and said: Mr.. Booth, give your
promise; you Will do me favOr2"
Booths face fell; he thought he was to
be called on for Il speech or recitation,
devices of the enemy which he hates as
| heartily as If lie had never spoken line be-
| fore 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 BESIDE
mona wasn't very thrilling.
The oldest of Boston's notable women is
Miss Elizabeth Peabody, who must be fully
81. Tier personal eccentrlcities are MS
marked as the eccentTlclties of her bonnets,
| but the milk of human kindness is sweeter
| in her character than in that of most indi-
! viduals OF type more normal She has
| outliyed 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 intu-
ence has been strong, in the educational
Vice President of the New England
Woman's Club, which is older than Sorosis,
and has numbered Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emer-
son and Mrs. Nathaniel p. Willis aud Mrs.
Howe and Miss Parkman and other notable
names among its officers. One associates
her with snOw-drOps, because when her son
was coach at Harvard she had always,
when they could be found, snOw-drops in
every room Of
HER HOUSE IN CAMBRIDGE.
Mrs Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Ward is a
woman whose personal appearance seems
10 fit in wonderfully with her writings. See
her give a little talk to a group of college
| girls, 'her girls she viii call them. As she
| sits by small table her chin rests in her
| left hand and her eyes are on the floor. She
| looks shy, delicate-ieatured, and yet there
| is Il strength in her forehead and in the
| lines Of the eyebrows and the rather large
nose. Her hair Is drawn smoothly back
without crimp or curl, and gathered in
| heavy knot held by a high-backed
| comb. Her eyes have rather sad look
that vanishes only when she smiles. She
| is now, L fancy, younger looking than
before her marriage At least. she has re-
Taxed a little OF the sobrlety, almost amount
ing to severity, of hel costume. AS she be-
gins to speak, though the words are simple,
you feel that you are in tile presence of a
highly organized, sensitive, and extremely
nervous individual; nervous not being in
terpeted to mean fidgety, for Mrs. Phelps
Wards manners are extremely quiet, so
quiet that, withouta certain instinct to guide
you, you would call them reposefuL Her
literary collaboration with her husband is
apparently going to be successful. One
would not have expected it, instances of
such success being few and far between.
Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton Is a bird of
passage, spending half the year with her
family III Boston and the other half abroad.
Sherwood Bonner used to say of Mrs. MOul-
ton that she belonged to that class of wo-
men who seemed born to charm, for charm,
she continued, is sweet and com rehen-
slve word, meaning to bewitch. not to mad
den; to delight, not to intoXicate; to satisfy,
not to tantalize; to please the soul like the
smell OF rose, the song of book, the
sight OF waving fields. In person she is in
these latter days of matronly figure and me-
dunn height. Her face is mobile, her hair
dark, her voice pleasant, and her manners