1895-1896 Meeting Minutes

MS 988

WLCB 1894-1896 minute book

 

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Sixth Year. [1895-1896]

 

141st Meeting.

The first meeting of the sixth year of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore was held on Tuesday, October 1st, 1895, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets.

The President, Mrs. Turnbull, in Calling the meeting to order, said a few words of greeting to her fellow members; and spoke of the appreciation by the present officers and members of the Board of Management of the honor done them in their election last May; and also of the gratitude given by the Club to the retiring members of the official Board for their faithful unselfish 

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work in the past year.

    The President then gave her Annual Address to the Club. Mrs. Turnbull spoke of the tendencies of thought at the end of the Nineteenth Century, and of the need we feel to keep our highest ideals pure and unfailing. She spoke of our association, and of our work and growth together for the last five years. our greatest work is not--to be great scholars, nor to write more books. She quoted from a recent writer his humorously expressed opinion, that we ought to be emancipated from the things we do not need to know; that he liked the company of intelligent ignorant men, who practice the art not-to-know gracefully, wasting no time on unnecessary knowledge, but content with restful cultured ignorance. But one ought to know what belongs to one’s self,--and is worth giving to others. Our President spoke of our working together here, with no slackening of individual effort, but pursuing nobel ends with the aggregate efficiency of out individual powers. She asked: “What are we to do with this force that we have created?” She reminded us of the true womanly work we can do together to meet the moral and intellectual needs of our own time.

    Mrs. Turnbull then spoke of Max Nordau’s late work “Degeneration,” with its pessimistic picture of civilization at the end of the Nineteenth Century;--which notwithstanding its painting only one side of life, and sounding only life’s discords, has she thought an underlying truth, which ap- 

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to us all, because it reaches deep questions. Our President went on to quote from, and to criticize calmly this prophet of Degeneration. She dwelt on the necessity of right vision to discern beauty and truth; of ceaseless watchfulness and patient activity to build and to hold the defences against the ruin that is foretold to us. She went on to speak of another book,--by a woman,-- which calls our age “The New Renaissance,” and treats of that second Renaissance through which we have been living unconsciously;--this age in which the spirit of Science has passed over into the work of the poets, has been carried into the problems of mind and [and repeated] soul. She spoke of the restlessness of spirit shown, especially by our minor poets, and of the greater faith of the greater singers. She reminded us that we hold all that has yet been known, from early Greece until now,--it is ours to keep. And it is our work to make more noble the literature of the present,--for the future.

    The President then called our attention to the loan--a permanent loan--which we have received from the Century Magazine Company, of the original drawings and etchings that have appeared in the Century Magazine for some time past, --and which now adorn the walls of our meeting room. This loan has been accomplished through the kindness of Mrs. Herrick, one of our honorary members, and through the efforts of our of our Vice Presidents, Mrs. Manly. We had hoped 

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at this meeting to hear an account of these pictures, and, also some interesting facts relating to them, from Mrs. Manly, but, on account of a severe cold, she had been obliged to defer her reading until the following Tuesday. A vote of thanks had been sent to the Century Magazine Company, by the President, in the name of the Club.

    The President said she had hoped to announce the completion of the new Club Manual; a book containing our new Constitution, the names of our members, the record of our past work, and other information. It had been expected that the copies of this book would be ready to be distributed to the members of the Club on this afternoon; but, through some failure in the work of the printers, this distribution would have to be deferred.

    Announcement was made of the presentation to the Club by Mrs. Whitelock of her recently published work, “The Mad Madonna.”

    Announcements were also made of a forthcoming book of poems,--“Mimosa Leaves,”--by our honorary member, Miss Grace Denio Litchfield, of the approaching publication of a volume of the “Posthumous Poems” of our late member, Mrs. Marguerite E. Easter. Also of a novel of Colonial Days by our fellow member Mrs. Lord; and of a book by our non-resident member Miss Florence Trail, on Italian Literature,-- and two smaller books by the same author. Also of translations by Mrs. Latimer, and of her book on “Europe and Africa in the Nineteenth Century”; of a book by Mrs. 

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Jane Harrison Randall on the Literature of Southern Europe; of a book by Miss Katherine Pearson Woods relating to the first century called: “John the Beloved”; and of a “Blue Book on Holland” by Mrs. Whitelock.

    It was also announced that Mrs. Lord was preparing a course of lectures on “A Foreign Tour.” Another course of lectures was announced as being prepared by Miss Ellen Duvall. Also a course of lectures in French and English to be given by Miss Alice Twight.

    The President also spoke of the work done by Mrs. Elizabeth Brown Davis for the United States Navy Department, and announced that the same lady was preparing “A Child’s Astronomy.”

    The President gave some account of the thirty-nine volumes of the works of Maryland Women, sent by this Club to the Fair at Atlanta.

    She also announced that through the means of Mrs. Phelps, the wife of Judge Phelps, the Club had been presented with a portrait of one of its founders,--the late Mrs. Tiernan. The picture had belonged to a connection of Mrs. Tiernan, who had consented to its presentation to the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore.

    Our Programme had announced “Two Poems” by Miss Lizette W. Reese: “Heredity,” and “Autumn to Spring.” These were now read by their author, who received her usual warm reception from the Club.

    The meeting adjourned.

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142nd Meeting.

Oct. 8th, 1895. 

The 142nd Meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore was held on Tuesday, October 8th, 1895, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral streets. This meeting was under the direction of Mrs. Gaston Manly, Chairman of the Committee on the Authors and Artists of Maryland.

The President called the meeting to order; and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of October st, which were adopted. The President called attention to the Club Manual, the book which was now ready for distribution to the members, and spoke of the information valuable to all of us, which it contains; dwelling especially on the literary work of our members, of which, however, it has been impossible to gain a complete list.

Our attention was also called to the news announced from Rome, of the death of Mr. W. W. Story, the American sculptor and author.

The President then requested those of our number who have papers ready for presentation to the Club, would please give to the Chairmen of their Committees the correct titles of their articles, at least one week in advance of the meeting at which such articles are to be read, in order that the programmes may be made up correctly, & in time.

The first article of the programme was given by Mrs. Gaston Manly, and was on “The Century Pictures”

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and “Some Methods of Pictorial Art Capable of Multiplication,” illustrated with blocks and plates kindly loaned by the Century Company.

    Mrs. Manley said she hoped her article would not be too technical for the enjoyment of her fellow members. She wished to describe the methods which afford such beautiful results as the creating and reproducing of the drawings and etchings, now around us on the walls of our room. She spoke of wood engraving, of the blocks of box wood, and the plate glass used in the work, and showed us specimens of early and later stages in the process of the art. Also of the advanced art of copper and steel places, of mezzotint engraving, and of lithographing.

    She told of chromo lithographing, often requiring forty or fifty stones at once, each color requiring a separate one. Last and best she said was the fascinating etching in its purest form as sort of sketching;--which reached a high development two centuries ago. She quoted from an artist, the opinion that, sometimes, when a young lady is given credit for etching well, he wonders whether she knows what it means. It is said to be hard to make a living now by wood engraving; which has been much superseded by etching, pen and ink sketching, and photography in magazine-work. The photographic work has been said to hinder suggestiveness, the picture is read at a glance.

    On the other hand, some one has said that one can do without illusions, just as a ship can do without barnacles. But, it was suggested, 

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with regard to illusions, we may be like the man who won a camel at a fair, and wanted to get rid of him, or like Sindbad [Sinbad] the Sailor with his Old Man of the Sea. Sindbad however wanted to get rid of the thing that rode him, not of anything that he might ride.

    We were reminded of Thackeray’s illustrations to his own works, and of the interest and judgement we give,--not so much to the art and its results, as to the artist himself behind them. Mrs. Manly spoke of the fine army of illustrators we have now, with Du Maurier as Commander in chief. She spoke of the mission of the artist to express what we only vaguely feel;--to appeal--not to our common-sense, but to our memory of the beauty that has been, to our aspiration to the beauty that never yet has been.

    The next article of the programme was announced as “Some Account of the author of “Emily Chester,” by Miss Lydia Crane. Miss Crane gave a memoir of her sister, Anne Moncure Crane, author of “Emily Chester,” “Opportunity” and other literary work. She was born in Baltimore, married Mr. Augustus Seemuller, went to Germany, and died at Constadt[?], Wurtemburg[?].

    The last article on the programme was by Miss Malloy, and was on George H. Miles, a Maryland author. Miss Mallow spoke of Mr. Miles as one of those writers who seem not very prominent in their own generation, but whose fame leaps up in an after generation to better appreciation. She

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told us of the prize of one thousand dollars offered by Mr. Edwin Forest for a tragedy, which was won by Mr. Miles, by his drama of Mohammed. Miss Malloy gave an account of this work, and of the view taken by the author that Mohammed really did wish to redeem his people from idolatry, but descending to deception in carrying out this purpose, he deteriorated; showing that it is impossible to counterfeit a mission from the highest Power, without becoming the slaves of the lower ones. Miss Malloy also spoke of Mrs. Miles’s article on Hamlet in the Southern Literary Review. We were given some striking and eloquent extracts from this article, showing Hamlet as not weak, but strong and large-souled, loving, and above all Christian. The contrast between Hamlet and Laertes was also well brought out. Hamlet too was said to be the only one of Shakespeare’s plays in which our interest in the hero extends beyond the grave, into another life. Miss Malloy also read some of the poems of George H. Miles,--which have been much admired. The meeting adjourned.

 

143rd Meeting.

    The 143rd meeting of the Sixth year of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore was held on Tuesday, October 15th, 1895, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets.

    Mrs. Bullock, First Vice President, called the meeting to order, and presided. She announced 

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that the President had written to tell us that she was detained at home this afternoon, and would not be able to meet with us.

    The Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of October 8th, which were approved. Mrs. Wrenshall said she wished to object to the slight mention in these minutes of the Recording Secretary’s article reported in them. She thought that articles read before the Club, formed part of the Club’s history, and she moved that the article mentioned shall be engrossed and preserved with the minutes of the meeting at which it was read. Mrs. Graham seconded the motion, which met no opposition, except from the Recording Secretary herself,--duly grateful as she was.

    The Vice President then spoke of the care and pain taken by our President, Mrs. Turnbull in editing and compiling the Club year Book, just published. The expression of the thanks of the Club to the President was suggested, and of course most cordially given by the members. 

    The first article of the programme was given by Mrs. Lord, and was: “A Chapter from “Ye Olden Days,” A Forthcoming Story.” Mrs. Lord said that she had chosen an historical selection, but that a good critic had induced her to change it for one of simple fiction,--a love scene, supposed to have come to pass in the very early days of the province of Maryland. She told us that she had endeavored, in choosing the name of her hero, to guard against the possibility of any inconvenient 

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descendants arising, not to call her blessed, for having taken their ancestor’s name to adorn a tale. She spoke of the so-called Redemptioners, who worked out their passage money after they arrived in America, by selling themselves, for a stated time, to the Colonists as bond-servants, but not at all as slaves, for they often became highly respected, prosperous citizens, and even lawgivers of the Colony. In the extract read, the hero who had been a redemptioner, woos and wins the daughter of his former employer, notwithstanding the existence of a rival suitor in the Governer [Governor] of the province. A British poet describing a scene in the former days of a neighboring American Colony has told us: “O Love! in such a wilderness as this! Here is the empire of thy perfect bliss”: and we cannot doubt that it was as perfect in Maryland as in Pennsylvania.

    The next article given us was “Selections from a volume just published,” by Mrs. Alice Yardley. This book called “Yarns” was a collection of stories, many of them having already been printed. The selections were read by Mrs. Graham, the sister of the author. The first one read was “On the Trial,” and was a story of the Wild West, or rather one of two men who had gone from our own civilization to live in the Western Wilds; where as Bret Harte says “the boys take a new deal all around,” and may be supposed to leave their former life, and even their former characters in the country they have come from. In the

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two men of Mrs. Yardley’s story, one had cut lookse entirely from the old standards, and the other had not, and the conflict in the latter of the old good and the new evil is shown with a natural pathos and with a tragical end.

    Mrs. Graham also read from the same book the story “How Aunt Debby Allowater saw Booth in Hamlet.” The good old lady told how she had gone, with her “heart glorying for Temperance,” to a “Society” meeting at the Academy of Music, and had been handed in the main Assembly Room, instead of the Concert Hall; and thereby had unintentionally been to the theatre; and also unintentionally, helped her Church, being the cause of a wager, whereof the winner gave the proceeds to the Church organ, which just needed that ten dollars for its completion. Her innocent and charming telling of her adventures might lead us to endorse the opinion of her pastor, that there was no need to trouble her conscience very much over her unusual experience.

    The next article from the programme was by Mrs. Whitelock, and was: “Through Holland with the Masters.”--A Poem. Mrs. Whitelock told us of Holland where “misty cities lie.” She went on to speak of the old Masters in Holland; who without the sky of Italy, painted the best they knew, and of her own wish “to praise them most, for finding them on such a coast.”

    The last article of the programme was a Sketch “by a member of the Club” whose name

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was not given. It was read by Mrs. Wrenshall, and was called “The Rose of a Day.” It told of the meeting of the summer belle, and the summer beau, at the sea shore, of the fairy land where “the rose brought no thought of a thorn, and they knew not that love was born.”-- and the awakening that the parting gives to that sort of Love’s Young Dream.” The meeting adjourned.

 

Anne Moncure Crane Seemuller, 

Author of “Emily Chester,” “Opportunity,” etc.

By Lydia Crane. 

As read before the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, October 8th, 1895.

It is almost impossible to write about the people of our very own blood without the sensation of revealing sacred things, or that of indulging in a sort of egotism, especially when we find it necessary to sometimes use the first person plural, or even the first person singular. But I feel that here I am talking to my friends who will not misunderstand me in my effort to pay my long delayed tribute to the memory of my sister. It is to one whose nature seemed to me, and I believe to all who knew her, full of great promise,—promise only partially fulfilled 

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in her earthly life of less than thirty-five years. And knowing that no one else is now living who knew her whole life well, from the day when I not more than an infant myself—was called to look upon the face of my new sister, until the one when I followed her coffin to Greenmount, I must put aside personal feeling, and tell her story as best I can.

It is customary now, and I believe right, to trace every man’s or woman’s biography backward from his or her birth, as well as forward from it. Ancestry is supposed to make us what we are, even more than environment, though this too, especially early environment, is much dwelt upon also.

Anne Moncure Crane, daughter of William and Jean N. Crane, was born in this city of Baltimore on January 7th, 1838. Like many others in this country, and especially in this part of it, she belonged by blood to the South, and to the North,—to the States of Maryland and Virginia, of Connecticut and New Jersey.

Her father was the sixth in descent from Robert Treat, Governor of the Colony of Connecticut from 1638 to 1698—the Governor who withstood Sir Edmund Andros in his effort to take away the Charter of the Colony.

Her mother, whose maiden name was Jean Niven Daniel, was a Virginian by birth, and on one side by blood; on the other side she belonged to Maryland. She was the sixth in descent 

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from William Stone, appointed in 1648 Governor of the Colony of Maryland, by the order of Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore. The fourth in descent from this Colonial Governor was Thomas Stone, one of the four Signers for Maryland, of the Declaration of Independence; and he was the great grandfather of Anne Moncure Crane.

As this is a Maryland Club, and a Woman’s Club, and as Anne was a Maryland writer, I wish to tell something with regard to a piece of writing by her ancestress of 1655. It is a letter that is now in the British Museum written to Lord Baltimore, by Verlinda Stone, the wife of the Colonial Governor, recounting some of the early troubles of the Colony. My cousin Moncure D. Conway, in London, has examined the old original manuscript, and informed me that, though of course old fashioned, it is without fault of grammar, spelling or punctuation, and could have gone to the printer without correction.

Of Anne’s father I will let herself give her own opinion. In “Emily Chester” she gives a description of the father of her heroine, too long to quote in full, but she says. “He was an enthusiastic philanthropist and religionist. This was the form which a certain width of mind and character had taken under the bias and moulding influences of the peculiar circumstances of his early life. An innate fidelity to truth, an instinctive perception of reality which is very near akin to genius, if not itself has

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long since shown him the smallness and poorness of all worldly considerations. His hopes and thoughts had passed this wind and wave tossed sea of life in which we poor worldings strive to cast anchor, and were fixed in an eternal haven of peace. But practical sense translated sentiment into action. His life was that sentence of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdom come on earth” made animate. A colony, school, or emigrant on the coast of Africa, a missionary station in India or China, were to him objects of the most intense interest, in whose service he spared neither time, pains nor money. He was a man of powerful original mind, great love of reading, and of general information. Through his nature, generally supposed to be like granite, ran a strong view of poetic sentiment which contrast rendered only the more striking. Exquisite, emotional poetry, like Cowper’s ‘Address to his Mother’s Picture,’ or his ‘Castaway,’ caused the strong massive face to grow beautiful with the softened light that shone from it.”

The description goes on: “The likeness between him and his daughter was strong and fundamental, but not at first sight very recognizable. She, a woman, fluent, luxurious, peculiarly open to outward influence, upon whom the claims of the body were large and imperative, however the regnant soul might control them, he, a man, who ignored the world, and disdained its pleasures,—between the two there seemed little

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chance for sympathy, much less for identity. And yet, the oneness was there. Agreeing in none of their tastes, and few of their opinions, each had a respect for the other’s ideas, which on the girl’s side, amounted to a species of hero worship. It suited well her stern Romanesque pride to feel that her plain old fashioned father was, for originality, strength, truth, all that makes a man mentally or morally worthy, immeasurably beyond any other man she had ever known, superior in every sense, to ‘the fashion of this world which passeth away.’”

Some one asked Anne after “Emily Chester” had been published, why she did not put her mother also into it? She answered: “I despaired of doing her justice.” But in her second book “Opportunity,” she did make some attempt to paint her mother; and in my own opinion, did, on the whole, fail to do her justice. Anne’s mother was born in Falmouth, Virginia. Her father, John Moncure Daniel, an eminent surgeon in the United States Army, died when she was eleven years old; her mother who had been Margaret Stone, had died five years before. She was left to the care of her grandfather, Travers Daniel of Crow’s Nest, and afterwards to that of an aunt; she went to school with her brothers and was rather unusually educated for the time and region in which she lived. In after years, when surrounded by children of her own, and stepchildren also, she, without

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neglecting their bodily or spiritual wants, or their mental training, still contrived to keep up her familiar acquaintance with the classic literature that she loved, and, to some extent, with the best authors of her own day. One of her stepdaughters said “that it would be impossible to live in the house with our mother without gaining acquaintance with books.” She had begun her married life with the intention of doing much herself in the education of her children; but they were born too close together for that, and only the three eldest Fannie, Anne and myself received much of the special teaching she had meant to give to all. But in a life so very busy as hers, so mentally and materially full, something must be left out; and what our mother did leave out was outside life and acquaintanceship 

Our father, devoted to philanthropy, business and books, cared nothing for society outside of his home. Our mother, a busy little queen in her own home, had after my birth come to Baltimore with a feeling of exile from the large circle of relations and friends she had left in Virginia—went back to it in person when she could, and always in spirit. Her own Mother’s family, the Stones lived not in or near Baltimore, but in Charles County; and in those days when our rapid transit did not exist, communication with the county districts was much more difficult than it is now, and even now, I believe it is far more easy to go to New York than to visit some of

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the counties of our own State. Our young lives were full of interest and enthusiasms, but as children, we had more friends outside of Baltimore than within it.

Almost every year or two some of us were sent to make long visits to our aunt, our Mother’s sister, Mrs. W. Peyton Conway, living near Fredericksburg, Virginia. We had glorious times there, in the roaming over the Stafford hills and the islands of the Rappahannock River; and in the old Virginian home, with children, and grown people too, of tastes like our own:—meeting too many Virginian cousins, Daniels, Conways, Moncures, and others. Our aunt, had she lived in a city, would, I think, have been called a brilliant woman,—in a small village, she was a sort of oracle, and wonder. Her son, Moncure Daniel Conway, has inherited from her his power of expression, and many other mental qualities. At that house too, we met an uncle, then unmarried from whom by reason of his intellectual influence over herself,—Anne took the suggestion of her character of “Dr. Dan” in her book “Opportunity.”

The peculiar religious element in my sister’s books, was of course to be accounted for by inheritance, early teaching and environment. I remember that the London Saturday Review,—the “Superfine Review,” as Mr. Thackeray called it, said in a criticism of “Emily Chester,” Anne’s first book. “This book is that compound of Electro-Biology and the Family Bible, which is so fascinating to the American mind.” Our father’s religion was, as I first remember

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it, puritanical, with a great deal of “the fear of the Lord” in it;—our mother’s was full of the love of God, everywhere and always. If, on Sunday morning we went to Church, and sat with our feet hanging, wishing that the prayers or the sermon would come to an end, on Sunday afternoon we gathered around our Mother, generally on an immense old fashioned four post bedstead, and chose what she should read to us, and what we should sing. And whether the reading was of Moses, Job or Daniel, or of the Parables of our Lord, it was always made charming to us. I ought to ask pardon for these details, but they went very far to make my sister what she was in after years.

Anne was a sickly child, though always a much overgrown one,—threatened with blindness in infancy; and weakness of the eyes retarded her early education. But this weakness did not destroy the brightness of her eyes in after life; though, as her sister Fannie said, “they varied all the way from lead to diamonds,—being gray or hazel, or dark or light, as the mood took her.” As a child she was supposed to be a blonde, though she could not have been called so as a woman. She was something of an “enfant terrible,” but as Charles Reade says, “a terrible infant, not a horrible one,” never affected, nor unnatural. I remember once a member of the family brought in a flower pot containing a rare plant, with the injunction: “Don’t any of you children lay a finger upon this.” Anne slowly climbed down

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from her chair, crossed the room, and laid her small forefinger on the flower. Once, for some unusually strong assertion of her own will, she was made to sit still in a corner; when our old black cook, coming into the room, gazed at her in amazement, and then raising her hands, exclaimed “Great Britain is tookenat last.”

When Anne did begin to study, her power of acquisition was remarkable, and her power of reading with a singular swiftness, and of yet retaining what she read, still more remarkable. Her brain was well pigeon-holed, if I may use the expression, what she had learned could be at her fingers’ ends at any moment when she needed it. This quality together with her quick mental processes, and command of language, went almost as far as originality of thought to make her conversation, in the opinion of those who remember it, something much beyond her books.

For some years Anne, and her younger brother John, were pupils in a sort of family boarding school, at Mr. Nicholas R. Merryman’s in Baltimore County,—the Dr. Having recommended her living in the country as much as possible. Here she gained her acquaintance with “the hills and vales of pleasant Maryland,” of which she speaks in the opening sentence of her book “Opportunity.”

At twelve years of age she entered the Academy of Mr. N. H. Morrison in this city, a school of high rank well remembered by many of her contemporaries. But her taste for

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reading always went far beyond her taste for study; and, though her rank in school was good, it was below that of her sister Fannie, who was her companion there. One strange thing was her great dislike to writing compositions on set subjects given to her. She would even come to me sometimes, after writing a single page, and say: “Give me a quotation to end off with.” And if I answered: “I don’t remember one,” she would say: “Make one for me then! Can’t you?” But, at the same time her letters written with an untrammeled pen, were always bright and entertaining.

