The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-06
Some American
 Women NOvelists

New York the Lanes lived in Washing ton, where Dr. Lane was prominent ed ucationally and Mrs. Lane socially with the leaves of her literary laurel wreath bravely sprouting.
 The splendid warmth and light and
 color, the ever changing mood. the ir-
 resistibile humor, that appear in Nan
 cy Stair" are inspired by the Irish
 blood in Mrs. Lane. Her parents were
 Irish born, though Elinor Mccartney
 herself opened her bright gray eyes on
 the light of this world in Maryland.
 Father Michel In Nancy Stair" is drawn from the real life of an old
 priest who in her childhood stood for human perfection in the eyes of Elinor Mccartney. His church adjoined her fathers plantation. ...- In Asheville, N. C.. Mrs. Lane has
 spent the liveliest hours of her life. { There she established and conducted for the fun of 1t gossipy newspaper, which spared no man and no woman, but which made everybody laugh with its trilliant wit and quaint items. Her first book was the Mills of God" Her second is Nancy Stair" Mrs. Lanes ideal of literary style is to shun ad- jectives like poison and to use Anglo Saxon words @~~
 Tn composition an unnecessary word Is blemish," she says, and here is her ideal of womanhood:
 "A great souled woman, who has liv- ed up to her highest and Is determined to hold every man she meets up to his highest, can transform the universe"
 At beautiful Deer Island, in the Mer- rimac river, near Newburyport, Mass, Is the summer home of the dean of American temperamental story writers, Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford. Many an impressionable girl now a woman with gray hairs sprinkling her brows, had her soul stirred within her by the splendid word painting the tense emo tional situations in sir Rohan's Ghost" The Scarlet Poppy" The Amber Gods" and other tales whose impression will remain in the mind as long as anything remains. Harriet Prescott uses words as painters use colors," 1t was said of her.
 Harriet Prescott was born in Calais Me, but early went to Newburyport In 1865 sEe was married to a Boston law yer, Richard S. Spofford. and the we'd ded life of the two was ideal. They lived in Washington many years, with their summer home at Deer Island, where Mrs. Spoftord now dwells alone. since Mir. Spofford's death. She writes there, doing her work mostly outdoors. for she loves the water, the air and sunny sky as a bird loves its liberty.
 An ancient house is tho Deer Island mansion. It must be a hnndred years old. Long ago 1t was a tavern. MT. Spofford bought the whole island, seven acres, for the home of himself and his wife. The grounds are perfectly kept. the views are wonderful and beautiful. A public highway blsects the island. connected with the mainland by the oldest chain bridge in America. The Spoffords could not possess the high way. so boarded 1t off to itself and thus 1t runs through the heart of the island.
 Mrs. Spofford has written much be- sides stories. One of her books is Art Decoration as Applied to Furni- ture." Verse she made, too, when a mere girl. and once Whittier himself wrote to her:
 T have just got what I have long wished for. complete collection of thy poems, and I have been reading them with unqualified delight"
 Harriet Prescott Spofrord belongs to the middle link which connects the old time New England literary set with the present generation. She knew Long