The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-07-06
Nhere Most Do Congregate College
Girls, Learned Maidens,
Women Profs.
The Famous Literary Hunting
Ground Of Many Ladies'
Of RenoWn.
4 Bon Mot by julia Ward Howe-A1rs.
Phelps, Mrs. Moulton-Other
Noted Women.

BosroN, July 81 had mot been at the
Athen@um in ten years. This morning I
found seemingly the same women summer
ing 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 rep
resenting DR.. Bowditch at his studies.
peered out through the windows
ary'' burylng grounds, where lie
the bones of Franklin's parents and other
worthless, and then could have risen and
asked the woman next me if she remem-
bered the day I dropped an ancient tome
with bang from one of the mysterious up
per alcoves. The Athen@um is the Boston
woman's Pantheon, her Louvre. her Borg
hese gallery, her British museum.l trhe old
Athen@um was to her the visible represent
alive of culture. To the new Athen@um
come the Boston University girls and
the learned maidens from the Har-
ward Annex and the women professors
from Wellesley and the Boston
woman par excellence, with her rather
she is young at least-her mayfower COM
plexion. The Athen@um is the Boston
wOman's happy literary hunting ground.
Here Julia Ward Howe and Mary A. Liver
more, and Louise Chandler Moulton, and
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Celia
Thaxter and Lucy Larcom and Mrs. James
Z. Fields took to ink as naturally as duck
takes to water, and here the women of the
younger group, Mrs. Margaret Deland and
Sara Orne Jewett and Norah Perry and Ella
Farman Pratt and Edna D: Cheney and
their compeers do much of their browsing.
New York says that Boston is losing its
old literary prestige. :, 1t may be that the
Nationalist group will never equal the
Emersonians, but the reason is SO much the
stronger for cherishing the writers she still
school. Under the huge elms of the COM
mon yesterday a hite-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.
played the organ in James freeman Clarke's
church in the prime of her young matron-
hood. Though we think of her now as unit
ing the literary worker with the best typs
of the society woman, in those days she let
her intellectual interests dwarf her interest
in millinery, and ''looked like ten Thousand
frtRhts," if it be not held sacrilegious 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 a
walk quite Hurried. "Do tell me,'' she
asked hurriedly, ''is there anything wrong
uPESoAsAAA0os
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 a 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
Con 10p6u tod 4.
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 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 hap
pened that Mrs. Howe in an inauspicious
moment stepped backward lost her balance
and fell through the draperies, landing in a
bushel basket, doubled up with such scien-
titic 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 a handkerchief into her
mouth for some minutes before she could
command properly respectful countenance
with which to go and lend her fallen idol a
helping hand.
:, An entertaining little passage between
Edwin Booth and Mrs. Howe was related
by my white-haire friend under the elms.
Mrs. Barrow was playing Desdemona to
BOOTHS Othello. Booth was invited to a
reception at the Beacon street house of Dr.
and Mrs. Howe. In the course of the eve
ming n Mrs: Howe put on ma, an air of great earn
Your promise; you will do me favor?''
Booths face fell; he thought he was to be
called on for speech or recitation, de-
vices Of the enemy which he hates as heart
lily as if he had never spoken line before
an audience. He sighed, but passed his
that the next time you bring that pillow
down you'll do it in e,rnest." The BESIDE
mona wasn't very thrilling.
The Oldest of Boston's notable women Is
Miss Elizabeth Peabody, who must be 81.
her personal eccentricities are as marked
as the eccentricities of her bonnets. but the
milk of human kindness is sweeter in her
character than in that of most individuals
OF type more normal. She has outlived
Mrs: Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mrs. Hor-
ace Mann, who were her sisters. and waits
with quiet patience, that is sometimes pa
hind her any literary achievements worthy
first brought i, to this sue country Mny
from Germany, the kindergarten
anoSnOu o1 GeacnlnR cnndren, and her lnflu-
ence 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 Parkman and other notable names
among its officers. One associates her
with snowdrops, because when her son was
coach" at Harvard she had always.
when they could be found, snowdrops in
every room of her house in Cambridge.
Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward is n
woman whose personal appearance seems to
ct in wonderfully with her writings, See
her give talk to little group of col
lege girls, s.hsr girls she will call them.
As she sits by a small table her chin rests
in her left hand and her ewes are
On the floor. She looks shy, delicate
featured, and yet there is a 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 high backed comb. Her eyes have
rather a sad look that vanishes only when
she smiles. She is now, fancy. younger
looking than before her marriage. At least
she has relaxed a little the sobriety,
almost amounting to severity, of her
A. l.