As a child she could sing with unusual power and expression, and she always loved good music. There are some people still left in this world who have memories of her singing and playing in after life. In “Opportunity” she speaks of the heroine’s-- Harvey Berney’s singing as “her most perfect form of expression,” and goes on to say that “she did not sing what you might hear from any one else;” that “not only her singing but her songs were attractions as essentially her own as her eyes or her smile.”

I remember a visit to Cape May when Anne was sixteen, from which she took some suggestions for the visit described in “Opportunity,” especially the account of the hour spent on the wrecked ship. It is true that two men, both of whom admired Anne greatly, one of them afterwards her husband, were with us on the expedition; but neither of them was Grahame Ferguson nor yet Douglas

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Ferguson. At that time, under seventeen as she was, Anne appeared as a handsome, quite tall, finely developed woman, with a beautiful complexion, abundant brown hair, and the fine expressive eyes before mentioned. After she was twenty, an affliction of the liver—which was never cured—gave her face a sort of olive tint, and seemed to darken all her coloring; though she was still capable of looking handsome. I believe she never after then thought herself good looking; but sometimes said she would be content to be in the words of Margaret Fuller, “ugly and bright.” Still I once heard her say: “I don’t think my appearance counts against me.”

Before Anne was twenty she had been for some time writing “Emily Chester.” In “Opportunity” she says of her heroine what we who knew her heard her say of herself. “She stood gazing around her at life, with a vague wonder for what purpose she had been put into it, and yet with a strange expectant sense of waiting for some moment or event which would interpret it all. Suddenly like a revelation, the perception of that for which she was fitted, and for which all things had been preparing her, came upon her. “The angel said unto me: ‘Write,’ and I wrote.” It was with no irreverence, that Harvey, then and ever after, quoted St. John’s words as the only explanation she could give to herself or others of her course in life. Without the slightest drill or experience in such matters, this girl sat

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deliberately down to write a book; and that, too undisturbed by doubt of her ability, or fear for its success when written.”

Anne read her written pages before the ink was dry to her sisters, and sometimes even to one or two chosen friends; listened to their comments,—favorable or unfavorable,—and then went on writing. One summer she went to our childhood’s dear old second home, our aunt Margaret Conway’s house in Falmouth, on the Rappahannock; and there read her manuscript to a select company of congenial Virginian cousins. Once when this audience had been particularly critical, Anne jumped up, rolled up her papers, and walked off up stairs, saying: “It is my book: it is my man and my woman, and I will make them say and do just what I please.”

When the book was finished it was laid aside; for various reasons its publication was deferred. One of these was her severe illness, a circumstance which strangely followed the completion of each one of her three books. Then the great Civil War came on; and though the book was not forgotten by its author, nor by her family and friends, it certainly seemed inexpedient to try to publish it at that time. And at last, Anne’s experience with regard to the publication of her first book, was somewhat unusual. One of her friends to whom she had read her manuscript long before proved an unusually good friend. This lady was in the year 1864,

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about to visit Boston, where she had formerly lived,—and I am glad to say, she is still living there now. She, entirely of her own accord, offered to take Anne’s book to the publishing house of Ticknor and Fields, casually remarking that she was acquainted with one of the members of the firm. A few days after, this charming woman wrote to Anne, that she had gone like Columbus, on Friday, if not into the Atlantic Ocean, into the headquarters of the Atlantic Monthly; that she had seen a member of the firm not however her acquaintance, who had politely given her to understand that it was not a good time for publishing fiction. Then the letter said: “I could praise your book, Anne,-- I could not have praised my own—and I did it.” Mr. Fields finally said that he would take it home for his wife to read it. The enthusiastic approval of Mrs. Fields made her husband conclude that what had so much interested one woman would interest others also;—”and women,” he said, “are the novel readers mainly.”

In a very short time came the formal offer of Ticknor and Fields—to the Author of “Emily Chester,”—to buy the copyright of her book, or to give her a percentage on its sales. She took the percentage, and time proved it by far the better alternative. Anne calmly said “I never doubted my book’s success.” Soon came a request from the publishers for anything else she had written of the same kind. “Emily Chester”

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is perhaps out of date now, and the vein struck by it has been much dug over and into since its time; but in 1864, it made a genuine sensation. I have heard that the first edition was exhausted on the day of its publication;—nine editions followed; it was published in England, and translated into German. We have the English Railway Edition, with its singular illustration on the outside cover.

Of course there was much criticism favorable and adverse. I have spoken of the London Saturday Review. The London Athenaeum hoped she would live longer, and write another book. Mr. George H. Hillard, although he called the heroine “a combination of Cleopatra, Harriet Martineau, and Florence Nightingale,” also says: “From the first chapter the author seizes the attention with the strong grasp of genius, and holds it unbroken to the last.” Mr. Whipple wrote that “its most notable characteristic was its originality.” Gail Hamilton spoke of its theme as “new to novels, but not to life: perhaps overstated, as the motto on the title page avows, in the words of Goethe: “It is in her monstrosities that Nature discloses her secrets.”

This book was published anonymously; and once or twice Anne met in print a positive denial that Miss Crane or any one else in Baltimore had written “Emily Chester.” Once she received a letter from the principal of a school in Connecticut, asking “if she was really the author of Emily Chester?” She simply referred him to her publishers.

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Soon afterwards her correspondent wrote her an apologetic letter, telling her that one of his assistant teachers had declared herself the author of this book, and had insisted on her claim, until the publishers gave indubitable testimony to the contrary.

It has been said that the characters in “Emily Chester” were taken from real life. I think only that real human beings suggested possibilities to Anne’s vivid imagination. Her sister Fannie said with regard to the supposed original of the hero, Max Crampton: “He was only the minimumof that which Max Crampton was the maximum.”

Some time ago, the writer who calls himself “Mark Twain,” in an article on “Mental Telegraphy,” related that Miss Louisa Alcott asserted that she wrote her first book, and proposed to publish it, about the same time that “Emily Chester” appeared before the world; but that she discovered that this newly published book had the same plot, and even some of the same names as her own; and that all that she could do was to alter her own book,—which failed of the success she had hoped for it. I have heard from another source that Miss Alcott said there was a woman in Baltimore who had written and published her book before she could do it herself. But my sister’s book was written long before it was published; and she never heard of Miss Alcott until months after her own successful publication. Miss Alcott too, of course, knew nothing of my sister until after that publication

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and if the resemblance was so remarkable as she asserted it to be, it was a good illustration of what Mr. Clemens calls “Mental Telegraphy.”

Early in 1865 “Emily Chester” was dramatized by Mr. George H. Miles, and was played at the Holliday Street Theatre.

Anne had the usual experience of suddenly successful authors, receiving visits, letters, invitations, and applications, often prompted by real admiration and good feeling; and sometimes by impertinent curiosity or self-interest. Her circle of friends widened, and life widened out before her. There are some friends left who remember her as she was then, very busy undertaking many things. Keeping up her music, reading, visiting etc., she also undertook to superintend the training, dressing and general education of her little sister Josephine,—to us the child or our mother’s old age.

A newspaper last winter described an evening company of that time, at a well known residence in this city, at which Miss Anne M. Crane entertained a number of her friends by reading characters from handwriting, in which she had remarkable success.

At one of his readings in Baltimore, Mr. Charles Dickens sent to my sister the little bouquet which he wore on that occasion,—and which we still preserve. One of the original members of this Club, the late Mrs. Tiernan—then Miss Mary Nicholas,—who was a good friend of Anne, came to her after the reading was over; and made a

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comic protest, expressing exaggerated jealousy and indignation over her having received those flowers from Mr. Dickens.

To Anne’s family it has always been strange that her book, written in her youth and inexperience seemed to foretell some events that came to pass afterwards.

Her father died, like Mr. Chester, suddenly of heart disease; in 1866. This shock naturally interfered with her literary labor. But not for long; her mind was strong and clear, so was her religious faith. As she says of one of her heroines: “Long before these years, walking through the weary land, she had sought and found the shadow of a great Rock.”

In this same year Anne began her second book, “Opportunity,”--and soon became deeply interested in writing it.

Early in 1867, Anne’s old friend and admirer, Mr. Augustus Seemuller, came back from Europe where he had been living for more than two years. His family had been our near neighbors in our childhood and he was one of the few playmates we had at that time. When Anne was ten years old, and Augustus was over sixteen, he had sent her a valentine,—which may be in existence somewhere still. He was the son of German parents himself born in Dublin, Ireland. His father, who spoke nearly all the languages of Europe, and had lived in various parts of the world, possessed an unusually good collection of paintings and

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curiosities. For children like ourselves to go into that house, and to hear conversations in several different languages at once, to contemplate works of art, and to listen to music of a much higher grade than we had ever known before, was a sort of revelation to us; and was a part of our education. Augustus was, as Anne expressed it—”a mental missionary to her,” and he always said she was “the brightest woman he ever met.” He was a man of so much intellect, culture, and even power of expression as to make one sometimes wonder at the smallness of his achievements in this world. His letters were extremely bright, and I know he did write in prose and verse, but do not think he ever published anything. Perhaps continual ill health, and some other circumstances were hindrances to outward accomplishment, in spite of talent and excellence of mind and character. But he was successful in business and had appreciative, and even enthusiastic friends. A brilliant woman in Richmond, Virginia said: “Mr. Seemuller sometimes talks too well. It stops conversation, when he sums up the whole of a subject in one sentence, and leaves nothing more to be said about it.” Early in life Mr. Seemuller went to live in New York engaging in business there; and he made long visits to Europe also. But he was again in Baltimore when the Civil War broke out; and as was the case with many others, his sympathies induced him to “go South,” and join the Confederate Army. But before very long he was, on account of severe inflammatory rheumatism,

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released from the military service. Once, at least, he went to Europe, by way, I believe of the West Indies.

I may be pardoned for relating an incident of the War—that “now is over.” Our own father was a decided conscientious Union man; and his children were widely divided in opinion, but were required to respect each other’s convictions, and were supposed to keep the peace at home. Sometimes we received mysterious letters from our near relations in Virginia; and on one occasion we were informed that they had been sent to us through the good offices of our old friend Mr. Seemuller. One evening in August 1862, one of our brothers happened to be standing at the front door, when a man looking like a rough workman came up and held out his hand. The first word he spoke revealed our old friend, who was brought in and welcomed. He declined to have the gas lighted, but told us he had come from Richmond, bringing news of our relations there. For nearly an hour, he answered questions, and gave us a large amount of entirely uncompromising, but to us—intensely interesting information. Then he rose, and said, “I have a carriage waiting for me around the corner. Of course you will not mention this visit,—or I shall be in the Fort tomorrow, Good by”—and was gone from our sight for more than four years. Quite late in the war we heard from a neighbor, accidentally, that Mr. Seemuller had been in Baltimore again, and that he had gone back to Richmond. Anne afterwards spoke of this, and our father calmly answered: “I knew it at the time.” Seeing

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our looks of surprise, he said, “His father told me he was here; but said: “Of course you will not mention it and of course, I did not mention it.” It had never once occurred to our very straight-forward father that he might have been trusted with the dangerous information on purpose to give it us,—that we might send messages to our cousins in Richmond also.

When the War ended, Mr. Seemuller concluded to establish his residence in Paris, and declared his intention of never coming back to America. Anne had never been really engaged to him, but hearing this some time afterwards, she sent him a message, to the effect, that if General Lee and Mr. Davis could give up the fight, she thought he might follow their example. Perhaps he was about coming to the same conclusion too, for, near the beginning of the year 1867, he came back to America, to Baltimore,—and to see Anne. He again fixed his residence in New York, but he came to Baltimore often during that summer. In October 1867, he and Anne became engaged, though they were not married for nearly two years afterwards. Mr. Seemuller took deep interest in Anne’s literary work, and was one of those who helped her to copy “Opportunity” for publication.

I should be glad if I could name here some other friends who are still living, whose kind criticisms and real services deserved and won her grateful appreciation. I must say at least that “Opportunity” was dedicated to Mr. Joseph M. Cushing of this city “With Gratitude.”

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This work, “Opportunity,” Anne’s second novel, was published by Ticknor and Fields, late in 1867; and met with scarcely less success than its predecessor. Mr. Paul H. Hayne of South Carolina wrote of it “No tale has recently appeared, North or South, which is so full of rich evidences of genuine psychological power, profound study of character,—and fervid artistic aspirations, destined to embody themselves gloriously in the future.” If I may venture to give my own person opinion, I have always preferred “Opportunity” to Anne’s other two books, “Emily Chester,” and “Reginald Archer.” I think the style better, the story better, more natural and truthful than theirs.

Before and after this time, Anne wrote and published in different Magazines short stories and articles in prose and verse, such as: “Little Bo Peep,” “Novelists Poetry,” “Private Bohemians” etc.

Anne was married to August Seemuller at her mother’s house on the 23rd of September 1869. Of those most interested in that quiet wedding, the greater part have “gone over to the majority.” The bride still wore mourning for her father, and would not consent to put on a white dress for the occasion. At thirty-one, she had not of course, the color and bloom of sixteen, but her fine, tall figure, handsome hair and eyes, and bright expression caused a French gentleman who was at the wedding to say: “She is magnificent.” They left Baltimore for New York the same day, taking up their residence at the New York

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Hotel. As they drove off, one of our cousins from Richmond said: “Won’t those two have fun!”—in allusion to their wonderful appreciation and enjoyment of the same things. Both Anne and Augustus had already some friends in New York who added much to the pleasure of their residence there. And a literary friend of ours, the late Mrs. Sarah A. Dorsey of Louisiana had sent a letter introducing them to her friend, Mrs. Botta, formerly Miss Anne Charlotte Lynch, whose receptions were for many an institution in New York literary society. Mrs. Botta proved not only a valuable acquaintance, but a valued and true friend. I wish I could quote from Anne’s letters, telling of the various “lions” she was invited to meet. In one, she speaks of having received an invitation to one of Mrs. Bigelowe’s receptions, “to meet Pere Hyacinthe;” and she says “I thought he had blown over,” but he has taken second bloom.” Of her first evening at Mrs. Botta’s she says: “The company was partly foreign, and wholly literary consequently both Augustus and I thoroughly enjoyed it.” She tells that at that house one might meet all celebrities, from Lord Derby’s grandson to the minor journalists, “from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Tom Thumb.” I remember that Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman when I met him at the house of our President, spoke to me of having enjoyed meeting my sister when she was living in New York. But on the whole, Anne was not glad to live in New York. Even the little difference in climate was unsuitable to her;

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and she especially disliked the hotel and boarding house life, with which she came in contact. It was there that she began, continued, and finished “Reginald Archer,”—the most severely criticized of all her writings. Before she left Baltimore she had sent to the Galaxy the story she called “Little Bo Peep.” After its publication, the editor of that magazine, had proposed to her to write a series of short stories founded on old rhymes and fables. She like the idea, and began a story on the theme furnished by the old nursery rhyme of the “Five Little Pigs.” Living in New York, the story grew in her mind and taking the color of aroused indignation it became the novel of Reginald Archer.

This book was published in Boston by James R. Osgood and Company in March 1871. One of its critics called it: “The story of a rake, delicately told.” Some persons have wondered how Anne came to write this book. Anne herself said that what she “had intended as a sermon, was received by most readers as a sensational novel only.” She had come from a sheltered, congenial, happy—I think I may say, intellectual home,—to see an entirely different phase of life. Very happily married herself, she saw unhappy marriages,—and far worse things still. The old desire to write arose again. She had spoken of her heroine Emily Chester, as “always making Declarations of Independence on her own account.” And now she herself said: “I felt that if I did not write against what I had seen and heard, the very stones of the streets would

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cry out against me.” Possible too, her husband had seen in the older civilizations of Europe, still more of what she saw in New York, and may have added point and force to her utterances. There were unfavorable critics of course, though they spoke of the power with which “the modern phase of the Epicurean philosophy is brought out.” The New York Commercial Advertiser said: “The doctrine of the book is sound and unimpeachable.”

But of all the criticisms of “Reginald Archer,” the one I have most valued, was given in a note from my honored friend, the late Mrs. Almira Lincoln Phelps, herself a successful writer and educator; and at the time of this writing, eighty-two years of age. Having borrowed the book from Anne’s mother, she wrote to her, under date of March 3rd, 1876.

“I have just finished reading Reginald Archer, a book of your daughter’s, which I now return, powerfully impressed with a sense of her genius, and purity of character. I can understand that she might be misunderstood by some, who have not the power to appreciate her work. “Had her life and health been prolonged, what might not her mature genius and knowledge of life and character have achieved.”

But “Reginald Archer” was published early in 1871; and, now, a quarter of a century after it was written, we have become much more familiar with that kind of stories, and perhaps do not shrink from the plain speaking of Mrs.

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Sarah Grand, and others like her, any more than we do from the reports of our daily papers. Perhaps Anne was, in her third book, still more than in her first one,—in advance of her time.

Some time before finishing “Reginald Archer” Anne had suffered greatly from her old liver complaint, and rheumatism, and she spent part of the summer of 1870 at the Hot Springs in Virginia. But her old power and enthusiasm in talking was not impaired, and there were some visitors at the Springs who recognized this fact immediately. Among others she met there General Robert E. Lee, who spoke of the interest he had taken in her company, conversation and singing.

In the Spring of 1871, when Anne was very ill in New York her favorite brother John died, in Baltimore. She had known that he was ill, but it was some days after his funereal before her husband ventured to tell her of John’s death. But as the warm weather came on, she rallied again, and grew better.

Mr. Seemuller’s health was very poor also, and he had retired from business. He said that there is not much for an idle man to do in America, and he proposed to Anne to go to Europe for an indefinite sojourn. I am sure that Anne would have preferred to come back and live in Baltimore, but she did not say so. As they had no children and had the means to gratify their tastes, the plan proposed was carried out.

Before they sailed away, they came to

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Baltimore, and spent the month of September 1871, at her mother’s house,—her home, as she always called it. Even if she had not been in mourning, she was too sick to make visits herself, but many of her friends came to see her, and the renewal of her former home life was a great restorative to her. Then came the parting,—to most of us at home the final one. Next came letters,—charming to the home circle she had left. She told us that travelling in England, gave one the impression of visiting one’s grandparents. She saw something of Moncure Conway and his wife, then, as now again, living in London. She heard Dean Stanley preach in Westminster Abbey,—and thought the sermon little less wonderful than the Abbey itself. Then they went to Germany, and spent most of the winter of 1871-72 at Bonn. The impression had been received that the climate of that place would be suitable to their health. But they were disappointed;—that they endured cold and discomfort was evident from the letters that they tried to make cheerful and interesting. They thought the weather too cold for either of them to take the journey necessary to reach a warmer climate. That part of Germany had suffered in many ways from the Franco Prussian War, and had not recovered from it. August said that the Rhineland, which in Summer is called the Vineland, ought that winter have been called the Swineland, for the chief article of diet he saw there was pork.

Still they did improve in health, and, after two months at Bonn, Anne wrote to us to direct our

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next letters to Munich. Their intention was to go from there to Vienna for six weeks or more, and after visiting other German cities, to go to Paris. From there they intended to go to London, where they hoped to reside. But Anne never reached Munich, at Stuttgart, she was suddenly taken very ill, and never gained strength again; though she lived ten months longer. After February, we had from her only one letter, written to her mother, in pencil, and the beginning of another one. August planned to take her to the mineral springs in Bohemia; but she was not able to go.

Before Anne left home, she made her sister Fannie promise to come to her wherever she might be, if there was need for her presence. And now the promise was exacted, and fulfilled. Fannie and our brother Ward started at two days notice, on the 3rd of July 1872; and arrived at Stuttgart, to find Anne very ill, but still trying to be at times, bright and cheerful. The brother came home again, but Fannie stayed on to the end.

Anne was living in a very pleasant pension,which was much patronized by English people. Before her sister’s arrival, some lovely English ladies had been coming to see her, at the request of her physician, who was theirs also, and she felt that their presence, and talking to her in her native tongue, would do her good; and he was right. These ladies had recognized Anne’s mental ability and power of expression even then. They also told Fannie that Mr. Seemuller ought

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to have a gold medal voted to him by all womankind, for his untiring, beautiful devotion to his sick wife.

The presence and ministrations of her sister also, of course did Anne good; and she seemed to grow better. She planned a course of travel, and said, “Couldn’t we three have a good time,—if I was only half well?” Late in the summer it was thought best to move her out of the city of Stuttgart, to the pleasant suburban watering place of Cannstatt. She liked the change, and seemed benefitted by it, for a time. But though her mental vigor and occasional vivacity astonished her doctors, they would give no favorable opinion of her case. The pronounced her disease “the degeneration of the liver,”—that organ having been her weak point all her life.

She gradually failed, and on December 10th, 1872, after two days of unconsciousness, she died, at Cannstatt,—being not quite thirty-five years old. Her body was brought home by her husband and sister, and buried in Greenmount Cemetery, on January 10th, 1873.

Not many days before Anne died, some one was speaking in her presence of the poems of her favorite, Mrs. Browning; and the one called “The Sleep” was mentioned. Anne then repeated the last stanza.

“And friends, dear friends, when it shall be,

That this low breath is gone from me,

And round my bier ye come to weep.

Let One, most loving of you all,

 

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Say, Not a tear must o’er her fall,

He giveth His beloved, sleep.”

 

Then she added, “And that is what I wish too.” And her husband chose that text for her tombstone.

Most of Anne’s critics had said that she was capable of giving the world,—if she lived longer, far better work than anything she did accomplish. Before she was married, and before, I believe, she had thought of Reginald Archer, she had begun another story, of which she read a page or two in our family circle, and we were rather unusually unanimous in our warm approval, of a first reading. But she gave it no name, and did not reveal its plot.

After “Reginald Archer” had been published, in a letter to her mother dated: New York, May 30th, 1871, Anne wrote: “I am very anxious to write a story I have in my head, which I think you will like. I think of calling it: ‘A little Child shall Lead Them.’ But I have promised Augustus to put off the execution until I am strong,—and I think he is right.” All of us who knew and loved her, could not help wishing that this story had been written.

Anne left no children. Mr. Seemuller lived in Baltimore after her death until the spring of 1875. His devotion to Anne’s memory and his efforts to do good, silently and constantly, which he seemed to connect with that memory, were known only to those who knew and

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cared for him well. He had the most intense sympathy with human suffering, and the impulse always to relieve it. More than two years after Anne’s death, he went again to Europe, hoping to derive benefit to his health from the waters of Carlsbad. After leaving Carlsbad, he travelled among bye ways and mountain districts, often writing to Anne’s mother about the poor people he met. He then went to France, a country of which he was fond, and where he had formerly lived for years. He was staying alone in Paris, at the Grand Hotel, when on the morning of September 25th, 1875, he was found unconscious, and dying of heart disease. The American Consul and an American physician were summoned, only to see him pass away. According to his injunctions made before leaving this country, his body was brought to Baltimore and laid by Anne’s side at Greenmount.

On the first of January, 1893, Anne’s much loved sister, Fannie, was laid there also. I wish that she could have written the life of our sister Anne. Near the end of “Opportunity,” Harvey’s uncle Dr. Dan, asks his niece: “What essential soul-satisfying element has life every brought you?” And she answers only: “I shall be satisfied when I awake in His likeness.” And believing in that awakening we can--

“Trust that those we call the dead

Are breathers of an ampler day

For ever nobler ends.”

