The herald., 1895-08-18

Jewett will let me say that she atten' q
| to her correspondence in the morni' &
and writes usually in the afternoon. 1
| think she said she was in a sense q titfn'
! worker. That is, she may write 5000
| or 10, 900 words in day, but she never
keeps up that pace for very long. Many
of her magazine sketches have been
written at sitting; some have been
retouched, perhaps almost rewritten
afterwards; others have gone to the
printer with scarcely the change of o
word When she has long story on
hand she writes from 1000 to 1000
words day, five days in the week,
possibly A novel finished, there comes
the growing and the gaining time. For
months, maybe, she reads and rides
and rows till she has something more
so well worth saying that pen and pa
per must come into play again.
Miss Jewett's den is the most de-
lightful l have ever seen. 1t is in the
upper hall, with a wide window looking
down upon the tree-shaded village
street A desk strewn with papers is
on one side and ON the other case of
books, and table. Pictures, flowers
and books are everywhere. The room
set apart for the library is one OF the
four great square ones down stairs
But the books overflow it. They lie
upon the sofas and have shelves in the
bedrooms. 1t is the house of woman
who studies.
Scott, particularly. For she doesn't
believe with Howells that the art of
novel-writer has grown so much
finer thing since the great romancer's
day that we have nothing to learn
from him. 1.-The buster 1 get," she
said, "the more time make to read
the Waverly novels.
"And of the more modern writers?"
"What would you say if asked you
that question:"
"That it depended on the mood"
"What other answer can you expect
from me? One can nearly always read
Stevenson and his Scotch children; but
one book is for one days thinking and
another for anothers.
Miss Jewett spoke with the warmest
appreciation of the books of Miss Mary
E. Wilkins, whose work is like and yet
SO unlike her own. Both have written
lovingly and truthfully of the simple,
country life of New England; but where
one is Photographic, the sentences of
the other are shot with the colors of the
Imagination. 81 read Miss Wilkins
first stories" she said, ''and wondered
that the public did not recognize
sooner that new genius had arisen"
"Ofyour own books, which do you
like best?"
They're pretty large family now,
and she smiled. There are always
personal reasons, you know, and asso-
ciations that NAV influence ones judg
ment 1 don't think 1 have favorite.
In some ways l like "a Country Doc
tor" best, and yet L believe "a Marsh
Island is better story"
am not quoting Miss Jewett verba
tim, and that l try to quote her at all
she must forgive me.
Not many writer's have felt the scrib
bling instinct so young. Lucy Gar
rou's Lovers" was written and printed
when its author was somewhere about
IA. Before she was twenty Miss jew
EFT had seen her signature in the At
lantic Monthly and other magazines,
but as she counts things now her seri-
GUS work did not begin until some
time after then. What the future may
bring she is chary about saying, but
with the best years of her life ahead
the best work is still to come from a
woman young in years and younger in
spirit and vitality.
1t is worth days journey down into
Maine to sit in one of those big cool
old rooms, with the rain dashlng
against the windows and tossing the
lilac branches about wildly. and to hear
such earnest common sense as one gets
from few women. OF course we talked
about the New Woman. Miss Jewett
isn't at all worried about her. She
believes in the natural evolution Of
things. The world progresses Just about
as fast as the mass can be leavened