The Portland daily press., 1894-02-03
Constance Kenmore woolson,

Writing to friend last November. she
says: Il sometimes think that if I live,
and live here, | may write little vol
ume not about Venice, but on the islands
of the lagoons. But may neither live
nor live here" In the same letter there
is the expression of feeling of homeless
ness, which had grown upon her after
much wandering and herculean labors
with strange rooms and temporary lodg-
ings' feeling which she thinks she can
not endure much longer. The world
has never produced more home-loving
woman than I am. yet by strange fate
| have been homeless for twenty years"
and with an appearance of playfulness
that scarce ly wells the earnest longing,
she suggests as an epitaph to be placed
upon her tom bstone, Gone to look for
a home elsewhere
These expressions, which seem almost
too sacred for publication. are here given
thus unreservedly because they show that
though SO wide wanderer Miss Woolson
was not in love with wandering life.
The nomadic habit, which was notice
able also ia the characters of the heroes
and heroines of her novels, began in her
youth, when with her father, whose
health had begun to fail, she made long
excursions in Ohio and into the ne1gh-
boring States. 1t was in one of these
Journeys that she found the material for
her first contribution to Harper's Maya
zine July, 187O) en- titled, THE Happy
Valley" the success of which, she said,
determined her pursuit of a literary ca
reer. After her fathers death, in 1869,
and until she was thirty years of age,
she was the constant companion OF her
mother "a niece of James Fennimore
"COPPER" and with her she spent the sum-
mers in the North, frequently at Coopers-
town on Otsego Lake and the winters in
Ashevlle. North Carolina. and in Florida
These shifting sojourns gave her the
material for all her novels. and for nearly
all her short stores-material, however,
so transformed in the alembic of her i'm
agination, so transformed in its associa-
tion with the living world of her crea-
ton, that anyone attempting to trace her
literary landmarks would find them per-
haps in sea and sky and in local color,
but for the most part they would elude
him, escaping definition, for Miss Wool
sons stories never lack the illusion
which belongs to life itself.
After her mothers death, in 1879, Miss
Woolson went abroad, and the wander
ing habit was continued. She was not
alone. Her sister, Mrs. Benedict, spent
gOOd par6 Oh every year WIN ner IN
Italy, Switzerland, Austria or England,
accompanying her also in her recent
Eastern travels; and beloved niece as
with her in her last hours. Her long
residence abroad did not make Miss
Woolson less an American in her inter
ests or in her writings Even in her
Italian stories the most striking charac-
tiers are American. She often said that
our civil war was the great romance of
her life. The Southern life after the war
appealed to her very strongly, and she
had produced writers of its own like
Cable and Page and Harris and Miss
King. To the last, Florida and the
Carolinas retained their spell over her,
as is shown in Jupiter Lights" and
Horace Chase" her most recent novels,
though these were written Abroad
Harper's Weekly.