 

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144th Meeting. 

The 144th meeting of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, October 22nd, 1895, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral streets, with the President in the Chair. This meeting was under the direction of Mrs. Charles W. Lord. Chairman of the Committee on Essays. The Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of October 8th, which were adopted.

    It was announced that Mrs. Fabian Franklin was to present a proposition to the Club. Mrs. Franklin came to the platform and announced that a proposal was about to be made in the Board of Education of our city to bring the appointment of the teachers in our Public Schools under the rules of Civil Service Reform, and out of the sphere of politics." It was said that at the present time a young woman who desired the position of public school teacher in Baltimore is expected to "interview" word politicians, and to engage political influence to obtain an appointment. It is proposed to institute an educational examination as a preliminary to an appointment; — the candidates however who have graduated with the best standing from the high schools may be exempted from this examination. After further explanations, Mrs. Franklin offered a resolution "That the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore is deeply interested in the introduction of Civil Service Reform Rules for the appointment of Public School Teachers, and wish to endorse

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the motion for the adoption of these rules." It was moved by Mrs. Bullock that this resolution should be accepted by the Club, and sent to the School Board. Mrs. Lord seconded the motion; which was passed by the Club without opposition.

The President spoke of our social occasions once a month, on which it was suggested that our members who have given papers to the Club, shall be the centers of conversation – and comment on the subjects of the articles that they have presented. Notice was given of the first meeting, for the season, of the Committee on Archaeology, at the house of the Chairman, Mrs. Wrenshall. The President requested that the members should hold themselves ready to fill the places assigned them in the programs of future meetings.

The President announced the presentation to the Club by Mrs. Alan P. Smith of her "Bible Diagram" and its "Key". To this work Mrs. Smith had given years of thought and study, and it is expected that she will on some future occasion give the Club some account of the results of her interesting researches, and a description of her work.

The first article of the programme was given by Mrs. Jordan Stabler, and was on "The Franciscan Missions of California." Mrs. Stabler spoke of the contrast between the earliest settlers of the Eastern and the Western Coasts of what is now the United States; on one side being the Anglo-Saxon; on the other, the Spanish. She told of the arrival of the pious Franciscan fathers

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in California, and of the successful missions founded by them, — and also by the Jesuit priests. She described their heroism and devotion in civilizing and in Christianizing the native Californians, and making them good and happy and peaceful. She showed by drawings on the blackboard the situations of the numerous missions along the Western coast, and gave us word pictures of them in the reading of her article. She spoke of the effect on the missions – or on what remains of them – of the revolt against Spain, and of the other change of government when California became part of the United States. She told of the various causes which led to the decay or downfall or secularization of these prosperous communities. She ran from Mrs. Hunt's "Ramona," very interesting quotations relating to the missions, as seen from the point of view of the mourning and bereaved disciples of the revered fathers. Mrs. Stabler told us of her own visits to, and examination of the ruins and relics of the old sanctuaries; and particularly of her sojourns near the two missions that still remain. She told us of Santa Clara, and of the beautiful Santa Barbara; also of the survival of the old faith and observances among the descendents of the old colonists from Spain. Mrs. Stabler went on to speak of finding in Spanish America only the few monuments of the past that we possess in this our new country. She thought that it was only those who came from Italy

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and Spain who knew how to fit and fashion their buildings in accordance with the landscapes surrounding them. In Spanish America, along felt want is filled for us; the air is vibrant with the echoes of a venerable past; and we can see some of the milestones on that road which leads from the night of ignorance and superstition into the broad light of day.

The next article given us was by Mrs. R. M. Wylie, and was on "Old Cries And Old Trades Of Old London." Mrs. Wylie described Old London from the fifteenth century onward. She describes the city when the costumes of the dwellers therein were more various and distinctive than now they are; when the suburbs were full of dangers, when there were standing watchmen holding torches; and walking watchman singing songs and giving benedictions, ringing bells and sounding warnings. We were reminded that the watchman of old Baltimore, who cried "12 o'clock," and All's Well," – are not yet forgotten among us. She spoke of the ancient, and comparatively modern – chimney sweeps, with their jodelling [yodeling], – a sand also well known in our city less than 50 years ago. Among others we were told of the seventeenth century and eighteenth century prize of cheesecakes and of mutton pies and other covered uncertainties, and on Good Friday of "Hot Cross Bones – one a penny, to a penny." Mrs. Wylie recounted curious anecdotes and clear customs of our ancestors of olden times.

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She spoke of the cries of the very important rat-catchers; – of those of the sellers of gingerbread, of balance, and of love songs, – "for there have always been lovers." She closed with the warning "Let no one despise, The merry merry cries, Of famous London town." 

the President then spoke of the Lectures of Miss DeVol on Shakespeare, of which notice had been placed on the blackboard. Also of the French Lecturers of Miss Alice Twight, beginning on the 6th of November. The meeting adjourned.

 

Salon.

October 29th, 1895.

The alignment of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, on Tuesday, October 29, 1895, was made an entirely social occasion; and the conversation of the members and visitors on literary, artistic or general subjects seemed to be much enjoyed by all present.

Refreshments were served, – one or two notices were given, and the meeting informally adjourned.

 

145th Meeting.

The 145th meeting of the Women's Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, November 5th, 1895, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral streets. This meeting was under the direction of the Chairman of the Committee on Fiction, Mrs.

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Whitelock and Miss Cloud. The President and Vice-President being unavoidably absent or delayed, the meeting was called to order by the Corresponding Secretary, Miss Balch; and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of October 22nd; during which the First Vice President arrived to preside over the meeting. A letter was read from our honorary member Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller, addressed to the Corresponding Secretary, acknowledging the receipt of the Club book.

A letter was presented from Mrs. J. Appleton Wilson, asking for the appointment by this Club of one of its members to serve on the Committee for choosing the police or station house matrons of the city. The member of our Club who formerly held a place on this advisory Committee was Mrs. Griffin, who has since resigned her membership among us. After some explanation, a motion was made by Mrs. Frankland, seconded, and carried without opposition, that the now presiding Vice President should select some member of the Club to serve on this Committee as desired.

Acknowledgments of the reception of the Club book were presented from the Directors of the Peabody Institute, and from those of the Maryland Historical Society.

Miss Spear then spoke of the decoration of the graves of Maryland Authors and Artists, which has been done by a Committee of the Club, on All Souls Day, for several years past. She reported the work as it was done this year, in the placing of

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flowers on the graves of Maryland Authors and Artists, among them those of our late members, Mrs. Tiernan and Mrs. Easter. She also mentioned the assistance rendered by Mrs. Thomas, the florist; who, furthermore had requested that she might herself send flowers to be placed on the grave of Mr. Walters, the late patron of Art in our city. It was proposed to send a note to Mrs. Thomas, of thanks for her interest and assistance in our decorative work, to which agreement was given without opposition.

The first article of our programme was given by Mrs. Percy Reese, and was called "Time Sketches." Mrs. Reese explained with regard to the name, that the Chairman of the Fiction Committee sometimes asked for sketches which should occupy only a certain number of minutes in being read, and that she was to give to specimens of these efforts – just as she had written them. The first one was called: "A Face in Stone." It was the story of a sculptor who had tried lovingly, but in vain, to portray worthily, in stone, the living face of his dead father; and who afterwards found his model made for him and Clay by a boy who had watched that father's noble face as framed by a library window, and who had with native genius grasped its real meaning and expression.

The second of Mrs. Reese's sketches was "An Episode," – A Morning Cloud." It was a portrayal of domestic life, clouded by the manifold responsibilities of the wife and the mother, and the manifest responsibility of

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the husband and father, – in the various things of home which will sometimes obscure that "Domestic Happiness" which Mr. Cowper supposes to be "the only bliss of Paradise that has survived the Fall."

The next article of the programme was "A Pencil Sketch," by Mrs. W. P. Morgan, and was read by Mrs. Morris. It was an account of Miss Maria Browne, an old maiden lady; whose father had been a sea captain; who lived in East Baltimore, in a little house, all alone – except for flowers and living pets, – and adorned her tiny parlor with those numerous small objects which help to make home hideous; and held in contempt those people who admired old China, – of which she indeed possessed her share, unappreciated by herself. She had never been handsome, and never became so; but she had been born in the days when good spirits were still in fashion, and, serenely self-sufficient, she enjoyed life, did her own cooking, did – or did not do her own washing, and never lost her superior manner, nor the gentility she possessed – in her own eyes. Her friends tried to persuade her that to keep guinea pigs in her room, for to wear the same calico jacket month in and month out, was not exactly wholesome, all without effect, until her physician corroborated these opinions. To his decrees she yielded, having also been brought up in the time when woman was supposed to heed the will of man. At last miss Maria's friends succeeded in inducing her to seek the comfort and protection of

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the "Aged Woman’s Home." and there she broke the rules – in small matters – incorrigibly; but she also broke the sad monotony of the place, with her Homeric laughter; and her name was a byword for good spirits. She was liked by all, until she died; leaving an example of that old-fashioned love of small pleasures for one's self and for others, which is now growing very rare in our restless, exacting days.

The next article of the programme was by Mrs. Frederick Tyson, and was on "The Greek Novel,"ovel," especially that of Heliodorus. Mrs. Tyson, after speaking of the limitations of history and poetry, went on to say that fiction should be especially dear to woman, for without the life of women, there would be no fiction. She told us that Greek fiction is not so fine as Greek drama or poetry, because in Greece, woman was less thought of than she should have been, nevertheless Greek fiction was far more moral than modern fiction was before the nineteenth century. She spoke of the work of the Queen of Navarre, and of those of other writers before and after her, which would not be tolerated now. She said that the women of the Greek novel was good and pure, and clever. She went on to speak of Heliodorus, and of his novel, “The Tale of Aethiopia," whose date was about 400 Anno Domini. She told how he, a Bishop of the Church, was obliged to choose between having his book publicly burned, or of being deposed from his bishopric, and of how he chose the latter

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alternative, – a thing perhaps, for us to be thankful for now. She drew for us, from this novel of Heliodorus, a charming account of the love and the fortunes of Chariclea and Theagenes, – of their perilous countries in which adventures, and of the life and customs of the wonderful time and their lot was cast; also recounting the happy ending of the story. Mrs. Tyson said that the novel was written in beautiful Greek, also, that it was loved by Racine, who is said to have known it by heart; and also by Raphael, – two of whose paintings were of scenes from the story.

The last article of the programme was by Miss Whitney, and was called "The Town Clock." She told us of the clock in a Southern city, whose only face was a human face, and whose only hand was a human hand, – being a bell in a high tower, struck with a hammer; a hammer held by a watchman, who watched, of course, a clock in his lonely tower room. One watchman was, of course, only one half of the town clock, for another one duly relieved him for half the time. The story is of a little daughter climbing the steep stairs to see her father, and bring him unwonted refreshment; of her being caught in the tall tower by a thunderstorm; of a stroke of lightning; of the child soon awakening from stupor to find that she cannot awaken her father; of her watching the clock till the time comes for striking the hour; of her fear of consequences, should the time pass without the strokes, the worst of which to her

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mind would be the discharge of her father from his office, – a dreadful thought. With the courage and strength of desperation, the child lists the heavy hammer, and makes the strokes. And in a little while comes the Mayor to find out why the strokes of the hour were so faint, and what damage had been done by the lightning strike. The loving devotion of the little maiden does not lose its reward; the father is not discharged from office,—nor from life.

At the close of Miss Whitney’s article, the meeting adjourned.

 

146 Meeting.

November 12th, 1895.

The 146th meeting of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore was held on Tuesday, November 12th, 1895, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Sts. This meeting was under the direction of Mrs. J Francis Dammann, Chairman of the Committee on Current Criticism.

The President called the meeting to order, and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of November 5th; which were adopted. The President called on the First Vice President to make an announcement with regard to the appointment of a member of the Club to serve as one of the Committee of ladies who shall choose the police or station house

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matrons for this city. The First Vice President announced that it had been only necessary to continue and confirm the former appointment of Miss Zacharias to represent the Club on this Committee.

The President announced as a coming "literary event," that Mrs. Sidney Lanier would on Nov. 22nd give in Baltimore, a Reading of her husband's poems, – as she has already done in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Mrs. Turnbull read the prospectus of this entertainment; and, after speaking of the patronesses and others who have interested themselves in this coming event, she said it was hoped that a large and cultured audience would show the esteem in which Sidney Lanier is held in the city that had been his home.

The first article of the programme was by our member Mrs. R. K. Cautley, who is now in England. It was read by Miss Cloud. The title of Mrs. Cautley’s paper was: "Notes on Balfour’s  Foundations of Belief." She spoke of Mr.Balfour’s work in connection with two other remarkable books: “Drummond’s Ascent of Man," and Benjamin Kidd’s late work trading of Social Evolution." Mr.Balfour, she said, did not attempt to introduce any new system of religion, perhaps, like the architect of a great cathedral, he does not begin to build until he has tried to clear the ground on which the edifice is to stand. A suggestion to omit one of his chapters

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came to her like a reminder of Blue Beard’s prohibition; and she read that one first. But she would advise others to take the section in regular order, like a chain of pearls, each made for its fellow. She spoke of the ideals of beauty in all ages, elusive, perhaps, but all leading up to the knowledge of divine beauty; as to each one in a great procession, the light takes its color from the angle by which it is reflected to his own vision. Mrs. Cautley spoke of the reviewers who have attacked these three books; especially of Mr. Goldwin Smith, with his denial of the existence of all truism. We were reminded that, in science a working hypothesis receives a large faith until it is proved untrue. In religion we have had the altruism which Christ preached and practiced; and whether we ask – or not – to know whence we came, – or by what road; – we may still be able to trust it to lead us homeward at last. Mrs. Cautley spoke of the three books she had reviewed as bringing a message of hope for man, and of help beyond man.

The next article of the programme was by Mrs. T. J. Morris, and was on "The Current Novel." Mrs. Morris spoke of a recommendation lately given "to read only good and tried novels," and asked: "How are these to be chosen?" She spoke of the late writings of Thomas Hardy, which deal with the relations between men and women, and with unbridled passion; and are

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true to a certain type of peasant nature. She spoke of the writings of Hall Caine, of the autobiographic work of Marie Baschkertchef [Marie Bashkirtseff], and the life of Sonya Kovalesk [Sofia Kovalevskaya, also known as Sonia Kovalevsky]. This tearing open of the tender flower, this uncovering of the soul, this fighting over sacred struggles – before the public, – must do harm. The unveiling of body or soul destroys the sensitiveness of conscience, and confuses the distinctions of right and wrong. She spoke of the story of Bessie Costrell [The Story of Bessie Costrell, by Mrs. Humphry Ward, 1895], with its cruel pitiless development of an evil nature. Great gifts are used unprofitably in revealing such characters. The question is asked if these novels have come Tuesday? If so, shall we not flee from them into a higher and purer region; and guard vigilantly for ourselves and for those we love, the holy of holies where even the high priest must enter unshod. But, we are told that a change is coming, the stories of heroes and the novel of adventure, which we read, and are not ashamed – will be the fashion again. These, Mrs. Morris said, are not all be hope for; but perhaps the touch is here that may give the key note to nobler harmonies, informed with intellect, heart and soul.

The last article of the programme was by Miss Ellen Duvall, and was called "A  Lover of the Beautiful." It was read by Mrs. Dammann. Miss Duvall’s essay spoke of human ignorance, – of the life still lived in our primeval forest, with its every opening dominated by the figure of a man. Also of our questionings

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new and old; – of the atomic theory, as old as Democritus, of the theories of motion, as returning to the teaching of Anaxagorus; – of the speculations of our own day, as old as Plato. She spoke of the intellectual light given to the old Greek world, in two modes, by Plato and by Aristotle; the first with the question: Why? – And the second with How? The first treating causes; the second processes. Both modes of thought have gone forward, side-by-side, each without taking in the other, but both have been held by lovers of the beautiful. The love of the beautiful has been a hope of glory, confined to no creed, no country, and no age. Miss Duvall went on to speak of the works of WalterPater ; saying that he is a Platonist, with something of Aristotle in his mind also. She reminded us that Keats has been said to have had a Greek nature. And, in our own day, she thought that Swinburne and Pater have had the Greek love of life, – the delight in living, – and the Greek love of the beautiful. Pater does not reconstruct the past, but makes it live again; his sense of the continuity of life makes mind and matter enduring. Miss Duvall went on to speak of Pater’s Essay on Style,” and of his own style. Beauty, she said is vital to any form of art; and true style requires also unity, harmony and force. But Pater lacks force. Perhaps he treats the overtones of life; but he forgets that genius and art live only as they appeal to the universal man; and he who lacks faith in man, Wilson lacking it in himself. Genius, however great, rests on what

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it is common to us all. Walter Pater grasps some of Plato's teachings; but he fails to take in the whole body of doctrine. And yet, from the large and beautiful quality of his spirit, we are loth to part.

The President thanked Miss Duvall for her tribute to "a love of the beautiful." She then said a few words on the Greek love of life, and love of the beautiful, – Hellenic nature, as, the manifested by the poet Sidney Lanier, who died fifteen years ago, but is still not without honor in our city, which for years was his home. The meeting adjourned.

 

147th Meeting. 

The 147th regular meeting of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on November 19th, 1895, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets. This meeting was under the direction of Mrs. Wrenshall, Chairman of the Committee on Archaeology.

The President called the meeting to order, and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of November 12th.

Announcements were made with regard to our next meeting; and to a meeting of the Folk Lore Club, to which our Club was invited. A notice was read of two courses of lectures to be given b our member, Mrs. Lord.

The first article of our program was given by Mrs. Alan P. Smith, and was on “The Greatest 

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of Ancient Historians: His Endowments by Birth and Education.” Mrs. Smith began by quoting from the Jewish historian of more than eighteen hundred years ago the traditional story in which Thermuthis, princess of Egypt, presented to the Pharoah her father, her adopted child, Moses, of “divine beauty” and generous mind; with the incident of the child’s throwing down the royal crown and treading on it. She went on to speak of the careful education given to him, who "was learned in all the wisdom  of all the laws byof the Egyptians." She spoke of the early lessons of the nurse, – really his mother – and of those stories which have entertained our own childhood, having been told to the children of that early day, which may seem to us the childhood of the world. Though the story of Cinderella was then about a thousand years old. No doubt the mother taught him the story of her own race; and also the learning that his ancestor Abraham had brought from Ur of the Chaldus. We were reminded that the city of Thebes was full of wondrous edifices; and we can not comprehend the message that each temple and monument brought to the mind and soul of the young Moses.

Mrs. Smith went on to speak of Heliopolis, or Om[?], As the University town, the Oxford of Egypt, and their Moses grew learned in science, art and literature; and also in the secret knowledge given by priests and oracles. With regard to

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such teachings, we were reminded that the Egyptian Book of the Dad tells us of the worship of one God, – the eternal invisible Heavenly Father, adored the early ages of Aryan, Semitic and Jurassian [?] Tribes. But that the low animal worship of the ejection people may have moved the righteous soul of the young Hebrew, while the affliction of his own people razzed his patriotism to the point of rejecting the riches and honor of a prince among oppressors. The forty years of evils with their solitude and their varied experiences were educational influences also, leading up to the time when "the Lord spake unto Moses," and sent him on to Pharaoh "to bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt."

Mrs. Smith's article did not go on to dwell upon the great actions that made the noblest part of the history of that age, – and of ages following it; – but spoke of the end, when the hero and seer was allowed to see the country he might not enter into; and then had "God's own hand, in that lonely land, To lay him in his grave."

Mrs. Smith went on to speak of the words that Moses has left to us; and of the laws – written on tables of stone, – that are the basis of all the laws by which we are governed now, – and then of the Psalm that has brought comfort to hearts bowed down for twenty-four centuries. "Lord Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations." she spoke of those critics who have discovered at least five different writers in the

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Pentateuch; and said that of course the work of earlier writers may have been used or quoted in forming .but that Moses did not write, we have such evidence, that until we can find another one like him, the world is safe and calling the beginning of our Bible the Five Books of Moses. 

The next article of our programme was by Miss Brent, and was on "The Religion of Ancient Egypt." Miss Brent spoke of our having to turn to the Orient for the beginnings of history and of religion, – and to find the great teachers for all ages. Before modern research, the mists of ages are dissolved, and the majestic forms of the early world are revealed to us. She spoke of the testimony regarding the daily life, and the religion of ancient Egypt, given by two travelers who were careful observers, Herodotus and Plato. She reminded us of the confirmation their records have received from the monumental inscriptions and sculptures still remaining, and still being discovered in the land that they visited long ages ago. The monuments were not reared in vain, – they give a message which thrills us now. They are builders were not children, they fulfilled their mission. When the man Moses stood before Pharaoh – mighty in word and deed, he was apparently in the power of his enemy; but Pharaoh was a priest as well as a king. Moses was a scholar from the priestly schools also, and had acquired their esoteric knowledge; – when he and Pharaoh

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were confronted they knew each other, and what each other knew. We were reminded that both the Hebrew and the Egyptians were the people of ancient prophecy, both in different ways, held to the one God; and that the first is now a nation without a kingdom, and the second a kingdom without a nation. Miss Brent said that the Egyptians were essentially a religious people, they carried religious actions into daily life, into war, and government; religious ideas wrapped the Egyptians from his birth to his death. As with other races, there came in time, no doubt, deterioration from the older and purer creed of their ancestors, but the old faith withheld in secret still. She said that Osiris myth shows the shade of revelation; it is important to us as a shadow of the Christian doctrine of redemption. Osiris is the benefactor of man, Isis is the nourisher and preserver of life, Osiris is the soul, and all things his body. Misprint spoke of theLock of hair on the right side which was sacred to Isis, and quoted from Shakespeare what seemed an allusion to the old superstition. She related other myths, and said that a story of the Sphynx [Sphinx] has been said to have been found existing in Yucatán. She said that Egypt the temple was not for the populace, it was for the worship of the king not the people. We were told that according to ancient authority the Egyptians were the first people who believed in the immortality of the soul, – and the body was held capable of little

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less immortality. But while the priest might continue to hold the pure old religion; they could give to the people, grocer forms of worship. In leading and guiding his people, Moses had the symbolism of the cloud, the most ethereal form of visible nature, and of fire, the emblem of purification. In closing, Mrs. Brandt spoke of the myth of Osiris as awakening thoughts of the reanimation of soul and body, and as a foreshadowing of the great Redeemer who is to judge the quick and the dead.

The next article of the programme was by Mrs. P. R. Uhler, and was on "The Egyptian Scarabaeus” [scarab beetle]. Mrs. Uhler said that after nearly nineteen hundred years of Christianity, we have become accustomed to receive the butterfly as the symbol of the resurrection and a future life; but to the early Egyptian the humble scarabaeus was the emblem of his hope of immortality. We find in the ancient tombs, its image and its mummy in such numbers as to be highly suggestive to the student of nature, and to the student of religion. The workmanship bestowed on the carvings of the scarabaeus shows something of the high state of civilization reached in Egypt thousands of years ago. Mrs. Uhler spoke of the cutting in hard and in soft stone, of the enameling and of the coloring exemplified in these works of art. Even after the Christian Era this work continued to be done, – one specimen has been found bearing a Latin cross. In the book of Enoch, the art of carving is said to have been taught by Azrael.

