The Somerset reporter., 1894-02-15
Constance Fcnimore WooIson

Fran Harper's weekly.
Writing to Il friend last November,
/ She saws: II sometimes think that If
| live, aud live here, | may write II little
volume not about Venice, but on the
islands of the lagoOns. But may
neither live nor live here" In the same
letter there l. the expression Of II feeling
of houeessncss, which had grown upon
her after much wandering aud her
cuiean Ebors with strange rooms and
temporary lod9ings-a feeling which
she thinks she cannot endure much long
err 'Ihc world has never produced a
more mc-loving woman than am,
vet by strange fate have been home
less Tor twenty years.; and with an APP
pearance of playfulness that scarcely
wells the earnest longing, she suggests
n an epitaph to be placed upon her
tombstone, Gone to look for "A home
elsewhere.
These expressions, which seem almost
too sacred for publication, are here Civ
en- thus unreseryedly because they show
| that, though so wide "a wanderer, Miss
Woolson was not in love with Il WAN
derng life. The nomadic habit, which
was noticeable also in the characters of
the heroes aud heroines of her novels,
began in her youth. when with ncr
father, whose health had begun to fail,
she made long excursions In Ohio aud
into the neighborng States. II was in
one of these journeys that she found the
material for her first contribution Ia
Ilarpcr's Magazine duly. 1870, entitl-
ed, "rhe Happy Valley" the success of
which, she said, determined her pursuit
of Il literary career. After her father s
DEATH in 1869, and until she was thirty
years OF age, she was the constant com
panion Of her mother ca niece of james
Fenimorc Cooper, and with her she
spent the summers in the North fire.
quently at Coopcrstown on Otsego Lake,
and the winters in Ashcville, North
Carolina, and in Florida These shifting
soiourns gave her the material for all
her novels and for nearly all her short
storcs-material, however, SO trans
formed in the alembic of her imagina-
ton. so trans fused in its association with
the living world of her creation, that
any one attempting to trace her literary
landmarks would find them perhaps in
sea and sky and in local color, but for
the most part they would elude him, es-
Gaping definition, for Miss Wooson' :
stories never lack the illusion which be-
longs to life itself.
After her mothers death, in 1879,
Miss Woolson went abroad, and the
wandering habit was continued. She
was not alone. Her sister, Mrs. Bene-
dict, spent good part of every year
with her in Italy, Switzerland, Austria
or England, accompanying her also in
her recent Eastern travels, and Il beloved
niece was with her in her last hours.
Her long residence abroad did not
make Miss Woolson less an American in
her interests or in her writings. Even
in her Italian stories the most striking
characters are American. She often
said that our civil war was the great ro-
nance of her life. The southern life
after .hc war appealed to her very
strongly and she gave it form and voice
before the South had produced writers
Of its own like Cable and Page and llar-
ris and Miss King. To the last, Florida
and the Caroinas retained their spell
over her, as is shown in Jupiter Lights
and Horace Chase, her most recent nov
els, though these were written abroad.