New-York tribune., 1910-01-08
SUSAN WARNER.
The Story Of the 4mthor of
"Ihe Vide, Wide Wrld."
SUSAN WARNER C''Eliza beth Wetherelp,
By Anna B. Warner. Illustrated I2rno
PIP. 500. G. P Putnan1s Sons

SUSAN WARNER C''Eliza beth WetherelI'1
By Anna B. Warner. Illustrated I2mo.
pp. 500. G. P. Putnam's Sons
There are two old-fashioned books
which, in spite Of their now almost
archaic flavor, continue to delight
young people Of wholesome nature They
are Susan Warmers "Wide, Wide World
and 'Queechy,' stories which. when they
were first published in the middle of the
last century, evoked enthusiastic liking
In the United States and in England
How true were those pictures of Ameri-
can life, how nobly sincere the RELIGIOUS
spirit that breathed through them. this
biography by the authors sister testifies
in way as frank as it is womanly. I'm
doubtedly the book might have been cur
tailed to advantage; many letters are in
cluded which have not much interest for
the general reader. Yet even of these il
may be said that they are appealing in
their atmosphere of truth and affection.
The cleanest blood of upright Puritan
and Pilgrim met in Susan Warmers
veins. On her family tree were the
names OF many of the early notables of
Massachusetts,. They We're sternly
pious people, and enlightened also-at
least two Of them. dwellers in Salem.
publicly condemned, at considerable risk
TO themselves probably the crazy cruelty
OF the town in the witchcraft episode
One ancestor, a, stout seafarer who had
sailed his ship and soodly cargo from
Boston to Constantinople, fell Ill unto
death in the Turkish city, and was there
upon besought by his Moselm acquaint-
ances to change his faith. Embrace
Islam,' they urged, land the value of
ship and cargo shall be sent home to
your family and you shall be buried in
the earth. But if not, ship and cargo
VIII be confiscated and You will be put
in the sand below highwater mark"
His family could do without the money,
said the Massachusetts captain. "and
for his body it mattered little what be-
came of that; but he could not afford to
lose his soul. And as he decided, so it
was done, for dying shortly thereafter.
his grave was dug in the sea-swept sand
somewhere along the Turkish coast" "
The race had sturdy members indeed
Miss Warmers great-grandmother, Re-
becca Lupton, had nine sons. all six feet
in height, and every one of them fol-
lowed their father into the Continental
army; the youngest, at fifteen, PLAYED
the fife in the ranks until old enough to
fight 1t is told of Mrs. Lupton that she
Cnce sent out her best feather pillow
to a party bent on tarring and feather
ing a Tory spy. Jason Warner, the au-
thor's grandfather, was also a soldier of
the Revolution, a man of six feet two,
who in his old age went daily before
dawn to bathe in a waterfall on the
farm, sometimes breaking the ice for
that pleasure-a worshipper OF the great
leader he had served, he named one of
his sons for him, and never called the
youth anything but George Washing
ton''-perish the thought that the be-
loved name should be abbreviated to
George
The family traditions set down by
Miss Warner are as valuable as they are
interesting in their glimpses of life in
this state a century ago. There is q
quaint little note OF 1915, the Peace"
year when Jason Warmers young daugh-
ter. hearing q childish shout in a street
OF the little town Of New York, looked
out of the door. to see a small boy rush
ing along and proclaiming Peace,
Peace, / wish my voice was bigger"
When the authors young father was
married and came 10 practise law in the
city the fashionable part of New York
WAS state street, and when he went TO
court in Albany he might be a week on
the journey up the river on wind
hound sloop We have few records Of
daily life in the little city of those far
off times and would not willingly spare
the renliniscences Of these two sisters.
There Is an amusing description in Su-