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Mrs. Uhler spoke of a cameo in the Museum of the Louvre; said to be the finest carving of its kind in the world. We were told of the signet ring of Queen Hatasu, still in existence. Mrs. healer said that in the collection of carvings given to the Peabody Institute by the heirs of the late Mr. Eaton, there were several genuine ancient representations of the scarabaeus. She spoke of one bearing the figures of a man and a woman with joined hands; and of one of the time of Amenhotep III. Some belonging to this. Have the inscription of Ra the Sun-god, and the emblem of resurrection. But forgeries are made in Egypt; and not only poor ones, but some so finished and elegant as to be difficult to distinguish from ancient workmanship. Mrs. Uhler went on to tell us that this insect – for ages the object of reverence— is of lowly order. She described the different genera and species, their nature, habits and appearance; showing us very interesting specimens and drawings in illustration of her account of them. Speaking of their working in pairs, she told us it has been said that this is a rare instance among animals of the male parent sharing the toils and responsibility of the female in providing for their young.  

But this opinion has been called good poetry and poor science. It was anciently thought that males alone existed in this race of creatures; erroneous by ascribing only one sex to them – the ancients endowed

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them with the one which possessed the greater number of privileges; – this of course happening before the new woman arose above the horizon. The scarabaeus we were told, was supposed to bear the symbols of the world, and of time; the number – thirty – of articulations on the foot represented the days of the month; the rays on the head symbolized the sun. Through the mists of ages we catch gleams of what is meant to those who reverence it. We follow the history of these people back to their sunrise; – they bowed before one God, and believe in a new life of rewards and punishments. We find also an elaborate system of philosophy. They believed that the elements of humanity ought not to be separated and they feared a second death. It was noticed that Moses makes no reference to the Egyptian doctrine of the preservation of the mummy. And perhaps, in the wandering life to which he was appointed to lead his people, he felt compelled to give up all reference to, or suggestion of what was impossible for them.

In closing, Mrs. Uhler said that perhaps more than any other ancient man, the Egyptian could say "I believe in the resurrection." He went to Nature herself and took one of the humblest of her creatures to say "This is the emblem of Immortality."

The President said we might wish for the presence of the gentleman who is accustomed to

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in the room we are occupying, to hear Mrs. Uhler's article. The meeting adjourned.

 

Salon.

A Salon of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, November 26th, 1895, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Sts. The special guest of the evening was our honorary member Mrs. Sidney Lanier. Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, the attendance of members was good.

The President called the meeting to order; and announced that the minutes of the meeting of November 19th, would be read by the Recording Secretary. These minutes are read and adopted.

The President took from an envelope, addressed to herself and to Mrs. Lanier, and read a few graceful lines appropriate to the occasion, written by Father Tabb, whose poems are well known.

It was announced that no program would be given; but that one or two tributes to Sidney Lanier, Poet and Musician, written by members of the Club would be red. Mrs. Lord then read the lines "To The Flute Of Sidney Lanier,” which were dedicated to Mrs. Turnbull. Mrs. Graham’s verses in "Memory ofSidney Lanier” were read by Miss Carter. The Sonnet of our late member Mrs. Easter, called “Lit with the Sun," was read by Miss Cloud. Mrs. Reese read a short poem of

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her own. The President reminded us that Miss Reese's published book of poems "A Handful of Lavender" was dedicated to the memory of Sidney Lanier. Mrs. Turnbull then gave us her own most appreciative poem, which the Club had not heard before. It was read at the Lanier Memorial meeting in the Johns Hopkins University several years ago.

The members were requested to come on the platform, to be presented to Mrs. Lanier. Refreshments were served, and a pleasant hour was spent in social conversation.

 

148th Meeting. 

The 148th regular meeting of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, December 3rd, 1895, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets. This meeting was under the direction of Miss L. W. Reese, Chairman of the Committee on Modern Poetry.

The President called the meeting to order; and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the Salon of November 26th, which were adopted.

The first article of the programme was read by the President; being the poems of her sister. It was announced as "Selections from Mimosa Leaves, a Volume of Poems, just issued by Miss Grace Denio Litchfield." The volume from which these selections were read, had just arrived to the Club from the author herself. The first poem read by

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Mrs. Turnbull was called: "In my Window Seat." The fair seer, from her window seat in her old home on Long Island, looks over the fair land and water leading to the great city in the distance, under the twilight sky, – all glowing lost in pathless gray, around, above, beneath," – where nature, man, and angels, seem to grow silent, and listen, "to hear God's Will."

The second poem was called "Life," – the vanishing thing "that we value so, for all that it can rescue from Death.

The third poem was written for a paper published by a child for the benefit of a free kindergarten. It was called: "To a Rosebud," and it touched upon this hidden, vanishing life of the flower most gracefully.

The fourth poem was called "Rain"; and struck the deeper note of that mystery, "more pitiless than Death," – powerful to bless or to curse.

The next poem read was called "Courage." It was on that courage which survives shipwreck, and plants a victor crown above the fatal rocks where its bark went down.

The next poem was called "A Mystery," and asks if joy may not outweigh our woe? Or life's gains make small Earth's sorrow?

The last poem read was an evening song called: "The Milky Way." It was on the "unsullied bridge athwart Night’s dim shadows," perhaps the bridge of dreams, or the bridge that lonely footsteps have crossed to reach the great white throne,

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or that the Angels take to come to earth. The poems were received with cordial appreciation and applause. Mrs. Graham moved: "a vote of thanks" for the gift of the volume to the Club, by the author, our honorary member, Miss Grace Denio Litchfield. Miss Mary Grace seconded the motion; which was passed, by a standing vote, unanimously.

The programme next announced: "Chatterton's Last Struggle," A Poem, by Mrs. Charles W. Lord." It presented to us the last despairing hours of him whom Wordsworth calls:

    "the marvelous boy,

The sleepless soul perished in his pride."

The next article was on "Ben Jonson," and was by Miss Ellen Duvall. It was read by Mrs. Dammann. Miss Duvall spoke of play goers; – of intelligent ones, – and of those who know nothing, and seemed to enjoy their ignorance. She reminded us of the changes that have come to pass in the last two centuries and a half. One might think that the Elizabethan day ought to have been forty-eight hours long; – the rush was never of time, it was the presence of feeling, not haste. We seem to have lost the sense of the enjoyment of life. To be in danger of forgetting how to be happy. She spoke of the well-rounded out characterizations of the old place. She reminded us that the old play writers were actors also. She went on to criticize the modern melodrama and the characters that have become stereotyped in it. Miss Duvall spoke of Ben Jonson’s being said

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to have suffered from Shakespeare's fame. She thought they ought not to be compared; they have "different ways of looking at character, and of showing it to us. Shakespeare sees his characters at one glance, without effort. Ben Jonson built up his work, step by step; he suggests the modern novel, – the novel dramatically presented. George Eliot, for instance, paints slowly, and makes a finished picture, but we feel the labor bestowed upon it. She said that from the play "Every Man In His Humor," in 1598, Ben Jonson found fame. That he thought each one person has some one quality that dominates him. And he gave typical names to his characters: – a mistake, for people are not like moral puppets.  That Jonson was a man of the world, and a man of letters; – his plays are the times themselves, – the times of Elizabeth and James. That he was the most educated of the Elizabethan play writers. But with his own fine education, he seems to think Shakespeare richly endowed enough to dispense with learn and attainments.

In speaking of Jonson’s tragedies, Miss Duvall suggested that but for having those of Shakespeare to compare with them, they would stand in the first rank of English work in that line. She spoke of his masques and his songs, as well as of his different plays; and also of his having stood the final test of writing blank verse. She said after Shakespeare's

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death, he was the foremost literary man of his day. That Genius is dual, it seems to be man and woman both. Also that we must judge Jonson in the comprehensive Elizabethan sense. And, and the extent and variety of his gifts, we feel the force of his brief epitaph: “O rare Ben Jonson.”

At the conclusion of Miss Duvall’s paper, the President asked her to come to the platform and to give some information with regard to the subject she had treated. Mrs. Bullock asked if Ben Jonson’s method of individual characterization was his own, or was a survival of the mode of older play writers? Miss Duvall said that Johnson's own idea was that every man possessed one characteristic, which colored all the rest of his nature; but that he was moved by older forms of the drama also. His gentleman was a gentleman of his own time, – not of ours; his [text illegible—Ironist?] as a wit.

The next article of the program was: "Poems by Miss Virginia Woodward Cloud." They were called "December," – "A Child's Good Night Song," – "an Interlude," – and “a String of Pearls"; read with force and expression by their author.

The last article of the programme was called "Orchards," A Paper with Songs,” by Miss Reese, the Chairman of the meeting; the songs, of course, being her own. Miss Reese said it is remarkable how slight a place the Orchard fills in English poetry, which tells us much of forests, meadows, lanes and fields. Shakespeare,

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 she said, brings the Orchard into five of his plays, only once in verse. Mrs. Reese dwelt on the Orchards richness of coloring, on the flowers and weeds of its ground, on the orchards aspects of antiquity and history, all through its ever renewing use. It is the first to have indications of Spring in its blossoms, and the last to let go the sweet things of spring. It is full of visions; April comes there into his inheritance, hunted one step behind him by the old Aprils gone. The birds sing there when the sun comes out. The orchard has many moods, – and we would not have one less of them. It's secrets are like those of a haunted old house. There we might meet a ghost, or an old lover, – or Thomas à Kempis, with his head down in a book. 

Ms. Reese gave gave us in this article her "Song of the Thrush," and her "Song of April."

The president spoke of the good work of Miss Reese's Committee. She also said that she wished to thank the members of the Club for the response they had made to her request for their interest in Mrs. Sidney Lanier’s late reading of the poems of her husband. She thought that the efforts of our members had contributed much to the success of that entertainment.

The meeting adjourned.

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149th Meeting. 

The 149th regular meeting of the woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, December 10th, 1895 at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Sts. This meeting was under the direction of Miss Mary J. Grace, Chairman of the Committee on Translations. The President called the meeting to order; and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of December 3rd, which were adopted. The Secretary also read a note from Miss Litchfield, gracefully acknowledging the vote of thanks by the Club for the gift of her book "Mimosa Leaves." The President called the attention of the Club to the approaching election of new members into thee Club, filed for January 7th, 1896. She requested us to refer to Article IV, Section V of our Constitution, in which the formalities necessary to be observed in proposing new members are fully stated. We were reminded that those of us who may wish to propose our friends as candidates for membership in the Club should send these names to the Recording Secretary before – or at least on the 24th of December 1895, which is two weeks before the election.

the President also reminded us that December 24th, Christmas Eve, falls this year on Tuesday, and she asked to know the pleasure of the Club with regard to the holding – or not holding our meeting on that day. The question being then placed before the Club: "Shall the meeting of Tuesday, December 24th, be omitted?" – The Club voted, without opposition,

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to omit that meeting.

the first article of the programme was by Miss Katherine Spear, and was on Heinrich Leuthold, Poet. Miss Spear’s article was not a translation, but a biographical notice and criticism – It contained, however, her own successful translations of some of Leuthold’s poems, into English verse. Miss Spear spoke of the general recognition that came to the Swiss poet, Heinrich Leuthold, in 1879, simultaneously with the knowledge that he was the inmate of an insane asylum. And two years afterwards, the literary public learned that he was dead. Born in poverty and in an uncongenial environment, he sought in communion with Nature the love and sympathy that his whole being craved. Some sad little verses were given us, written in loneliness– and strivings of soul. Then came the record of early love, – first for Rosina, afterwards for Emma, and for Carolina. But his tender little love poems did not lose their loveliness, – even in translation. Leuthold then went to Italy and wrote his “Lieder au Der Riviera.”  In 1857 he went to live in Munich, where he took much interest in politics, and became a journalist. But in Germany he was called a foreigner, and by his own people in Switzerland, a deserter. His melancholy madness, began to be apparent in his poems. The critics have called him the true lyric poet. Still there is a lack of spontaneity in his writings, and they show consciousness of a life purpose unfulfilled. Miss Spear spoke of Leuthold’s

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peculiar rhymes, and his power of melody. She spoke of his translations; and read her renditions into German of Longfellow's Rainy Day." Longfellow's poems seem to lend themselves readily to translation, but beyond that Leuthold’s success is remarkable. One of Leuthold’s songs was on Spring and tells, at last, have one earnest soul who fulfilled his destiny. This sphere closed her article with her poets song, “Blaetterfall,”== in which he epitomized his life and labor. It tells of the leaves that fall from the branches that bear no fruit, and cover the graves of fair hopes dead.

the next article of the programme was of two stories from the French, translated by Mrs. Thomas J. Morris. Mrs. Morris spoke of “the short story," which for the last twelve years has filled a large part in French literature, with its true French character, it's marked essential qualities, and is rigid suppression of non-essentials.

The first translation given by Mrs. Morris was the story of "The Illegible Signature," by L. Ricard. It paints the charming country house of a retired French officer, who seems to be in one point only, a martinet,--with regard to his only son’s writing lessons. In explanation of this, the old solder tells the story of having himself once received a letter from Baden; with a direct demand for money, and a totally illegible signature, one that defied the efforts of himself, his friends, and even of experts. After caching his memory for the names of old comrades, and sending for and 

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examining the hotel and Club lists at Baden, he was in despair. But one night he was awakened by a sharp noise in his room, his night lamp went out, and a voice pronounced a name, that of an old associate, which strangely he had not thought of before. The letter was answered, and the money sent as soon as possible; both to be returned with the notice that the old friend had shot himself on the night when the illegible name had been revealed.

The second translation of Mrs. Morris was from Alphonse Daudet. Daudet, she said, had been classed with Balzac and with Dickens. He has been called, among other things, realistic, pathetic, charming and annoying. The story was the Christmas tale of “Salvette and Bernadon." It described Christmas Eve in a Bavarian city – the Christmas Eve of 1870 in the midst of the Franco-Prussian War. But the German Christmas Eve is joyous, even in wartime; and the description is bright-eyed and happy. Even the Jews are gay, and must have reasons for being so. An old Hebrew carries a basket daintily covered with a sprig of Holly upon it; – but surely he has no Christmas family festival. His sons and partners are following the Army, in many ways making profit out of the war; and he trades on war also; as in one sense he is doing now. But he hurries to the hospital for soon no doors will be closed. Within it are two Frenchmen, Salvette and Bernadon; one growing

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and the other growing week. But to night, Bernadon grows gay, and talks of their Christmas Eves at home in Provence; of the Church altar and its candlesticks, and its music; and says it is a bad Christmas that has not the white bread and wine they always had at home. Salvette has had a postal order for forty francs sewed into his vest, to be used only when they go home again to France; – but day he has taken it out, stiff and stained, yet good still, and has confided it to the old 24 who's coming he has been waiting as the night shadows begin to fall. Even to the hospital the mystery of the holy time reaches, the light of Christmas comes. Salvette asks if his friend is asleep; he has placed the white bread and the wine before him; and then the two Provencals, who could not let the Christmas pass without bringing back something of their childhoods love and faith, talk of their old Christmas hymns. Bernadon, through all the weakness of his failing condition, insists that they must sing the song about shepherds who came to see the Infant Christ. At the last verse, Bernadon falls back, the Holly is exchanged for the green palm, and life for death. then Salvette sings alone the grand Provençal chorus: “Bergers prener votre longe.”

the next article of the programme was given by Miss Grace, the Chairman of the meeting, being her translation from the French 

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and the Italian. The first sketch was by Paul Bourget, and was called “An Humble capsule." It describes a February afternoon; also a public coach into which a short man with long hair and unkempt beard, and a bag of books, pushes his way, takes out his manuscripts and falls to correcting a Latin exercise. He is a sort of free professor, a professor forced to live by private teaching. He rose at five, use the only soap, towel and pitcher of water in his lodgings, taught till seven and breakfasted on a role in the shape of a crescent, – costing one cent. His age makes him eligible to instruct the young ladies of Saint Cecelia's school. Now as he makes his correction in the public coach, he dreams of the reputation he is about to make, as he is on his way to a Russian lady, who pays thirty francs an hour. Dreams even of the seashore come to him. He married early, his two daughters have married also, he is obliged to make an allowance to each of his children; an old and of his would have died but for the thousand francs he allows her; he has taken his wife's mother to his home; and his lessons are four francs an hour. He has a pleasant smile on his face, he is thinking of the Norman coast, when the coach stops. When he enters the Russian lady’s apartments, he forgets to wipe his feet, which causes her flunkey to declare "The old fellow would not pay for a carriage to come in, – the old miser."

The next article was from the Italian of

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Neera, and was called "Severine." It describes the evening, before "Aunt Severine's" fortieth birthday. Her brother has given her a chocolate colored down, as being suitable to her age. Other presence and letters have come to her, seeming to have the same idea attached to them, and Aunt Severine is in that frame of mind described by her sister-in-law in the words "Do what you please, Severine is never contented." A woman who has loved beauty, and craved love all her life, and, having never possessed the woman or the other, is feeling and being told that her youth is gone forever, and that any

“sweet hope that lies

Deeply buried from human eyes"

must go with it, is a pathetic picture; whether the future has any compensation for her or not.

After the announcement of the programme for the next meeting, the Club adjourned.

 

150th Meeting

December 17th, 1895

The 150th regular meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, December 17th, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets.

This meeting was under the direction of Miss Brent, Chairman of the committee on the Exact Study of the English Language. The President called the meeting to order, and the Recording 

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Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of December 10th.

    The first article of the programme was by Miss Maria Middleton, and was on “English Poetry-- Old and New.” Miss Middleton spoke of our being struck at first sight with the dissimilarity between old and new English poetry; and, on further acquaintance, with the wonderful likeness, the oneness of spirit that holds good in all English poetry, in the times of our fathers, and in our own time. He cannot define the charm of genius that comes forth in old and new literature, from the lining root of beauty and truth. The literature of all nations begins first in poetry; the minstrel corner first. The First Saxon verses were aliterative [alliterative], up to the thirteenth century. Caedmon shows a rude sort of rhythm as well as aliteration [alliteration]. Miss Middleton read one of his songs, which; She said, reminds us of the old Hebrew poetry, and shows that rhythm came before rhyme,-- rhythm representing harmony, and rhyme, melody. She spoke of the resemblance between the work of Caedmon, and that of Milton, and called attention to the assertion of a late writer, that in Milton’s time there was not the same critical denunciation of what we call plagiarism as now there is. Of the two men, Milton was far the more self-assertive. Miss Middleton read specimens from the poetry of the thirteenth century, and from that of the three centuries following. She suggested that the unknown author of the “the grand old ballad of 

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Sir Patrick Spens,” if he had lived a century or two later, might have written “Lord Ullin’s Daughter,” or later still might have given us “The Wreck of the Hesperus.” Also that the “Friar of Order Gray,” reminds us of Goldsmith. Miss Middleton spoke of the Sonnet as little known in England before the sixteenth century, when Hyatt and others made in-popular. She thought that no sonnet has surpassed the one by Blanco White, in which he apostrophizes “Mysterious Hight.” 

    She spoke of Mrs. Browning’s Sonnets, and of their perfection as that kind of poetry. She called attention to the strange fact of the inferiority of the written Drama of our own time, to that of three centuries ago. She spoke of the same father and fairy tales as delighting children-- and grown people-- of one century after another, down to the present time. After reading Lowell’s love-song “She Came and Went,” and an exqiusite sonnet of Robert Browning’s, ‘Miss Middleton said that the difference between old and new poetry, are not all gains; the new often wants rigor,-- and cheerfulness seems to have gone out of fashion. But the minstrel holds his old sway still, and we listen to the music of his verses. The wonderful seventh century, and flows on still. The poetry of earth never dies; the light never fades; the poets too are never dead; and many a true soul has been taught more true religion by the poets than by the preachers.

    The next article of the programme was

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by Miss Annie Weston Whitney, and was on "The Ell an’ a Yard." Before reading, Miss Whitney spoke of having written her article for the Club; but of part of it having been, – at the request of Prof. Bright, – published in Modern Science Notes, the Magazine issued by the Johns Hopkins University.

    She explained that the Ell and the Yard, referred to the Belt and Sword of Orion, as supposed to be represented in the constellation bearing his name. – A familiar object in our own skies, and to the old idea that the two lines are to each other in apparent length as the ell and yard are in measurement. She referred to the Southern Negro plantation songselAnd superstitions regarding the "ell an’ a yard," preserved by Joel Chandler Harris, and others. Also to the old Scandinavian superstitions concerning the same beautiful, strangely arranged group of stars.

    Miss Whitney went back to the testimony of the book of Job, to that of the ancient Egyptians and Hindoos, and Greeks and Romans regarding this Constellation, – also to the ancient and modern belief in its effect on storms and shipwrecks. She traced the fables and imaginative inspirations of those who have, in their various ways "considered the heavens"; – from Hebrew prophets, old and new – astronomers, and poets, down to the humble Negroes in the fields of our own Southland. All [text illegible] to, she showed as seeming to illustrate the mythical life of the hero Orion, "the hunter loved by his Dawn. At the end of Miss Whitney's reading, we

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were glad to be informed that she had presented to the Club, a copy of the paper, Modern Science Notes, – containing all of her article that had been published.

    The next article of the programme was by this Brent, and was on: "Metaphor and Shakespeare." Miss Brent said that in treating figures in prose or poetry, it is well to consider the growth and changes of language. Each invasion of England left traces on what we call the English language. She spoke of the different forms and developments in which the Celt, Latin, Greek, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and other elements are to be recognized. Reasoning from cause to effect, and from effect to cause, it has been said that man makes language, as the bird makes its nest, or the be its self. But language is is a divine

gift, and separates man from beasts. It requires a language of delicate meanings to express metaphor well.

    The Greeks left delicacy and beauty; and we see in the myriad minded Shakespearean, much of the influence of Greek literature and thought. Shakespeare could add to his own language. He sometimes does give us mixed metaphor; but his genius can make them strong and full enough to overcome the sense of unfitness. If he speaks of taking "arms against a sea of troubles," the idea of a powerful will fighting against overwhelming evils fills our minds completely. But, in Midsummer Night's Dream, Helena’s‑

“So we grew together

Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,

But yet a union in partition," is an

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exquisite metaphor. Miss Brent quoted from other place, showing Shakespeare's power in these poetic creations. She spoke of Shakespeare's delight in life, – of his joy in "the Lark, at Heaven's Gate," singing. She referred to his mention of the man in the moon, and gave us some curious instances of the treatment of the moon – myths, – ancient and modern. She reminded us that the types and metaphors of the Sage of Avon, flipped through the world and remain with us still, recalled to us continually in our daily life. The meeting adjourned.

 

Salon.

December 31st, 1895. 

The salon for December, 1895, was held on the 31st of the month. New Year’s Eve, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets.

    the meeting began with the New Year Greeting of the President to the club. She congratulated us on the good work done during the year, and on the increased interest in, and influence of the Club. She spoke of our organization, nearly 6 years ago; and of a prophecy made then, that a Society like ours, attempting to have weekly meetings, would die out in six months. She told us that the for the current year programmes had been and were provided for; and that additional papers were held ready to make up for any possible failure in them.

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She hoped, and believed, that the coming year would show good work also, and be a good year. She quoted from Tennyson's poem of "The Golden Year,"

"Well I know

That unto him who works, and feels he works, 

This same grand year is ever at the doors."

