The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-04-25
MARY JOHNSTON AT HOME.
Glimpse of the Life of Famous Wom
 An Author

Mary Johnston is the most talked of literary woman of the hour. The extra ordinary success of ITO Have and to Hold has been followed by the success of Audrey" her latest story There Is nothing startling in her lifes story. She was born B years ago in Virginia in the quaint old town of Buchanan
 Sixteen years of Miss Johnston's life were spent at Buchanan-years from which the routine of neither public nor private school filched a single hour: for her health was frafl. and her education was conducted at home, with due regard to physical limitations. Her grandmoth- CT. Scotchwoman of rare intelligence and beauty of character, was her first teacher, and afterward an aunt. Later governeSses were employed. and when her father and mother moved to Alabama the future author was sent to finishing school in Atlanta; but within three months her health broke down, and she was obliged to be taken to her home, at Birmingham.
 The home at Birmingham has little to distinguish it from the city home of any other Southern family of easy circum- stances. It is a fairly large house. built for comfort rather than for beauty and furnished for comfort and for dignified refinement rather than style or fashion. Back of the large parlors, with the hos pitable open freplaces of the South Is the library, where Miss Johnston did part of her writing until short time ago,
 
 this purpose. Few of the books on the shelves are modern, and an examination of their titles supplies a possible expla- nation of the genesis of the distinguish ing features of the novefist's work. The literary favbrites are Shakespeare, Mar lowe Spenser the essayists of the eigh- teenth century, the balladists of Scot land. Shelley. Keats and Browning.
 Miss Johnstons writing is done at no particular hour and in no particular place, although very great deal of it has been accomplished in the open air. Prisoners of Hope,' which was begun Remo in New York City. was largely written in secluded nook in Central Park. Much of ''To Have and to Hold was written at a small mountain resort in Virginia although the book was com menced at Birmingham. The first draft was made with lead pencil and when this had been thoroughly revised the correct cd copy was reproduced in l typewriting;; Ing.
 The clew to Audrey. which was writ ten almost entirely. op the porch of o.s, at Warm Springs, Va. was found in one of Wordsworth's Poems of the 1magi- nation" The lines which revealed the pivotal character of Miss Johnston's new novel are contained in seven stanzas, from which the following extracts are taken: Three years she grew In sun and shower Then Nature said: "A lovelier flower
 On earth was never sown;
 This child to myself will take: She shall be mine. and I will make
 A lady of my own.
 The stars of tho midnightsfyail be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear
 In many a secret place.
 Where rivulets dance their wayward
 sound,
 And beauty born of murmuring sound
 Shall mass into her face"
 Thus Nature spake-the work was done How soon my Lucy's race was run!
 She died and left to me
 This heart, this calm and quiet scene; The memory of what has been,
 And never more will be.