 

    Mrs. Turnbull then went on to speak of the sad feeling with which she had come to the last meeting; after having just heard of the closing words of President Cleveland's message, which seemed then ominous of international strife, and the shedding of kindred blood. After referring to old memories now happily growing dim with us – of civil and foreign war, Mrs. Turnbull spoke of the protest of 1300 British writers; which surely we all feel can not fail to meet a fitting response from those who hold the pen worthily on our side of the water. She then read the stirring Code of William Watson, addressed to the "Daughters of England" the "Titan of the West.”

Our President then spoke of the fact that we do not yet possess the collected autographs of our members, and announced that the Recording Secretary now held leaves for the record of names and signing a Constitution. All members were required to give their signatures; and the leaves were to be kept open for two or three weeks. They are afterwards to be bound with the Constitution and Manual, and to be preserved with the important documents of the Club we regret

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that the autographs of some of our members are no longer attainable. The President then appointed Mrs. John T. Graham, Chairman of the Committee on Autographs, for the Club.

   Our president then spoke of our personal greetings for the New Year, of the interest we have felt in our fellow workers, and of our sympathy with their work. She spoke of one who was a founder of the Club, whose work for it has been a labor of love, – with unbroken loyalty and devotion, – a Vice President, from the first, until this year the pressure of other duties seemed to her to make necessary her resignation. She then requested Miss Louise Osborne Haughton to come to the platform to receive a small token of the gratitude and appreciation felt for her efforts for the good of the Club. An Inc. stand on a silver tray and a silver pen-holder from her fellow members were presented to Miss Haughton; who, evidently taken by surprise, could say only that she had no words to express her thanks.

   Miss Brent, Ex-President of the Club, thanked Miss Haughton for the help and support given by her, and for her efforts to extend the influence of the Club. Miss Brent then referred to Miss Haughton as uniting in herself the blood of the "right little, tight little Island," and that of old Maryland.

   It had been announced that we were to have one literary article read at the meeting,

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that of Mrs. Fabian Franklin on Sonya Kovalevsky, followed by the Discussion of the Question: "Does serious study injure a woman's happiness?"

   Mrs. Franklin quoted Mr. Gladstone's expression of his great interest in the biography of this remarkable Russian woman. She then went on to describe the career of Sonya Kovalevsky as a mathematician, and as a woman; spoke of the professorship of mathematics created for her at the Swedish University, of the double prize awarded to her at Paris, by the French Academy of Science. Mrs. Franklin went on to describe Sonya's remarkable scientific and literary work; her great force of character and power of feeling, her sympathetic personality; and the influence of her environment, – of the stormy world she lived in, when from 1862 1870, all Russia was filled with the conflict between new and old ideas, and the striving for freedom – personal, mental and political,— was shared even by the children.She told of the affectionate woman, the beautiful young genius, the great mathematician, the stormy soul; and concluded that this was an exceptional woman; one of those human beings who make laws for themselves, and will not be guided by the rules of others.

   Mrs. Bullock spoke of the refreshment that serious study may give us in the troubles of life, even making soul troubles grow smaller, or less acute, or at least helping us to bear them. The President spoke of Mrs. Somerville, and of Mr. Jackson, for whom study certainly seems to have promoted

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happiness. Mrs. Lord spoke of the studies that tend to become absorbing, and to make home duties distasteful. Mrs. Whitelock spoke of the account given by Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, of her mother, who seemed torn between her domestic duties, and her mind's desire to create.

   Mrs. Franklin suggested that of course the highest duty of a woman was to make her husband happy, and that a man's highest duty was to make all the money he could, and make his wife happy.

   Mrs. Turner said that a wife and mother who is a true homemaker, who never fails in domestic duties and graces, brings up her children and makes them and her husband happy, opens her house in the Fall and shuts it up in the Spring, prepares her household for a Summer trip, which we all know does not mean leaving old clothes, – and also fulfills her social obligations, as well as those of charity and religion, is the greatest wonder of the age.

   Miss Thompson spoke of the nearly 4000 years of ignorance with which women are hampered and weighed down. "And for the last fifty years," she said "we have been having growing pains." How long will it take us – of course without neglecting any real duties, to make up for lost time, and stand side-by-side with men?”

   the President spoke of the duties of women as filling often all the day, and all the night too; men can give more uninterrupted time to study and

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and intellectual pursuits. She suggested that the discussion might perhaps be taken up on some other occasion.

   It was announced that Mrs. Graham had presented to the Club, as a gift from her husband, "The Life of John Jay," now out of print – also some autograph letters of great interest. Mrs.Alan P. Smith then presented to the Club a new book, prepared for the Atlanta Exposition, called "A Tribute in Song, – from Virginia Women to Georgia. Edited by Mary Stuart Smith.

   After some announcements relating to the Committees of the Club, refreshments were served, and the Club and its visitors enjoyed a social conversation for the rest of the afternoon.

 

151st Meeting

January 7th, 1896. 

The 151st regular meeting of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, January 7th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Sts. This meeting was under the direction of Mrs. R. M. Wyllie, Chairman of the Committee on Art. The President called the meeting to order, and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of December 17th, and also those of the Salon of December 31st, 1895.

   The first article of the programme was by Mrs. John A. Sloan; and was called “Phidias [Phideas] and the Parthenon." Mrs. Sloan began by

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Speaking of the demonstration of joy made by the people and the rulers of the city of Athens after the victory of Marathon; and of their thanksgivings to their goddess Athena, whom they held as their beloved protectoress of their city. In these we could well believe that the boy than ten years of age, who was destined to become the greatest sculptor of his time – and of all times – was an appreciative spectator and an ardent sympathizer. She described the education and Art, and the education of Phidias, and the environment of the young genius; and went on to speak of the circumstances of his life, and also of his admiring work, and his immortal fame. She dwelt on the spirituality which he seems first to have given to that true art, which he achieved, and in which he embodied the religion, the hero-worship, – and patriotism of Athens.

   Mrs. Sloan then spoke of Ruskin's beautiful interpretation of the myth of Athens as the "Queen of the Air," meaning to the Greeks Light and Health and Life. She thought we might try to charm back again the beauty and glory of the now ruined Parthenon, from ancient description and copies, and from what remains of the building and of portions of its adornments. These she described with historical detail, and animated portrayal. She closed with a tribute to the artist who inspired the Parthenon with the life story of his beloved Athens. 

   The next article of the programme was

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by Mrs. Alfred M. Belt, and was on "The Revival of Learning and the Renaissance in Art." Mrs. Belt spoke of the new awakening of interest in the classics, the so-called rediscovery of Homer and Virgil and the followers of Phidias and his successor also, at the end of the 15th century. Of this revival Rome became the center, for Pope Nicholas V loved art, and is called the Founder of the Vatican Library.

   Mrs. Belt spoke too of the Medici family, and of their liberal patronage of Arts and Literature. she spoke of the great artists in the art schools of Rome and Florence and Venice. Also of the treasures and the talent that Pope Julius II drew around him, to make room the capital of Art, as well as that of Religion. She spoke of Michael Angelo [Michelangelo], – especially of his work at room on the Church of St. Peter. Also of Leonardo da Vinci, – the many sided, – of Titian and Correggio, and of Raphael. She spoke of the satisfaction that is felt in the little room at Dresden and gazing at the wonderful picture of the mother and child; – though it has been said that the face of the mother is the more satisfactory one; – that the other face is only to be fully revealed in Paradise.

   Mrs. Belt went on to speak of the benefits of foreign travel, and of the memories to be brought back from it, – of the wealth of art and historic associations that can appeal to the appreciative observer.

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The next article of the programme was given by Mrs. Wyllie, and was called "What Is an Ideal City?"

   Mrs. Wylie reminded us that most of us have seen beautiful cities; though none of us can hope to see one of perfect beauty until we look through the pearly gates in the Jasper walls into the city not made with hands. But a beautiful city should be built on its seven – or its many – hills; it should be on the shore of Abbe, where ships can come to it; – it should have a stream of water through it, crossed by bridges of stone and iron. It's public buildings should be handsome; it's private residences should be elegant, if possible, comfortable at least, – individual in more than one sense, giving opportunity for homes, even to the poor. It should be an educational center, with its University of high-grade, its colleges and schools – public and private, – not for a moment forgetting its Women's College, which ought to add beauty to the city in many senses.

   Mrs. Wylie described the Churches and religious buildings of this ideal city, as various in architecture, and grandeur or gracefulness, but perhaps with different voices calling the citizens to prayer and praise. There should be well supported libraries for use and for reference, and a free library with branches for all book lovers. Opportunities

[208] for the study of Music and of Art in its various departments should be provided for also, especially by the liberality of honored citizens. It should be adorned with monuments to those whom the citizens delight to honor: If it contains a great private collection of fine paintings, antique vases, artistic furniture and rare China, – even this might be sometimes thrown open by its owner for the benefit of his fellow citizens. The city should have public squares and parks with pathways and seats and flowers; and at least one miniature forest with lakes and drives through grand old oaks, fountains and bridges, hills and crests overlooking city and country. Nor should God's Acre be forgotten; but the grounds where its people shall at last rest in hope, should be beautiful to. But though perhaps we should not live alway, we can even now be like the wanderers into our southern country who said Alabama, or, "Here we Rest." Mrs. Wylie closed by saying that we too can respond: "Here we rest – in beautiful Baltimore.[“]

   The President said that it is pleasant to be reminded of the beauty that is here, at our own doors.

   The last article given us was by Mrs. George Whitelock, and was called "Mysticism, and the Coming Trauma." It was red for Mrs. Whitelock by Mrs. Bullock. This article treated critically and comprehensively the art and literature of to day; in its mysticism and symbolism and psychological force. Mrs. Whitelock spoke

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of the new Drama, as the [“]pantomime of the incomprehensible," with its [“]power of suspended movement, of suppressed action, of controlled motion," – and of [“]motionless tragedy." She spoke of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who, she said, made impassioned pictures of his poems. Also of Burne Jones and George F. Watts among painters, of Wagner among musicians, – and have many writers of different nationalities from Omar Khayyam to William Blake and William Sharpe, and others.

   Mrs. Whitelock reviewed especially the works of Henrik Ibsen and those of Maurice Maeterlinck; who, it has been said, "both bid we enter into the dark zone of the human soul of course this is hardly the Drama of the stage; but she concluded that the new Drama will have a controlled manifestation of the elemental passions of the human soul.

   At the close of Mrs. Whitelock's article, Miss Brent said we could wish for some means of preserving and publishing the papers read to us, that they might do good to a large circle, and not pass away. The President said that this would be a subject for future consideration.

   The meeting adjourned.

 

152nd Meeting

January 14th, 1896. 

The 152nd regular meeting of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, January 14th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Sts.

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This meeting was under the direction of Mrs. John N. Carter, Chairman of the Committee on Philanthropy.

   The President called the meeting to order, and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of January 7th. After notices regarding the autographs of the members, and the distribution of the Club Manual; the first article of the programme was red. It was by Mrs. Carter; and was on "Our Aborigines." Mrs. Carter spoke of our tribes of Indians, so-called by Columbus, from his mistaken idea that in sailing west he had found "The East." She reminded us of the researches expended upon the vexed question of the origin and dissent of these people, and the failure to find a satisfactory answer to it. She spoke of the early conquests of colonies of the English, the French and the Spanish, also of the different modes of dealing with the aborigines, adopted by these early explorers and occupiers of their country. She dwelt on the friendliness shown by Indian chieftains at the first arrival of the white men, and upon the transactions that changed hospitality into hatred, – the hatred of the savage to the overbearing invader. She spoke of the treaties, solemnly ratified by both parties, and broken by the white men; – of the reservations secured to the Indians by law, from which he has been dispersed by settlers, and excluded by governmental authority. She went back to the efforts that have been made to give him fair dealing & civilization,

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in Christianity, – to William Penn and Elliott and Mayhew, and to the devoted Franciscans and Jesuits, who have done noble work, and have seen some good fruit from their labors. She describes the mania – for seeking gold and silver; the destruction of the buffalo, which was the Indians food, and the military extermination proposed to be given to him. Mrs. Carter spoke of our Republic as standing in the front rank of the nations of the world, accustomed to cut its Gordian knots, but unable to dismiss the Indian question from its view. We cannot forget the words of our nation, but if Christianity is the key to the great problem, all will yet be well.

   Our programme promised us an article by Mrs. John T. Graham, but the President announced that Mrs. Graham was ill with pneumonia, and had not been able to send her paper to be read on this occasion. After expressing the sympathy of the Club for Mrs. Graham, the president requested that Miss Zacharias would now give us her part of the programme.

   The first article given by Miss Zacharias was called "The Question of Cain." She spoke of the many early efforts made by man to realize spiritual life; until at last his king lay down the crown he were in heaven – and was born in a manger on earth. At twelve years of age he went up to the temple to fulfill the laws of religion; at thirty began his three years of service, and at last bowed his head and death for humanity. And then was given the long-deferred, full

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and real answer to the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" – That we are not here for our own good, but to take a part of the service bequeathed to us, and wait for its full interpretation. She went on to speak of the saying of one of the pious fathers, that when in the sacrament the chalice was made of wood, the worship was Golden, – but when the chalice was of gold, the worship began to be wooden. Ms. Zacharias had brought to the Club to ancient chalices for inspection, belonging to her brother. One was of all of wood, and had come from Jerusalem. The other was a bronze covered with gold, and was of the 14th century. It was from Dorndoff [?] near Weimar. We were told that in the Churches of Switzerland, the wooden chalice is still in use.

   The second article given by Mrs. Zacharias was called "Little Jo – Newsboy." She told us that among the victims of the late disaster at Front Street Theatre, inner-city, was a little boy, seven years old who had in the last year been often seen going up and down Charles Street, looking pale and weak with a paper in his hand. Always with one paper, he was hardly to be called a newsboy; his face was his trade, his face and his dragging feet, – the temptation was to give him the money and tell him to keep the paper. Miss Zacharias said that last year she met little Jo on Charles Street. He had missed his ticket to the boys festival, and she told him to walk into the hall, describing the dinner and trees, and the good things to be given to the boys. Then he looked up and said

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"Me too?] She was glad to remember it. The day after the calamity of Front Street his name was in the list of the killed. He had not been well for days before, but may have gone there with his paper. Ms. Zacharias spoke of the work among poor boys; and said that when people asked her if she has seen any results from it, she answered: Yes, a whole harvest of them. And she could think of a beautiful portal with a throng going through it and a little changed face, looking up with the expression that said, "Me too.”

   Mrs. Alan P. Smith said a few words in relation to the plan of some young ladies in our city to publish one days addition of a newspape it is to be the,he benefit of the charities in which Thich they are wo workin "Baltimore American[“] of February 29th, and they look to the Woman's Literary Club for aid and cooperation in their effort.

   The last article given was by Mrs. Albert Leakin Sioussat, and was called: “Children of the State.” Mrs. Sioussat spoke of the child is revealed to us by the poet and painter, or as seen by loving eyes; and quoted Wordsworth’s line

 

   “Heaven lies about us in our infancy.”

 

She then spoke of those children who have no parents and no homes, and who are thrown upon the world, or the state. In some countries the doctrine of "the survival of the fittest" – or what is understood to be such – is carried out; as in Matabele[?], where female infants are massacred, occasionally. In some other countries, there are asylums and

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poor houses and jails. We were reminded of the work of St. Vincent de Paul in lighting up the dark places of this world. Mrs.Sioussat spoke of what has been done for friendless children in our own country; and then told of the same kind of work done in France by [the Catholic] Church and State, since the days of St. Vincent de Paul. She spoke of the advantages of the French system in the education of the child, and in furnishing him with a means of support.

   She reminded us of the career of D’Alembert, the great mathematician and a literary writer, a true child of the State. He was so fortunate, she said, as to escape the Judgment Day of the great Revolution. Mrs. Sioussat said a fair haired boy was waiting for her at home, whose ancestor in the fourth generation, Jean Pierre Sioussat, had been held up to see the execution of the King Louis XVI; and he remembered the howling mob, and describe the awful scene, and after years. This boy did not know the after fate of his own parents, who disappeared during the reign of terror, but he was taken in charge, first by the Church, and then afterwards by the State; and as a man this son of France came to America.

   The President announced as a gift to the library of the Club, by Mr. Frederick H. Smith, of his "Hand Book of Minerals.”

   Mrs. Zacharias spoke earnestly and requesting her friends never to give money to little children in the streets, as any solicitation 

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fosters false pretenses, and as such children are often sent out to make the support of their worthless parents.

   After some informal conversation, the meeting adjourned.

 

152nd Meeting.

January 21st, 1896. 

The 152nd regular meeting of the Woman's literary Club of Baltimore was held on Tuesday, Jan. 21st 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets. On this evening no programme prepared. Mrs. Alan P. Smith had been requested to give the fellow members and exposition of her Bible Diagram and its key; and some account of her researches into Biblical History during the preparation of this work, – lately published.

   The Club was called to order by the President, and he According Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of January 14th. The President gave notice of a meeting of the Committee on Fiction. She also announced that at the Salon of the following Tuesday, the topic for consideration would be the poems of William Watson, the English writer, his name was often suggested, after the death of Alfred Tennyson – for the position of Poet Laureate – the place has since been accorded to another, Mr. Alfred Austin. Mrs. Turnbull also spoke of the advantages of

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studying contemporary authors: She next spoke of the Leap year edition of the "Baltimore American" to be published on the 29th of February, in the interest of the works of philanthropy, and under the charge of some young ladies of. She announced the wishes of the committee of young ladies who have undertaken the preparations of this paper with regard to the literary contributions requested to be given by this Club. She spoke of her own wish, shared by all her fellow members, of course, that the work given by the Woman's Literary Club may be of his highest possible order.

   The President that we would now have the pleasure of listening to Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith spoke of the impossibility of treating well so vast a subject as the Book of Books; and said she must speak chiefly of its literary aspect; though, even so limited, the theme could not be justly treated on one occasion. She gave an explanation of the Chart which she had made, begun at first for her Bible Class, and her own children. She pointed out its arrangement of lines and squares and comments, to classify and simplify Bible study. She spoke of the well-known divisions of the sixty-six books of the two Testaments, for the sake of convenience. She referred to the earliest books, those of Moses, who died more than thirty-three. She dwelt on his record of the Law of God, which had always existed, but which in his time

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was written on tablets of stone, the Commandments; which, as Dean Stanley said, “remain the firm unyielding basis on which all true spiritual religion has been built up and sustained.”

   Mrs. Smith spoke of the historical, prophetical and poetical books; and of their revert preservation by the chosen people “to whom were committed the Oracles of God.” She spoke of the Septuagint, and of its use in Palestine, in the time of our Lord himself, when the ancient Hebrew had already become a dead language, and the Scriptures in Greek were much multiplied, generally by copies made under the Roman Empire by slaves, who were often well-educated prisoners of war. She went on to speak of the early Christians who had seen their Lord, and heard his teachings, and who did not at first feel the same need for writing about him that was urgent in later times. She traced the history and development and chronology of the sacred writings and told of early manuscripts, translations, and quotations from the Fathers. She went over comprehensively the history of the English Bible, and of the three versions now most generally used and valued.— that of King James, the Douay Bible, and the late Revised Translation. She spoke of the comparative antiquity of the different books of the Bible, and of the means through which they have been brought down to us. Coming then to the Biblical criticism

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of our own day, Mrs. Smith spoke of the differences of opinion among those who are disposed to dim[illeg] our faith in our Bible. She then went on to speak of the confirmation it has received from recent researches and investigation; and also of the testimony to its truth given by the late explorations and excavations among the monuments and tombs of the most ancient civilized nations of the old world. Some questions were asked Mrs. Smith; which she answered giving interesting information; after which she was congratulated upon the entertaining and instructive address she had given us. 

   The meeting adjourned.

 

Salon 

The Salon for January 1896, was held on Tuesday, the 28th of the month, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets.

   The President announced that although the intention had been to discuss, on the afternoon, the writings of the English poet, William Watson, it had been thought better to read some of the poems [text illegible] on this occasion, and postpone the discussion of them for the present.

   Before the reading began, the President informed us that our fellow-member, Mrs Graham, who had been very ill at the time of our last

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Meeting— had written her a note telling of her great improvement in health, and of her appreciation of the sympathy expressed for her by the members of the Club.

   Miss Mary Grace was first called upon to read Watson’s “Hymn of the Sea,”—which she did with appreciative expression. This was followed by “The Glimpse,”—also read by Miss Grace.

   The Recording Secretary read “Lachrymae Muscarum,” — the poem on the death of Lord Tennyson.

   We then enjoyed hearing Mrs. Sidney Turner read “The Things that are More Excellent,” — also two Epigrams, the lines on Longfellow’s Death, and Liberty Rejected.

   We were then favored with the reading, by Mrs. Turnbull, of “The Father of the Forest,”—a poem bringing before us one more of “the brotherhood of verbal trees”; as seen and comprehended by a poet.

   Mrs. Hill then read also from William Watson “The Poet’s Call for Peace,”—protesting against the through of “war’s intolerable cure” for any trouble between the mother and daughter nations. She also read an answer to this poem,—from an American, the Rev. Lyman W. Allen, protesting against the importation of any love of war to us, who have but lately drained its bitter cup.

   The President then spoke of a movement going on to erect in Baltimore, a monument to Edgar Allan Poe, which cannot fail to awaken interest here, in the city where he lived

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At one time,—where he died, and with which he was connected by many ties.

   The Club adjourned, to pass the rest of the afternoon in the enjoyment of conversation, tea and coffee, and kindred refreshments.

 

154th Meeting.

February 4th, 1896. 

The 154th regular meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore was held on Tuesday, Feb. 4th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets. This meeting was under the direction of the Chairmen of the Committee on Fiction, Mrs. George Whitelock, and Miss Virginia Cloud.

   The President sent a note expressing her regret for her entire inability to be present on account of a very severe cold. The two Vice Presidents were unable to be present also.

   The meeting was called to order by the Treasurer, Mrs. J. Francis Damman, wo presided. The Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of January 21st and also those of the Salon of January 28th,—which were approved. 

   The presiding officer then read a notice sent by the President of a meeting to be held at the Johns Hopkins University on the following Monday, to take measures for the erection of a monument to the memory of the poet, Edgar Allan Poe. The members of the WOman’s Literary Club were invited to attend this meeting. The

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First article announced by the program was; “A Short Paper on Construction.” This was to have been read by Miss Cloud, but that lady having, as we afterwards learned, missed a train into town, the second article was called for. This was, “A Story from the East,” by Miss Jeanne Smith. It began with the picture of a vine-covered, country house porch, where two friends are sitting. To them comes a little bent old woman with piecing black eyes; who sits down upon the porch steps and tells her story—“the old old story” of wrong and deception. It was, hawse, an East Indian princess,— her father’s little pomegranate flower,— had seen by stealth, a beautiful fair American, who seemed a god in her eyes:—how she and her weight in gold were carried off in a great ship to other lands, having been married, after the fashion of her own country, to her hero, who loved her, in his cold, hard fashion, somewhat as a jewel or a bauble is loved,—till it grows wearisome to its wearer. And then, in a great city of the North, he left her. And now would her listeners take some eggs, at twenty cents a dozen,—for she would like to get some tea.

   The next article was given by Miss Cloud, and was on “The Elements of Dramatic Construction.” Miss Cloud spoke of the two necessary elements of character and incident in dramatic composition. First comes the character, the individual nature, represented by its ruling force,—the basis, from

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the dramatist’s point of view. Every human soul, she told us, has an altar of unconfessed faith, and each life is a book of Revelations. The deepest sense of beauty is felt, not thought, and finds expression in art. But we receive and hear from some one’s point of view. If the author himself tells the story, we do not care who is telling it,—we go along with him. But if it is presented by one of the characters—as the hero or heroine,—the telling must be in keeping with the teller. The keynote lies join the author’s critical power,—the power of self criticism,—the genius to share an adverte situation truly. True criticism is justice,—the truly sympathetic is the truly just,—nothing is allowed to pass between the scene and the eye that beholds it. The short story is a novel in miniature. The true sense of color must be shown at the right time and place. By play ought not to detract from the main features. Art can be evolved by a few strokes, a few words can strike true. Realism is a bird of flight,—not feathers. But above all other ideas to the true artist is, —the sacredness of creation,. The oldest is still the best definition of his power: “The Angel said unto one “Write!—and I wrote.”

   The next article of the program was by Mrs. Benjaman [?] Price, and was on “The Anecdote in Fiction.” Mrs. Price spoke of the consideration formerly given to the anecdote as a part of novel writing. She then spoke of having been, in 1859, visiting Springfield, Illinois; and, while there, taken by a friend to a “Soirée”; remarking 

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That what we now call the meeting of a literary Club, was then called a soirée. After the decorous literary exercises and entertainment were over, the host of that evening proposed, in a spirit of high fun, that the company should indulge in “a giant sneeze.” The signal “hish-hash-hosh,[“] being made, the sneeze was successfully given—with a will. She never saw her host again, but she still recalled vividly the appearance and manner of that tall figure in American History, Abraham Lincoln.

   Mrs. Price said her husband had reminded her of another incident relating to President Lincoln in conjunction with his own father. When Mr. William Price had been appointed District Attorney to succeed Mr. William Meade Addison,—the outgoing and incoming officers went together to Washington to see the President. Mrs. Price then reminded us that Mr. Addison, though an able lawyer and cultured gentleman, was the revers of handsome. Mr Lincoln, after a pleasant reception to both his guests, expressed great regret over losing Mr. Addison from official life;—finally giving as a reason that he, himself, was thereby left, certainly the ugliest official of the Federal Government.

   The next article of the program was by Mrs. George Dallas Dixon, and was called “A Domestic Infelicity.” Mrs. DIxon pictured Hirma Ford, and Patrience, his wife, sitting together with a deed of sale for their homestead lying between them, waiting for the wife’s signature,

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which the wife refuses to give to it. The husband is firm—and laconic,—the wife is patient, but firm also in her determination not to sell her early home and that of her parents. She is pathetic and affectionate,—talks of the apple tree her mother planted, of the days of their courtship and their early married life, and of their children. Finally Hiram announces that if she will not “sign,” he will never speak to her again. He keeps his word; no attention, no pleadings, can move him; and Patience is rue to her name. When years have passed away, she lies at last, in the best bed-room of her old home, at peace, with a spray of blossoms from the old apple tree in her hand. No one asks Hiram to go into the room, but when the burial service is over, and Patience is borne away, Hiram finds words to say: “After all, it is a good thing that she did not sign that paper, the old place is worth three times as much now as it was then.[”]

The next article of the programme was by Mrs. Charles W. Lord, and was called: “A Modern Saga.” Mrs. Lord spoke of a Maryland girl,--an inheritress and lover of the traditions of her native State, who married a stranger and foreigner,--a Norseman. He took her to his ancestral home in Norway, where she half expected to see old knights and Vikings,--and did see very charming people. She told them of America, of its homes and customs, and of the wonderful black servants, whose sayings and plantation songs were full of entertainment for those who had no experience of the existence of negroes. At first, she and her new kinsfolk

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had only the soul language of music in common, which seemed to be a second native tongue with all of them, but soon they could talk together. Mrs. Lord went on to tell that her heroine made discoveries of old relics and heirlooms and manuscripts and ancient Sagas. There last she learned to read and interpret; but she developed a tendency to talk the language found in the early literature;--which was as if a visitor to the country should in conversation bloom out into Chaucerian English. Before long, however, her Norwegian friends declared that she wad soun be as complete a mistress of their language as she already was of their hearts.

The last article of the programme was “A Short Story,” by Miss Cloud, called “Bethesda’s New Dress.” Our sympathies were excited for Bethesda, whose sense of beauty was keen and sensitive, and unsatistfied; whose red hair had been a source of depreciation from others, and of pain to herself; who as the elder and adjudged uglier of two sisters, and been made the working member of the family. But it had been revealed to Bethesda that auburn hair is loved by artists and that the weaving of blue garments might be able to give the harmonious magic touch she needed to bring beauty into her possession, and make it visible to others. But her efforts to acquire a new dress, and the woful mistake of trusting a man to choose it for her, bring a tragical end to her dress, and the falling of the curtain upon Bethesda. 

It was announced that the subject for next Tuesday, would be music. The meeting adjourned.

 

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155th Meeting.

February 11th, 1896. 

The 155th regular meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, February the 11th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets. This meeting was under the direction of Miss Zacharias, Chairman of the Committee on Music.

The President called the meeting to order, and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of February 4th.

The President announced that on the present occasion there would not be, as formerly--any instrumental illustrations of our subject; that we would present music now, in its spiritual & literary aspects. Perhaps at a meeting later in the year a more varied and animated programme may be given. She spoke of the interest taken by our Committee on Music in the progress and expansion of musical culture.

Miss Zacharias said it seemed appropriate just now to speak of the late Mr. Sutro; whose efforts to develop in this city the culture of music--were known to all of us. To him we owe the establishment of the Oratorio--in Baltimore--in spite of many difficulties; and his work in the musical advancement that has been made of late years in our city. Miss Zacharias spoke of the tributes paid to Ms. Sutro since his death. 

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the President then spoke of the late Sir Joseph Barnewell of England; who was, she said-- a full fledged musician at nineteen years of age; who early became the Director of Music at Eton College; and afterwards held other positions of high rank in the musical world; and who was known as the composer chiefly of sacred music.

    The first article of the programme was by Miss Florence Trail, a non resident member of the Club; and in her absence it was read by Mrs. Dammann. It was called: “Music in a Psychological Light.” Miss Trail spoke of Musica as comprehended psychologically. She dwelt upon it as a science,--as an art, and as an educational power; as it appeals also to the sense, to the taste or to the intellect. The sense of rhythm is common to the human race,--it may be as natural to dance as to walk. But both as a science and as an art, Music has a work to do; to stimulate the love of beauty, and to inspire brave souls. Poets have paid high tributes to music; from the cultivated Greeks with their Orpheus, charming the spirits in Hades; to Dante’s respect for an humble Florentine musician; to Milton, whom no one has excelled in the laudation of music--down to the bards of our own time. Miss Trail said that no one disputed the aesthetic value of music; but the moral value has been called in question. But to do good it must rest on a moral basis, must address itself to the

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spiritual part of man, must help him to enjoy the best part of his nature. As a fine ar, Miss Trail spoke of music as above all other arts, it is the expression of limitless desires. No other art could; having so little to work with as the seven notes, lay hold upon infinity. It is the only art that penetrates the lives of the lowly; it can ameliorate the sorrows of the human race;--it is the worthy expression of religion.

    The next article of the programme was by Miss Mary Grace, and was called: “Music from the Intellectual Side.” Miss Grace dwelt upon the well known question: “How far is the Influence of Music Intellectual?--or Otherwise?” She quoted the saying of Lowell that “Music is one of God’s great charities.” Also the suggestion of D’Israel--that “But for Music, one might almost say, the Beautiful is dead.” She spoke of the Art of a nation as expressing the rank of the intellectual culture of that nation. 

She spoke of the art of a nation as expressing the rank of the intellectual culture of that nation. She went back to the eighteenth century, and to the mental discontent – which at last broke forth into the French Revolution, – and referred to the outlet found then by some spirits and music. She dwelt on the rhythm of poetry, and on that of prose. She spoke of nature as the music of God, – not in one thing but as the embodiment of all things. She quoted from Leonardo da Vinci; and from Story, the poet and artist, and spoke of music as a universal language, speaking directly to each human soul;

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also of the orchestra, as a happy family, each speaking for himself, and all harmoniously together. As relating to the literature of music, Miss Grace appropriately read Longfellow's poem of "The Arrow And the Song."

   The last article of the programme was by Miss Zacharias; and was on "The Composite Art – Form Of Richard Wagner." Miss Zacharias spoke of classic music; and of the time from 1790 – two 1875, – when the climax of creative genius seemed to have been reached; of the works of Beethoven – Handel – Gluck and Mozart. Of the great French and Italian Operas; of the foundation and developments of Haydn and Mozart of the modern orchestra. She spoke of Richard Wagner as being of the nineteenth century – having been born in 1813. His emblem she said, was the petrol, which lives in the storm. She told of his early home life; – also of the awakening of his enthusiasm for music. She told of his development of the opera into the musical drama; of his striving for a drama in which all the arts should be yoked together. Miss Zacharias spoke of the French, German, and Italian view s of musical art, and of its dramatical expression. She described and explained the aims and life-work of Richard Wagner, and the measure of success to which he attained. She spoke of the appeal

[loose note paper inserted here between leaves of notebook]

 

Feb. 11th 1896—

Under direction of Miss Zacharias, chairman of Committee on music.

“Pres. announced that on the present occasion there would not be as formerly any ? Mental illustration of our subject; that we would present music now, in its spiritual & literary aspects”

It may be of interest to speak of the manner in which Miss Zacharias, as Chairman, conducted this meeting on music, without music—

A few [illeg] by the President;

Miss Z. Speaks of the late Prof Sutro

Notices of distinguished musicians were read—

First article by Miss Florence Trail, “Music in a psychological light;

Miss Mary F. Grace 

(From notes; p. 228, [illeg].)

“The Composite art—Form of Richard Wagner”: Miss Zacharias

p. 229+30 good notes

Questions from disc prog & [illeg]

 

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made by his dramas to the eyes as well as to the ears—to the whole intelligence. She referred to the question that has been asked: “Whether the dramatic part dominates over the music, or the music over the characters of the drama?” After all, she said, he stands as one of the world’s heroes; his works should be judged by his own theories; he was a poet as well as a musician; and he harnessed the steeds of all the arts to his triumphal car, and drove them all successfully.

   The President proposed that questions and comments should now follow on the articles that had been read. Some questions were asked Miss Zacharias, which she answered briefly; and comment followed by Miss Grace, Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Pennington and the President. 

   The meeting adjourned.

 

156 Meeting.

February 18th, 1896. 

The 156th meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, February 18th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin & Cathedral streets. This meeting was under the direction of Mrs. Charles W. Lord, Chairman of the Committee on Essays. The President called the meeting to order; and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of February 11th. The President

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announced that Mrs. Graham of Mt. Washington had been ill, was now very much better; and that she had sent the greeting to her fellow members this afternoon. She had also sent to the Club a photograph of a picture painted by her brother, Mrs. C. Y. Turner, the eminent artist. The President also called attention to the beautiful photographs exhibited on the platform, in illustration of the article to be given by Mrs. Woolsey Johnson. They had been taken and developed by Mrs. Johnson herself from the scenes she visited in Holland. A fine series of views illustrating the article of Mrs. Turner in Norway, was also exhibited on the platform.

The first article of the program was by Mrs. John M. Miller, and was called “Women in Music.” Mrs. Miller spoke of the success of women in the departments of art; and of the fact that they have shown very little creative power in music, so far. No women stands forth in music like Rosa Bonheur in painting, or like Mrs. Browning in poetry,—or George Eliot in fiction. The question has been asked: “Why is this?” Some answers have been given, as: That music appeals to the emotions chiefly, and that women are themselves so emotional that they cannot translate their keenest and deepest susceptibilities into the expression of art;—it would seem a cold blooded thing to most of them:— That women are more constantly occupied with domestic duties than men are, and very few of them can give 

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the amount of time and attention necessary to the deep mathematical study indispensable to the successful composer;—They are less able by nature to endure the discouragement, toil and apparent defeat which has generally been encountered at the outset, and often far on the joinery by even the great musical composers. After all, she reminded us, woman stands pre-eminent in two points of view in her relation to music.—as its inspirer, and its interpreter. Mrs. Miller took up the lives of eleven great musicians, and showed the inspiration and strong support each had received from one woman, and often more than one,—generally from wife, mother, sister, or the one beloved. She spoke of Fanny Mendelsohn, of Clara Schumann, and of others who could inspire and interpret,—and to some extent, create music also. Coming down to our own time, she spoke of women who have done good work of their own in music, and who give fine promise for the future. Among these she spoke of one still young and living in our midst, Mrs. Asger Hamerik, for whom she augured enduring fame.  

   The President said that it was interesting to know that this tribute to Mrs. Hamerik was written without the knowledge of the expected presence of that lady with us on this occasion. She would request Mrs. Hamerik to give us a list of her musical works in her own hand-writing, with her autograph, which would be highly prized by the Club.

   The next article of the program was

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by Mrs. Sidney Turner, and was called: “Two weeks of Revelation in Norway.” Mrs. Turner spoke of those who visit the land of the North, to dip their pitchers into the wondrous well of mystery and infinite majesty. She spoke of leaving Christiania and engaging a driver who could speak English. Also of meeting a gentleman who asked her what she wished to go on the mountain journey for? It would be to see only rocks and trees and water. She thought that man might say of heaven that there were only God and the angels there. But Norway is a book of Revelations to those who can read it. She told of the ascent of the mountains to the snow lines, of the solemn trees, the wonderful waterfalls, rocks and precipices;— of falling asleep in the cradle of the heights tired with the beauty and the grandeur aoround her. She told of the pleasant people and their little houses and their dress, and of a real Norwegian wedding. She described the good honest fare and the good roads;—the hotels, the telegraph, and even modern plumbing high up on the mountain sides. She told of meeting an Englishman, not a typical, but a still possible Englishman, who asked her if it was not very dreary traveling in her own country?—as there were so few settlements there.” She told him that a few more settlements were being made between New York and San Francisco, and we were beginning to feel encouraged. Mrs. Turner spoke of an old twelfth 

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Century Church, and of the services held in it, and of the emblems sacred in the twelfth, as in the nineteenth century. She went on to speak of those heights where one has a fellow feeling with the birds, where one cannot speak,—and does not wish to do so. She had seen Yosemite, Oregon, and Colorado; but thought all of them must be grouped together to make Norway. In waterfalls thousands of feet high, mountains seeming heaven high, one feels as if an excuse were needed for intending into their secrets. We are conscious here, she said, of the presence of God; in one sense we lose sight of His tenderness, and think of the eternal self-existent Jehovah, who created the heavens and the earth. She was glad in this finite land to have dipped her pitcher into the wondrous well of mystery,—with her eyes toward the infinite majesty.

   The President announced that Miss Mary Evans [May Garrettson Evans] had invited the Club to the Concert of the Peabody Graduate School of Music. Members were requested to receive the tickets from the Recording Secretary. The President being obliged to leave the meeting, requested our Ex-President, Miss Brent, to take the chair. 

   The last article of the program was by Mrs. William Woolsey Johnson, and was called: “A Trip through Firesland and North Holland.” Mrs. Johnson spoke of going from Cologne to Holland, and of her first impression of that country. She said that in Dutch words she

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was confused by seeing the letters if as a termination, till she found that the two letters were only equal to our y. But the Dutch w-a-i-j of doing this was very strange to an American. She spoke of the Dutch Churches with their chimes, – the carillons like huge music boxes and the short and long tunes played on them, a bewildering number of tunes every day. She described the journey along the Zuyder Zee, her landing and setting up her camera to take the picture which she afterwards developed with the result before us. A curious crowd gathered, and she found young Holland to be much less respectful than she had ever known young America to be. The address of the woman seemed designed to conceal all beauty, all resemblance to the human form. She gave a description of the strange gold helmets they wear, and of the variations in them by which the women of different provinces can be distinguished; also the cap of lace over the helmet; with sometimes and up-to-date bonnet in addition to these. But there are sweet faced ladies in gold helmets sometimes.

There are the windmills, of course, but sometimes the railways seem to be the only solid names. The people and the cattle seem to be amphibious; the roads have ditches beside them; nowhere else in the world seems everything so flat, the sense of flatness goes to the heart. Further on she described beautiful

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well-built – once rich and prosperous cities; now seemingly silent and asleep. She told of the houses with carved doorways; and the steep stairways, apparently modeled after the companion-ways of sailing boats. The sidewalks along to the householders, and are sometimes fenced in from the use of pedestrians, – a piece of rampant individualism. She spoke of going to a cheese house, where the number and odor of cheeses made her wonder that the mice of Hamelin did not run to such a mouse heaven, when the Pied Piper put them to flight.   

   In one place was the Bible Hotel, upon which the sign represented the Good Book, open at the chapter and verse that commends "the taking of a little wine for the stomach's sake." Mrs. Johnson spoke of the city of Delft, and its manufactures, of its water gate and towers, of its old Church, and its new Church, – which would be a very old one among us, – with its monument to William the Silent and its memories of his assassination. She told of the old museums, interesting in all ways, but particularly so from their preservation of the useful things of other days, and the local color of there antiquities she gave some particulars regarding the rarities in the museums of Holland, – which whole country, it has been said, may be considered itself a curiosity.

    Miss Brent now invited the members of the Club to examine the pictures on the

 

[2 PAGES MISSING FROM SCAN OF NOTEBOOK]

 

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Second: "Is Leisure or Pressure the more valuable Factor in the production of Culture?" The Club voted to discuss the second of these propositions.

    The President explained that by "pressure" we do not mean “haste." She asked for the opinion of several of the members – – – Mrs. Lord said that pressure does assist achievement, but she was not so sure of its effect on culture – Miss Grace made the suggestion that pressure may focus the diverging rays of culture. – Mrs. Morris said that leisure is absolutely necessary to culture. – Pressure may drive us to the wall, and force us into action; but culture is so vast a thing, that it may need leisure first and pressure afterwards. It was suggested that one may be afflicted with a congestion of ideas; may read all his life, – taking in and never giving out.

    Mrs. Dammann reminded us that quote all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy;" and that leisure is necessary to refinement and to culture. Intellectual work is done under pressure but through leisure we may broaden out what others have done – Mrs. Lord spoke of a man of immense culture; who was not a great man because he was a man of leisure; he did not apply himself to produce anything nor to benefit others – Miss Grace too spoke of a great lawyer – so far as giving opinions was concerned – who, by pressure might have been made a great man.

    The President called on Mrs. Latimer

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for an opinion. Mrs. Latimer said she was hardly prepared to give one; she supposed that on the whole, we need the whip and spur, – her own work had been done under pressure. Still, she would give us an old Turkish proverb. "Leisure is of God; haste and hurry is of the devil; it is better not to go to morning prayers, than to go in a hurry."

    The President spoke of the dividing line between different kinds of culture, – artistic – scientific, or literary culture – Mrs. Dammann said Nature teaches us that land must sometimes lie fallow, in order that it may resume production. – The President said times of lying fallow were not necessarily those of idleness – Mrs.Dammann said that leisure, to bright minds – does not mean idleness. Mrs. Lord spoke of Coleridge’s declining the opportunity for business advantages, that he might have leisure for literary work, – which was only an excuse for idleness.

    Miss Grace spoke of a suggestion – by Mrs. Stirling that even fruitful Nature is idle sometimes, – as at the present season – Miss Cloud said that leisure produces the highest culture, but that pressure gives the greatest results from individuals. – Mrs. Latimer reminded us of the tendency to high pressure in our own times. Mrs. Latimer also told us that in reviewing the life of Margaret Fuller, she had found in it, a description of Miss Fuller's asking

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from each one of her literary class in answer to the question: "What is Life?" They were right people, but Mrs. Latimer confessed that she found their answers to that question perfectly incomprehensible. But, walking in the street, she met Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, and immediately asked her, – "Julia what is Life?" The answer came instantly. "Life is onedeminition[?] grind.” Apparently the classic Mantalini alone could furnish the expression she needed.

    The President suggested that Mrs. Howe’s answer was according to her mood—Mrs. Lord said that this was no doubt the result of pressure.

    After the discussion, Miss Grace showed to the Club a present she had just received,—a photograph, or shadow-graph, or image, found by the newly discovered “Roentgen Rays,” and taken at the Johns Hopkins University. This was highly appreciated by her fellow members. The rest of the afternoon was passed in social enjoyment and refreshment.

 

157th Meeting.

March 3rd, 1896. 

The 157th meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, took place on Tuesday, March 3rd, 1896 at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets. This meeting was under the direction of Miss Lizette Woodworth Reese, Chairman of the 

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Committee on Poetry. The President called the meeting to order, and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the Salon of February 28th, which were adopted.

    The first article of the program was “A Study of the Poems of William Watson,” by Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull. Mrs. Turnbull spoke of the true poet, of the high spiritual power of his gift of song, of his full utterance of each new revelation, and of his mission to make all life around him broader and richer and nobler “for the reading of his written words. She recalled to us Mrs. Browning’s words on “the two fold vision given to poets, the two-fold life” and the beauty and hope and love sung by them. She went on to speak of the poet William Watson, who was at one time thought likely to be chosen as the successor of Lord Tennyson in the laureateship,— the office which has since fallen to one who may have seemed scarcely so worthy. But William Watson has written poems that bring us into close touch with his spirit. And, though the pathos of a great sorrow rests over him, he is not morbid as might have been feared. His merits are great and his faults few. Mrs. Turnbull read some of Watson’s poems, which certainly seemed to justify the high standing she accorded him. She spoke of his patriotic poems, his epigrams and of his wonderful Dream of Man. After reading part of his “Hymn to the Sea,” she reminded us of Sidney Lanier’s Marshes of Glynne, and drew a parallel between the poet of the marshes, and the poet of the sea, especially

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with regard to the spiritual recognition by both of them of Nature as the revelation of the presence and the goodness of God. While there are so many writers of our own day who aspire to poetic fame, we can thank our President for giving us the pleasure of a better acquaintance, than most uf us can yet have attained, with this poet of “the things that are more excellent.”

    The next article of the program was a poem by Miss Cloud,—read by Mrs. Morris. It was called “Ishmael, a Character Study” and was on “the son of the bond woman[,]” alone among the sons of men.” With the face of his mother, Hagar, the despised—constantly before him, and her cry to God in the wilderness always in his hearing.

    The next article was by Miss Duvall, and read by Mrs. Dammann. It was on Milton’s Comus. Miss Duvall spoke of the power of genius to create, or to recognize its opportunities. She described this poem, the masque of Comus, with its three human characters,—having the favorite figure there of that day, and later days. She told of its origin or suggestion, and of its representation. She spoke of the character of those masques which noble and royal personages enjoyed, and even performed, sometimes. She reviewed the masques and plays of Ben Jonson, and those of Beumont and Fletcher. She spoke of Milton himself, and quoted his words that “he who would write well in

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laudible [laudable] things must himself be a true poem.” She considered him—though he lived in a stormy and controversial age—the poem of which he spoke. She described his noble uprightness, and said that like the pure Sir Galahad, he had the vision of unerthly things. She compared Milton’s power and charm with that of Shakespeare. Miss Duvall gave a full and appreciative review of the poem of Comus,—of which she said that those who loved it generally knew it by heart.

    The last article of the program was a poem by Miss Reese, and was called, “To a Town Poet.” She spoke of the beauty and strength and love that lives everywhere in the sight and the mind of the true poet.

    The programme being ended, the meeting adjourned.

158th Meeting.
March 10th, 1896. 

The 158th regular meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, March 10th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin & Cathedral Sts. The President called the meeting to order, and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of March 3rd, which were adopted. 

The first article of the programme was by Miss Malloy, and was called “Some [Leuille?] Types.” Miss Malloy referred to some types which any

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theatre goer, or frequenter of the opera, finds constantly recurring on the stage, and which nothing can [?]. She reminded us that Longfellow’s Spanish Student says of [P..?] “the angels sang in heaven when the [three words I can’t read?]”, and Shakespere’s [B...?] says: “When there was a star that we go to see now who never put life into their parts; however they may study to sparkle, we do not discuss it, through the best opera glasses, -not through the singing stars-like pirates of the high seas pierce our [?] with vocal [still..?]. Mention was made of the [so..?] also a type that seems to set time at defiance,- she seldom dies, and never resigns. Conjectures were suggested as to the star factory, whence the raw material comes out well cooked- but not well done, though the critics and the public may [?] it subsequently. We were reminded of the [c..?] opera, which may lead up to open our eyes as to how the other half of the world lives. It reveals no plot, no significance, no [?] for being- [??] have it. And then the man who comes in late, fall of joker, with the typical song, we has hoped to see them buried with him, in [un..?] repose. And the soliloquist, who detach his reminiscences, and reveals aloud his plots, always just where he can be heard by the person most interested to defeat them. However true to life he may be, we would suppress him, [?] the [?] pistols, and the stalling 

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in the [?] [too light to read through lines 1-10] Though he has been so long in the [?] that her must know that [innreince?] will triumph, that his efforts are boomerangs-and must recoil, he keeps up his character bravely, and saves many a venture that would fail without him. This takes talents, which ought not to pass away without a sign or a tear “Alas poor villain.” This article of Miss Malloy was in her absence very appreciatively read for her by Mrs. Dammann. 

The next article of the programme was by Miss Zacharias, and was called: “The Little People of Willow Brook.” It was a children’s story, -a story of some children who made a friends and companion of a grown lady-their fellow boarder in the country-admitted her into their charmed circle, to share their little pleasures, hopes and fears, their summer plays, their summer days of large, light-hearted happiness.

The third article of the programme was by Miss May Evans, and was called “Sweet Bells

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Jangled, Out of Time.” Miss Evans said she wished to give a few thoughts on musical culture, not at all in reference to teaching music, nor to us public performance. She quotes some eloquent-words from Cardinal Newman on music “the notes that seem to have escaped from some higher sphere, as if the vices of angels had come down to mortal man.” Miss Evans spoke of the influence of music in the home; she thought it should begin even for babyhood; -not music lessons, but as we choose the literature for our home, we should guard the music also, -as we keep out bad books, we should keep out all that can injure the taste for good music. We should be ready for the culture of genius, -if genius shall appear, -or even for special gifts, or musical temperament. A musician of note once said he would like to have sympathy concerts pervaded for babies in long clothes. At least little children should hear good music, from the cradle song itself onward, and should not be [?] be discouraged from “picking out” tunes for [?] on the piano. The Sunday School songs can be good music too. She spoke of the experience of a Baltimore organist who once found an Easter anthem to be an undignified medley of tunes, -some perhaps good ones sufficing to give the “little tots,” who were to sing it, a [tr.. a..?]. She spoke of the application of a soloist who said “My voice is soprano and non-sectarian.” Miss Evans described her 

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interview with a woman to wished to sell her a Chart price on dollar, asserting that by its use-after one hours instruction from herself, its [m…?], a pupil who could play one price of music, could also play a million, would in fact know everything about music. To the suggestion that Bach and Beethoven spent some time and [?] to acquire their proficiency in music, the answer was, “My chart beats them all to pieces.” It proved to be a very simple explanation of the key board, which a child’s instruction book could [finnish]. After some further exhibition of ignorance, and a refusal to play even one piece of the million made possible by acquaintance with the chart, the chartist retreated with the parting shot, that her masterpiece has been bought by the best people in Baltimore, “-people with large double parlors, and pianos in their back parlor too,” as a conclusive proof of its value.

The next article of the programme was by Lizette w. Reese, and was called “A Remembered Birthday.” It told of the mother of a dead son, who remembered, and after her own fashion kept holy the birthday of the woman whom that son had loved, after others had ceased to remember that the middle aged single woman could have a birthday to be kept. And the woman with the widowed heart which had really been given to another dead lover, silently wondered if-among the mysteries of life, it

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could be wrong to let the mother’s love deceive itself and take comfort in delusion. 

The last article of the programme was of our member in Europe, Mrs. R.K. Cautley, and was read for her by Miss Reese. It was called: “For New Poets.” Mrs. Cautley wrote first of Johanna Ambrosius, a peasant girl of Easy Prussia, who was educated in the German public schools, but had access to the best German literature. She was married to a young man, a peasant like herself, she has two children, but in spite of household cares and bad health, her poems by their brave spirit and sympathy with and true love of Nature, have made her a favorite with the German reading public. Her poems are not easily turned into English, but Mrs. Cautley gave us two translations, those of the poems, “Good Luck,” and “My Last-Song,” which were striking, even in a language not their own. 

The second poet of Mrs. Cautley’s article was Ada Negri, a native of Lombardy, whose mother was a factory girl and whose father did not acknowledge her. The mother worked and hoarded her earnings to save the daughter from her own laborious life, low position and want of education, and she succeeded. Ada Negri’s poems were at first taken up by the rank and life of reading people, but soon commissioned officers of literature recognized and admired her. Her gratitude to her mother was great; and now that she has a position as Superintendent of schools in Milan, 

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she has her mother living with her. We were told of her great and singular excitement on first seeing the acting of Elenora Duse. She has been called a socialist; but is only so in the sense in which she has a great deal of company-the belief in all defences [defenses] for the weak against aggressions by the strong. Translations from her verses were given to us closing with a poem called “Light” full of the “glory of living.” The meeting adjourned. 

 

159th Meeting. 
March 17th 1896.

The 159th meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, March 17th, 1896. This meeting was under the direction of Miss Mary Grace, Chairman of the Committee on Translation. 

The President called the meeting to order, and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of March 10th. The President announced the gifts to the Club-but the author of the last volume of Mrs. Latimer’s book “Europe in Africa in the Nineteenth Century.” She spoke of our pleasure also in having Mrs. Latimer on our programme this afternoon. 

The first article on the programme was given by Miss Grace, and was a repetition by special request of an article given to, and much enjoyed by the Club in November 1893. A report of this 

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article having been given in the minutes of the meeting of November 14th, 1893, a full notice may now be [mitted?] in the permanent record of the Club book. Miss Grace’s article took a wide range on a subject about which she was able to tell us much of interest and value.  

The next article of the programme was “The Leaf,”-a poem translated by Mrs. T.J. Morris, from the French of A.J. Arnault. The translation preserved the suggestive charm of the original. 

The next article was a translation, also by Mrs. Morris, of a story by Daudet-not Alphonse, but his brother-called: “A Good Friday, under the Reign of Terror.” It pictured the Good Friday of 1794, the year three of the Republic, one and indivisible. It told of Fonquier Tinville, the public accuser; and of his accusation, which implied executions, like cause and effect; and of his victims, whose fate still appeals to the heart of all humanity. And then, when it seemed that only the prisoner or the condemned could dare, to pray, or show remembrance of what the day ought to commemorate, a few Christians were brought before us, who had met secretly at the celebration of the Mass, and to pray for themselves and their dead. There too comes the pretended worshipper and real spy and denouncer; who meets his fate; and, being found dead, is eulogized in the next day’s report, as a good patriot, with no pity for traitors, -some one of whom was supposed to have killed him. Surely now in the

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year of our Republic one hundred and twenty, we, who are very near to another Good Friday, know how to be thankful that we live in the year of our Lord-1896. 

The next article of the programme being by Mrs. Randolph Latimer; that lady took occasion to say that she agrees with Miss Grace in her views of Translations. She herself has been for long years engaged in translating; she has tried to preserve the style and measure of the originals, without taking undue liberties, or being mechanically literal. Mrs. Latimer than told us of one of her first experiences with translations. She was in Boston for the winter of 1841 and 1842, when Mr. Prescott, the historian, who was then writing his book, “The Conquest of Mexico,” asked her to put into English verse an original-or rather aboriginal-Mexican poem, by the grandfather of the last Montezuma. He had himself turned it into Spanish, and even in English prose; and he had carried it to Longfellow, who refused to have anything to do with it in account of the jaw-cracking names it contained. Mrs. Latimer said that-on the principle that “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” she understood the poem, turning it from literal English into “horribly smooth” English verse; and her work upon it appeared in Mr. Prescott’s book. She read to us the poem, and we could perceive that it was a poem-notwithstanding the almost unpronounceable peoples names to which Mr. Longfellow had objected.  

The next article of the programme was “A Balled

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by [Ketor?] Hugo,” translated from the original French, by Mrs. Latimer. She spoke of the musical quality of the original verse, and gave us one or two stanzas in French; and then read her own translation, which preserved the sad music of the poems. The lover relates his disappointment with the mournful refrain: “The Wind that blows across yon mountains top-Will drive me mad.”

The next article of the programme was on “Some of the late German Legends and Lyrics,” translated by Miss Katherine Spear. Miss Spear gave us five short poems; -“The Heart,” by Neuman, “By the Strand,” by Gottschall; “Peace,” by Bodenstedt, “What is Love?,” by [Ritechans?]; and an “Evening Song,” by Gottfried Keller. We had before enjoyed Miss Spear’s very successful translations of German poems. She also gave us two Legends of Gottfried Keller; translated by herself. The first was: “The Virgin and the Devil.” It tells of a rich and bountiful knight, who does not appreciate his lovely wife; -who wastes his substance; and is tempted and won by the devil. But the prayer of the pious wife, and the help of the kind blessed Virgin-mother, baffle all evil schemes and their promoters; and in the end, the Knight’s widow receives a husband worthy of her. 

The second of Miss Spear’s legends was called: “Dorothea’s Basket of Roses.” It is a tale of the early Christians, under the Romans rule, of a maiden martyr, who promises to send, and does send from Paradise, a basket of roses and

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fruits of celestial beauty to her unbelieving lover, who, now won to her faith, gives up for it his life, -as she has given hers. 

The programme being finished, the President said that, as it was still early, she would ask Mrs. Latimer to read to us from the book she had presented to the Club. Mrs. Latimer reminded us that this was Saint Patrick’s Day; and said that she would read to us her “Balled of Saint Patrick.” It told of that one of the Seven Champions of Christendom, Patricius, whose very name proclaimed his high decent; of his knightly pride and valor; -of his self renunciation; and if the glory of his saintly conquests. It ended with the wish that he might now stand in the land of Erin, and give to all its problems, “the Gospel’s own solution.”

After the announcement of the subject of discussion on the following Tuesday, the meeting adjourned.

 

160th meeting. 

The 160th meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, March 24th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Sts. This meeting was under the direction of the Committee on Education. The President called the meeting to order and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of March 14th. 

The President announced the subject for discussion

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on the following Tuesday as: Whether the present system of education in the public schools is calculated to produce expert artisans? Some questions and explanations on this topic followed; -also comments on skilled labor; by Mrs. Hill, Miss Haughton and the President. 

The President announced the gift to the Club of Miss Mary Davis, of a book which had once belonged to her grandmother. It is called “The Power of Sympathy,” and is said to be the first novel ever Latimer, who had read it with curious interest, and contrasted it with the realistic works of fiction of our own day. 

The first article of the programme was by Miss Lizette Reese; and was called, “How Not to Teach Literature.” In Miss Reese’s absence it was read by Miss Haughton. Miss Reese spoke of the books given to children in the present day; and of the far fewer books read and loved by them in days gone by. Old fashioned children, she said, read such books as the “Pilgrim’s Progress,[“] and beloved in them. She knew one child who took a real path through a wood to be the veritable straight and narrow way shown to Christian at the “Wicket Gate,[“] as the road he must travel. Miss Reese told of having been made to parse Paradise Lost; in the days when we were accustomed to have masterpieces of literature parsed away from us. Grammar is strictly literal; in life we use figures, and literature possesses mysteries. Anderson’s Fairy Tales, so charming to

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children are real literature too. She spoke of having once tested some children by writing on the black-board a poem of Sir Henry Wotton’s, and of her being surprised by their liking for and appreciation of it. Perhaps they should have fewer books than they do now, but those they do have of the best. The music and meter of poetry strikes and pleases the children. Let them have poetry,- it is the best means of literary culture for them,- even if it strikes alone their heads, as far above, as a star is above a tree. They may miss the meaning at first, but they will remember the words when they possess the key to them, and will find consolation and inspiration in them.

The next article of the programme was by Miss Mable J. Robinson, and was on “Methods in Teaching Geography.” Miss Robinson spoke of the importance of giving children just and right ideas of the earth on which they live. She spoke of giving ideas of place, at the outset, them of the points of the compass, of land and water, then of the introduction of the moulding board with sand and clay. She dwelt on the necessity to combine botanical, zoological and historical knowledge with geography; and to deepen and broaden the lessons of the text-books. She said, of course experience by travel is the ideal method pf learning geography; but this is not generally attainable. She criticized the definitions of most geographers, and the repetition of the by the pupil, who should be led to grasp the real

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meaning of the lesson, and tell or write it in his own words. He should be encouraged to bring in natural specimens, or good pictures. She spoke also of outline maps, to which specimens could be glued or sewed. The best books of travel should be recommended for the child’s reading, as well as magazines and stories. Miss Robinson spoke of some books, especially of “The Seven Little Sisters,” saying that they had proved their sisterhood. Note books she said, should be kept, for things good to know, but not important enough for a place in the memory. And that we must remember that we are not to teach geography and arithmetic, but to teach children; to prepare them for their duties in life,- that we have some of the most important work of the world to do.

The next article of the programme was by Miss Alice Twight, and was on: “Boy’s Education in France.” Miss Twight spoke of the effect of the French Revolution; -to abolish many privileges, and to establish a greater equality than ever comprehended before among French citizens. It was declared that education was the great leveller [leveler]; and that the duty of the state was: to establish the means of education for everyone who needed it. Guizot, the minister of Louis Phillippe, announced the principle that those who were well off, and could keep their son at school until the age of eighteen should pay for doing so; that the state might have more money to keep a large population of poor children at school until the age of thirteen years. The free school of course does not give so 

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high an education as the paid school does; but the rates that are paid are moderate. In the free schools there is also manual training; and provision is made to fit the boy to earn his own living. Pupils are generally more advanced in France, than those of the same age in America. In the paid schools the boys sometimes begin Latin at six years of age. In the free schools there is no Latin, nor foreign languages, but if the boy wishes to on after thirteen, and is capable of doing so, there is a system of scholarships, of which he can take advantage, for the colleges and lyceums. There are in the order of merit, and for particular ability. The universities do not include under-graduates, and do not confer bachelor degrees, -these latter must be taken before coming to them. Of course the boys who can pay for their education are supposed to have the advantage of home culture and the influence of hereditary culture also. 

Miss Twight also spoke of the military laws, and their great influence on education in France. Formerly every Frenchman was required to serve in the army five years. Now the term is three years; and by a flaw-in force for about six years past- a student can, after one year’s service, go back to complete his university course; and then, if he can pass his examination, he does not have to lose the other two years out of his life. But if he fails in his examination, he must go back for two more years in the army. There is a 

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rush for the examination; the effect is to raise the standard, and it is not unusual for a student to break down under it. French students have much less amusement and recreation than American ones have, and enjoy nothing of the Club life of college boys in the country. But of late, athletic clubs have been introduced among them with success, though even these are not [not is crossed out] under the supervision of teachers and parents. Miss Twight spoke of the restrictions of French children, which may seem strange to Americans. But we judge each others points of view in a friendly spirit. She had found some American children perfectly charming: she could leave us to find out the charm of French children. 

Then followed the Discussion by the Club of the topic proposed by Mrs. Hill. “How is best promoted the Interests of boys and girls together in home amusement?” Mrs. Hill introduced the subject, and spoke of the tendency of boys and girls- as well as of men and women- to go apart; and she suggested that it would be for the benefit of both sides to have more interests in common. Mrs. Early spoke of keeping brothers and sisters together by means of the love of music, and its use, which will make a great bond of attraction. She spoke also of charades and of private theatricals; in which old pictures and old costumes from garrets and closets come into play; and which children and parents-and even grandparents- can enjoy together. Mrs. Early spoke of the interest in riddler taken by young children, especially by boys. Mrs. Rinehart

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spoke of the constructive faculty; the pleasure of making things-and helping each other in the work-in making home happy. She told of a printing press brought in for the boys, and adopted with equal enthusiasm by the girls to the pleasure and benefit of all her family. Mrs. Early spoke of dancing-which she thought better than cares or tennis, as causing less emulation. Mrs. Turnbull told of the boy and girl who built a stone house and little stone church, making the plans and choosing to cut the stone themselves, refusing help from coachman or gardener, and succeeding in their work beyond all expectations. She told also of a magazine issued by her children, which in the fear of lapses from regularity was called “The Occasional Magazine.” –afterwards altered to the [“]Semi-Occasional Magazine.”

Mrs. Uhler spoke of cultivating the early tastes and tendencies of children, as useful to them, even if they do not always seem to carry them on professionally in after life. Mrs. Turnbull spoke of two boys who began early to make museums of natural objects, encouraged by their mother; and who continued the same work in manhood also, -with success and fame. 

After the discussion, the notice for the next meeting being repeated, the President reminded us that it would fall on the last Tuesday in the month, which is ordinarily our Salon day; but as it will now fall in Holy Week, it had been though advisable 

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to have our next Salon on the following Tuesday; when we could, of course count upon our usual attendance, and the enjoyment of the occasion by a majority of our members. 

The meeting adjourned. 

 

161st Meeting. 
March 31st, 1896.

The 161st regular meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, March 31st, 1896, at the corner of Cathedral and Franklin Sts. 

The President called the meeting to order; and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of March 24th. 

No programme was presented on this occasion; the meeting as had been announced was devoted to the “Discussion” of the question “Whether the present system of education in the public schools is calculated to produce expert artisans?[“] Miss Haughton read a short article introducing the subject for discussion. She spoke of this question in its relation to the great labor problems of the day. She ased if out houses have not smoking chimneys, and other faults of construction-and if some of them are not sometimes burned down from defective fluer? Are not the materials of our clothes largely made in Europe? She raise the question: Why

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have we not expert artisans, skilled laborers, to make excellent work the rule for all things necessary to our life and comfort? The answer was: “That boys desire to become gentlemen-what they take that term to mean; and girls seek to enter the over crowded ranks of the type- [uniters?], stenographers and sales-ladies”-to have their earning to themselves, and with the hope of eventually marrying rich men: -when they could only command comfort and profit as good domestic servants. And the effect is felt in the domestic service of our homes, where skilled labor is apt to be deficient. Miss Haughton told us of a genuine old colored “mammy,” who had taken care of about forty babies in her day, with practical skill and success; and who was moreover in manners a perfect gentlewoman. This survival from other days was asked, “-why there are no more like her, now?”-and answered. “Because the colored girls now ain’t got nobody by “niggers” to bring them up;”-adding: “We was brought up by ladies and gentlemen.”

We were told that one effect of the over-crowding of the professions is that gentlemen’s sons have taken up hard work, on railroads and in machine shops, or in ship buildings, and other labor requiring skill and exactness. Perhaps from these may come, the perfect skilled artisans, and “the elder days of art: When builders wrought with greatest care each minute and unseen part.” The President asked for expressions

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of opinions from the members of the Club on the subject proposed by Miss Haughton. Mrs. Hill suggested that we may not have very full information on this subject in all its bearings; we can only judge from results, as see them. Miss Haughton has given us food for reflection. Mrs. Hill said there might be a wrong idea of labor; and perhaps an undue estimate of professional life. We do not wish to check aspiration; but we would seek to teach a truer idea of excellent service in all things, -a form of excellence not generally attained. She thought individuals can do little, except in the aggregate, to correct the false estimate of labor; and to show that it is honorable to be a good cook as to be a stenographer. She spoke also of the rights of the employers and to those of the employed. 

Mrs. Lord called attention to the fact that employers seek for the cheapest labor, and are not willing to pay the price of skilled or trained workmen and this lessons the dignity of skilled  artisanship, and limits its opportunities. Mrs. Turnbull suggested that one reason why we do not have skilled labor, is the limited demand for it. Miss Spear spoke of the Polytechnic School in this city, -where the lessons are about the same as those of the sixth grade grammar schools, where the boys are given manual training-taught to use their hands-rather than actual trades; and they graduate well fitted to take up the learning of trades. The President asked if there are any other

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manual training schools in this city. Mrs. Dammann said that the Cardinal has an Industrial School, where the boys are taught trades, and that their work is of excellent quality. 

Miss Grace spoke of the successful systems of manual training in Europe. Miss Haughton spoke of the parochial schools, and also of the “Girl’s Friendly Society” of the Episcopal Church, in which the girls are really taught sewing; not as sewing is taught in the public schools, with perhaps one lesson month. Girls are taught cooking in the public schools also, -and marvelous things they produce in both arts. 

Mrs. Lord told of a colored cook who demanded time for her music lessons; but she confessed that she did not know whether the music lessons were responsible for the burnt bread and beefsteaks. 

Mrs. Dammann spoke of the ultra democratic spirit that meets us on all hands. She called attention also to this wrong estimate of labor in its tendency to break up the community of interests in family life among poorer classes.

Mrs. Turnbull reminded us of the able article given us by Miss Twight at the meeting of March 14th, on “Education in France,” describing the French public schools in which the poor children are given the education that will be the most useful to them in after life. But they have also a system of free scholarships, for higher education, open to those whose unusual ability enables them to pass the necessary examinations.

[end 264]

Mrs. Turnbull referred to the combinations in the German public schools also. Miss Grace said that in Austria the princesses learn to cook. 

Miss Haughton spoke of the English system of making and keeping trained servants. There are children taught in the parochial schools to read and write; and the girls to sew beautifully. Ther are brought into the home of the land owner to take, at first, the under grades of service, and gradually step up to the higher ones. A head cook, who receives about a hundred dollars a year, has an under cook and a scullery maid below her. There are usually two house maids, two nurses and two butlers; and the under servants receive the best possible training. The butlers do not expect ever to become prime ministers.

Miss Grace said she was in England some time ago, staying with a cousin in Bedfordshire, who was finding great difficulty in getting good servants, because it had become fashion among the poor women to stay at home and plant straw, instead of going out to service. Even in England there is something of the same feeling with which we are familiar in America. 

Mrs. Turnbull suggested that the root of the trouble with regard to the public schools is that they do not include the system of manual training; and so do not benefit properly the class that needs to be helped. The teaching of the useful arts of daily life might be

[end 264]

grafted on the public school system; and this would also remove some of the cares and annoyances of our domestic life. Miss Duvall spoke of her experience in mission schools. She had known the boys who had shiftless fathers to be taken away from school as soon as they could earn any money that they might help in the family support. Little boys, especially the sons of foreign-born parents were put to opening and shutting the doors of furnaces, before they could read. Miss Zacharias spoke also of child labor; and of the necessity of judging justly with regard to the children and to the parents also. She spoke of the benefit received by the brain from the use of the hands, of the educating power of skilled labor, -the drawing out or development received from it. 

Miss Whitney spoke of the laws of some of the states of our own country, by which the children in public schools are obliged to combine manual training with other lessons. She told us of some educated ladies in New York and Boston who are seriously learning and practicing cooking. She spoke of the negro graded schools in the South. In one of these she asked the principal “what the pupils would be fit for when they left school?”- He said “for teaching and the profession only.”- and he feared some would land in the jail. Mrs. Turnbull spoke of the mistake of trying to give a child an education which he cannot receive, or which

[end 265]

can only cause discontent with his surroundings or loss of interest I them. Mrs. Lord asked why we cannot have school to teach women how to cook? [I]nstead of having to teach them art in our own homes. Mrs. Carter supposed that if we had such schools here, chiefly foreigners would come to be taught in them. Miss Duvall spoke of the arbitrary action of Liades [Ladies?] Unions and Labor Associations. She told of a bright boy who wished to go to college, but whose father felt obliged to put him to work. The work proved only temporary, and the boy seemed to have no future. Miss Carter asked if he ought to be denied the power to rise, and to be thrust into the servant class? Miss Duvall said “No,” decidedly; but she was sorry to say that this unhappy boy went into the penal class at the age of sixteen. Miss Duvall spoke of the alarming increase of crime in our country, especially among boys. Miss Whitney spoke of the training impossible in some home which should be given in the public schools. 

Mrs. Hill reminded us that good women are taking more interest in general education and are given better opportunities for aiding in its advancement than ever before. Mrs. Turnbull spoke of the McDonough Industrial School-from which she said pupil had gone out to take positions of trust and honor, and to become noble men. This school is situated in the country; it might be desirable to have

[end 266]

something of the kind in the city also. Mrs. Tyson and Mrs. Uhler spoke with regard to the children of laboring people in Europe, and in this country also. Miss Zacharias spoke of the custom followed by the old Quakers of having their sons taught trades. Mrs. Stirling spoke of the same custom, as followed by the early settlers of New England. Mrs. Hill spoke of the members of patriotic societies, who do not like to acknowledge, among their well born ansestors, one who perhaps was engaged in an humble trade, such as any of the first settlers of our country were obliged to practice. The President reminded us of out part to endeavor to give all the more honor to such work as theirs[.]

The meeting adjourned.

 

162nd Meeting. 
April 7th, 1896.

The 162nd meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, April 7th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral streets[.] In honor of the season our room was adorned with beautiful Easter lilies. 

This meeting was under the direction of Miss Emma Brent, Chairman of the Committee on the Exact Study of the English Language. 

The meeting was called to order by the President. As the programme was rather long, and 

[end 267]

was to be followed by a Salon, the reading of the minutes was deferred to another occasion.

The first article of the programme was by Miss Katherine Spear, and was called: “Some Phases of the Social Life of the Anglo Saxons.” Miss Spear spoke of the general belief that the wild Anglo Saxon tribes displaces the civilization introduced by the Romans, and were not the representative of aspiration-nor of a high plane of life. But from these fierce and rude Saxons came Caedmon Alfred and Dunstan; and one of the first of Christian poems. The early Saxon migrations were like the Exodus of the Israelites, they went out to occupy the lands. Their first business was war, their glory was in deadly weapons. But in the seventh century our Anglo Saxons turned to peaceful life. They had pulled down the houses of their predecessors, -their superstitions forbidding them to live in the homes of other men, and they had built their own rude huts and towns, or fenced in settlements. Miss Spear went on to tell of Cynewulf; and also of Caedmon, and the gift of sacred song that came to him in a dream. She spoke of the Saxon banquets, and of their dishes and cups of wood, of [?], and sometimes of precious metals. She told of their hunting and swimming. They had no verb meaning “to dance,[“]-the word they used meant “to tumble.” –they spoke of the daughter of Herodias as “tumbling before the king.” or turning somersaults. She told of a bishop

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who played dice of which play a certain good monk disapproved. The latter having induced the bishop to repeat that portion of the First Psalm, which records the delight of the righteous man in meditating upon the law of the Lord “both day and night,” added that the rest of the time was left to play dice.”

The Anglo Saxon were very fond of practical jokes. They kept Christmas with yule logs and boar’s heads and other customs; survivals from the old nature festivals grafted upon the feasts of the Christian Church. Their belief in fairies elves and demons, and in the mysterious weird was not rooted out by Christianity-only changed. They were tolerant; Christian and Pagan loved side by side until the light of the true faith dispersed the shadows. The monasteries were center of hospitality and benevolence. The nuns learned to work beautiful embroideries, famed even in Italy, and some of them made Latin verses. Miss Spear described some strange ancient customs observed at marriages and baptisms. She reminded us that the Norman Conquest did not destroy the Anglo Saxon foundation of our language and institutions. 

The next article of the programme was by Miss Mabel Carter, and was called “Chaucer’s Women Compared with those of the Modern Novel.” Miss Carter said that critics are agreed with regard to Chaucer’s knowledge of the nature of women, though he joked good naturedly about 

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them. A woman was apt to interest him, but of course he preferred that she should be young and pretty. He seemed to speak often of blonde or yellow haired women. The only eyes whose color is mentioned are those of the Non, -with her bracelets and her motto of “Love conquer all.” Her eyes are called “gray as glass.” Miss Carter described the types of womanhood that Chaucer has given us. She compared his women of five hundred years ago with “the new woman.” of to day, and also with Tennyson’s Princess, George Eliot’s Dinah Morris and others in literature. Chaucer’s Griselda- “of the noble stuff of which martyrs are made,” –“who did not know what justice meant,” –she compared with Mrs. Ward’s Marcella, who did battle against obedience. His Emilie, the exponent of fair sunny girlhood, who “enjoyed life and was sweet to the core,” she ranked with Scott’s Rowena, with the Dolly Varden and Ada Clare of Dickens, and other girls we know in literature. His Thisbe is like the Juliet of Shakespeare. His wife of Bath has many representations. She is in the pager of Dickens and Thackeray, and we meet he improved nineteenth century type in George Eliot’s Mrs. Poyser. Miss Carter said that Chaucer assailed the faults of society and depicted human characters. But that like the great Master he never formed so great a faith elsewhere as in a woman.  

The next article of the programme was by Mrs. Alfred M. Belt, and was on “The

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English Language from Grave to Gay, from Lovely to Severe.” Mrs. Belt spoke of the opinion of historians that the origen [origin] of the fair people of the West must be ascribed to the East,  to the shores of the Black Sea. She spoke of the testimony of customs and predilections, and still more of the kinship of language, -of words and their roots. She spoke of the changes undergone by words, and of the fact that what seems wrong now was once right, -possibly should be so still. Afeared and a-cold are good old Shakespearian English words. 

Mrs. Belt gave us some curious-no doubt-prejudiced opinions of a Frenchman who visited England in the reign of Edward the Third. In the age of Elizabeth the upheaval of religious thought had stimulated curiosity and inquiry of all sorts and continental literature had much influence. Queen Elizabeth was the best type of her age, her weakness showed beside her greatness plainly. Her learning and her taste for classic literature induced the use of words not before thought English ones. Though not beautiful herself, she had something of her mother’s charm, she was more vain than other women-and she could not brook ugliness in men. 

Mrs. Belt also spoke of the language of the works of Spenser and of those of Shakespeare. The age was dramatic; and what was common and rough in it has passed away for us. She

[end 271]

spoke of the Chronicles of Amyas Leigh, of those of Drake and Grenville, of Raleigh and Gilbert. She reminded us of the great men to whom the English language was their native tongue; and also of our own privilege to speak this great language in “our land of the free and our home of the brave.”

The next article of the programme was by Miss Emma Brent. It was called: “Intellectual Activities in the time of Charles the Second.” Miss Brent spoke of the general intellectual activity of the English nation which we can trace step by step in English literature. She reminded us of the quaint old rhyme of the monks of Ely and King Canute, which has come down to us, then of the change to the poetry of Chaucer, to the works of Shakespeare, and those of other great names in the course of one thousand years. She came down to the time of Charles the Second, when domestic peace had come with what Green has called “the comedy of the Restoration;” and when, he says, modern England began. Ideas had changed somewhat and they did at the close of our own Civil War; a new epoch had come full of high lights and shadows, of inconsistencies, speculations and experiments. Then was founded the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, then Newton began his investigations and great discoveries in science, then Dryden wrote his plays and poems and Pepys recorded the news and gossip of the day. Miss Brent went on to speak of the Margins of Worcester and of his remarkable suggestions

[end 272]

for advancement in science and in the arts of daily life, -some of them apparently realized or put into practice long after his death. She spoke also of the Rev. John Wilkins, a brother-in-law of Oliver Cromwell, whose active mind was also in advance of his age, and, who made among other ingenious propositions on to form a universal language for the convenience of all men upon earth, -a dream apparently still unrealized, nothing having yet arisen to take the place of the English language, whose strength and power is still retained and dwells among us.

The next article of the programme was by Mrs. Morton W. Sloan, and was called “Clubs and Club Men in the Reign of Queen Anne.” Mrs. Sloan began by quoting Dean Swift’s words, in which he laments that no ingenious modern has yet attempted a universal system by which could be condensed into one small portable volume all things that ought to be known, imagined, believed or practiced in life. He proceeded to give the recipe for such an undertaking, which he claims to have found among the manuscripts of a great philosopher whose untimely death had prevented its having been given to the world before. The dean tells how to put the necessary ingredients into the brain of the person-provided he possesses a brain, who will undertake the preparations of the desired work. Mrs. Sloan professed to have followed the 

[end 273]

directions, but did not profess any remarkable success in the result of the experiment. She then spoke of the days of the good Queen Anne, who though a rather dull and ignorant nursing mother to her subjects, was reported to have left a pious and glorious memory. Englishmen then loved to talk and to eat, and association rather than sociability. The conversation of the wisest and wittiest, which in France made the Salon-gathered about the tavern and the coffee house, -“look its ease in its inn,” –and resulted in the Club. We have all heard of the Apollo and the Mermaid. In Queen Anne’s time the October, the Beefsteak and the Kit-Cat Club were flourishing. The spectator has much to say of Clubs, and satirizes them, as the George’s Club and the Two penny Club, and the difficulty of erecting it. Peg Woffington is said to have been a member of the Beefsteak Club. Mrs. Sloan went on to speak of the Kit-Cat Club which contained among its members, [Malpule?] and the titled Whigs-Addison, Steele, Swift, Pope and other lights of what has been called the Augustin age of English literature. Christopher Car, the cook of the Kit-Cat Club made a delicious mutton pie, which takin in connection with his name, might suggest Sam Weller’s eulogy of real pies, and of that noble animal the tabby cat.”

Mrs. Sloan spoke of the toasts drunk to the ladies of the time, and the witty

[end 274]

verses made on such occasions. She told of the portraits of the members, on the walls all of the same size, whence the name still used in portrait painting. In conclusion she said she ought to apologize to the Kit-Cat Club for daring to attempt to prepare the elixir of its member, Dr. Swift

After the conclusion of the programme the members enjoyed our monthly tea and talk.

 

163rd Meeting.
April 14th, 1896

The 163rd meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, April 14th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral street. This meeting was under the direction of the Committee on Current Criticism. We had the pleasure of receiving as our guest, Mrs. George Adam Smith of Glasgow, Scotland. We also received a visit from Mrs. Faber, who as Miss Julia Marlowe had been present at two of our meetings in former days. 

The President called the meeting to order; -and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of April 11th. The President gave the notice that the names of proposed members should be given to the Recording Secretary two weeks before the semi-annual election of new members on the first Tuesday in May. This 

[end 275]

makes it necessary that such names shall be sent to the Secretary at or before the meeting of April 21st. 

After a graceful reference to the guests of the meeting, the President spoke of out regrets for the absence of the Chairman of the Committee on Current Criticism, Mr. J.F. Dammann, and said that Mrs. Morris had consented to act in her place on this occasion. 

The first article on this occasion by Mrs. Oliver O’D. Hollitzell and was called “A Literary Cosmopolitan.” It was read by Mrs. George Dallas Dixon. The literary Cosmopolitan of Mrs. Hollitzell’s review was Mr. Rudyard Kipling. She began with a striking quotation from one of Mr. Kipling’s poems; and went on to speak of his having been born in Bombay, of English parents; also of his having married an American lady, and of his living now in the state of Vermont. In speaking of his writings, she contrasted him with Max Nordau, and dwelt also upon Kipling’s real and sympathetic art; on his inborn gift for treating actuality; for seeing the dark and the light, the good and the evil, and for recognizing human possibilities. She spoke of his Mullvan[e]y and his Tommy Atkins, and of his poems, which make us like Oliver Twist-O’ ask for more.” She went on to speak of his sympathy with strength of the nature life about him. She spoke of his Jungle Stories, particularly of one which might 

[end 276]

be his highest bid for eminence. This was the tale of the baby Mowgli taking refuge from the tiger among the cubs of the wolf, and gaining not only the love of the wolves, but the comradeship of other wild creatures. That he should become able in time to kill the pursuing tiger, and at last-with the love of kind for kind, come back to the society of men and women, is the fitting outcome of the story, even the bear telling him that he has made a good choice. After quoting his words. “Lord thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream,” Mrs. Hollitzell gave us the pleasure of hearing read a letter from Mr. Kipling to herself, in which he speaks of the interest of making up children’s stories “for fun.”

The President announced that Mrs. Elizabeth Brown Davis had come from Washington in order to give us her paper this afternoon, and that it would be the second in order instead of the fourth. Mrs. Davis then read her paper called “The Transit of Mercury.[“] She spoke of the grand harmony of the planets, the majestic choir with the lass of Neptune and the treble of our nearer neighbors; to which the keynote was given on the morning of creation. She thought it natural that we should wish to know something of this Solar System, which is for a brief season our home. She spoke of the great fathers of astronomy and physical mathematics. Copernicus, Kepler, 

[end 277]

Galileo and Newton. She went back to Ptolemy who seems to shine like a star in the morning twilight of ancient knowledge, though we cannot tell how much of truth he knew. She contrasted the dim light of our forefathers, when gravitation was unknown, with the radiance f modern science, which enabled our astronomers to point their telescopes to the planet that had been asserted to exist before it had been seen. She said that the air is now full of great truths, promising great discoveries, and reminded us that what may be familiar things to another generation are the desire and the well defined hope of ours. She spoke of the transits of Venus and of Mercury, across the face of the Sun. She dwelt particularly on Mercury-its motions and position, and the attention now being paid to it all over the earth. She reminded us that some of the conditions which formerly led astronomers to look for a planet beyond Uranus-have lately led them to look for another planet between Mercury and the Sun, though the looked-for planet has still seemed conspicuously absent. If in existence it is, we are told, probably minute, but there is still a hope that a total eclipse of the Sun may reveal it. A party has been made up by a Mr. James to see the total eclipse of 1897. His yacht has gone to California, whence the expedition is to sail for Japan, where it will have good opportunities and facilities for observation. Mrs. Davis went on to speak of the 

[end 278]

work done for science in the last few years, in clearing away the mists and obstructions from its path; particularly of the work of Professor Newcomb in completing the motions of the planets and also of the wonderful set of tables he has completed, for which he has been decorated by the French Government. She said that the future observers of the transit of the planets will have excellent tables for computation. The paths are being made straight, the hill of knowledge is being climbed, we have a widening horizon, full of new truth, to us-but as old as the creation, and worthy of Him who conceived it. 

The next article of the programme was by Mrs. John R. Tait, and was called “A Child’s Garden of Verse.” Mrs. Tait spoke of the development of this century with regard to the literature prepared for children. Even some of us can remember when the ballads of Mother Goose still held their own as poetry for children, when Peter Parley was their historian, and they were also given the pedantic on priggish ”Sanford and Merton,” and the Rollo Books. But the literary atheletes of the big world have begun to consider that what is good enough for children, must be good for grown people also, -must give light and refreshment to the minds of all. Mrs. Tait went on to speak of the stories of Habberton, Harries, Mrs. Burnett, Mrs. Wiggan, Mrs. Ewing and at last of those of Robert Louis Stevenson. 

[end 279] 

She spoke especially of Stevenson’s lately republished “Child’s Garden of Verses,” which one critic has called perhaps his most enduring literary product.” She said there are no nonsense verses in it; she could only understand what they mean, if we could take into account the unknown quantities in the childish equation.  Poets have wish to interrogate babies to find if they retain any recollections of former life. Stevenson shares their excursions into fairy land, into the world of make believe; also their happiness, and their first encounters with human sorrow. The charming personality of the author speaks through it all. Mrs. Tait gave us some bright single flowers from this “Child’s Garden of Verses.[“]

The last article of the programme was by Mrs. T.J. Morris, and was called “Nature’s Lovers.” Mrs. Morris reviewed the new book “Idyllists of the Country Side,” by G.H. Ellwanger. Six lovers of Nature are treated in six commentaries; but Mrs. Morris dwelt upon the two called “The Sphere of Thoreau,” and “A Ramble with Burroughs.” We are told, she said, of Thoreau’s devotion to Nature, and of his mysticism. He loved the vast undeveloped creation. His solitary holy of holies. He lived much apart from men; he loved to be abroad at night, when the skies were a deeper blue than by day-“Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge,”-heard and understood by him. With 

[end 280] 

regard to Burroughs, Mrs. Morris said that the birds were his delight and he loved the woods where they dwelt. He loved the flowers also, and in his quest among them, the birds or the flowers gave answers to him. Mrs. Morris read a poem by Burroughs, and reminded us that he was an essayist also. But she dwelt chiefly upon him as a naturalist, as [“]Nature’s Lover[.]”

The members of the Club were presented to our guest Mrs. Smith, and afterwards enjoyed refreshments and conversation. 

[NEW NOTEBOOK]

[1]

166th Meeting.
May 5th, 1896.

The 166th meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, May 5th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral streets.  The President called the meeting to order; and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of April 28th.  She also read the names of the new members, just elected at the meeting of the Board of Management.

The President announced that this, being the first Tuesday in May, was by our Constitution, a business meeting for the presentation of the annual Reports of the Chairmen of the Literary Committees.  A programme prepared for the meeting by Mrs. Carter, Chairman of the Committee on Philanthropy would unavoidably be shortened.  The President also reminded us that the Treasurer’s Report was to be presented on the third Tuesday in May; and in accordance with the Constitution, she was to appoint auditors.  She then named Mrs. Thomas J. Morris and Mrs. John M. Carter to perform that duty.

The Reports of the Committees were now called for.  It may be said comprehensively that each Chairman told of the work done by her Committee, in its own meetings and of the authorities consulted by its members during the preparation of the papers they have given to the Club.

Miss Brent, Chairman of the Committee on the Exact Study of the

[2]

English Language reported two meetings given under her direction, on December the 17th, 1895, and January 7th, 1896.

The Fiction Committee under the direction of Mrs. George Whitelock had presented three programmes during the year,—on November 5th, 1895—on February 4th, 1896,—and on April 28th, 1896.

The Committee on Modern Poetry, of which Miss LIiette W. Reese is the Chairman, had given two programmes,—that of December 3rd, 1895,—and that of March 3rd, 1896.

The Committee on Essays and Essayists, Mrs. C. W. Lord, Chairman, reported the programmes of two meetings, those of October 22nd, 1895, and February 18th, 1896.

The Committee on Current Criticism, Mrs. J. Francis Dammann, Chairman—reported two meetings,—those of November 12th, 1895, and April 14th, 1896.

The Committee on the Authors and Artists of Maryland, Mrs. Gaston Manly, Chairman, reported the meeting of October 8th, 1895.

There was no report from the Committee on “Unwritten History.”

The Committee on Archaeology, Mrs. J. C. Wrenshall, Chairman, reported two meetings, those of November 19th, 1895, and April 21st, 1896.

The Committee on Education,—Mrs. Bullock, Chairman, reported the meeting of March 24th, 1896, and the “Educational Discussions” of two meetings

[3]

that followed it.  No report was presented from the Committee on Science.

The Committee on Art, Mrs. Wylie, Chairman, reported the meeting of January 7th, 1896.

The Committee on Translation, Miss Mary Grace, Chairman, reported the meetings of December 10th, 1895, and of March 17th, 1896.

The Committee on Philanthropy, Mrs. John M. Carter, Chairman, reported the meeting of January 14th, 1896.

The Committee on Music, Miss Zacharias, Chairman, reported the meeting of February 11th, 1896.

There was no report from the Committee on The Drama.

Miss Zacharias then presented her report as the delegate of this Club on the Committee of ladies, requested some years ago by the city authorities, to oversee the appointment of the Police Matrons at the station houses.  She spoke of her work in connection with Miss Ridgely, the delegate of the Arundel [Arundell] Club.  They were pleased with the Matrons and their surroundings, at the station houses which they visited.  She believed it possible to keep alive a high standard of womanhood before the poor women who are arrested and brought to the station houses;—if politics could only be kept out of the conduct of these affairs, and they can be left more to the care of good women than they have formerly been.

The President announced that we would now have the pleasure of listening 

[4]

to the article by Mrs. Graham, entitled: “For Suffering Humanity,” which she had been unable to give us on January 14th,—having been very ill at that time.  Mrs. Graham spoke of an article by Mrs. Howells, published in the Century Magazine discussing the question, “Are we our brother’s keeper?” “Are we not it asks, responsible for his downfall?”—or at least very much so for his want of ability to cope with misfortune, or to defeat demoralizing forces?  Often he cannot take care of himself; and must be taken care of by his jailor—or his brother.  By the law of cause and effect, we are unerringly the keepers of our brothers.

Mrs. Graham then told of an old colored servant, who, when she herself once broke into complaint of the confusion and trouble caused by those who are called “the black sheep,” answered her” “The Lord only wants to give you one grace more, the black sheep are to follow up the white sheep over Jordan, and be washed clean “in the blood of the Lamb.”  We as women, were reminded, have the black sheep of our families to guard and care for. But ordinary humanity relegates them to political economists.  And these are generally not like Abou Ben Adhem, who loved his fellow men; but are those who seek to improve conditions, to endow institutions with the money they cannot take away with them, or who pay others to do what are duties for themselves. The personal effort which gives our brother the opportunity to come but

[5]

from his hard fate, will help to build up society on better foundations.  Philanthropy must see the God in the man, and recognize the transition that means development.  Mrs. Graham went on to speak of a little book which had come to her from the author, Mr. Edward E. Hale, whose title had surprised her.  It was “Hands Off,” by this author who has encouraged the effort to “lend-a-hand" most constantly.  But he is not inconsistent,—as she soon found.  The book teaches the absolute submission of our own desires to help to the wisdom and goodness of God our Father.  It takes the subject of Joseph, when his brothers had sold him to the Midianites, and supposes a mythical successful attempt to set him free from his masters, and a return to his sorrowing father at home. The famine, with no corn stored up in Egypt, is only a minor consequence of this; there is, perhaps no Mount Sinai, possible no Law, even no Gospel,—the world ruined by rashness, growing worse; till the last of the human brutes lies dead, by the dead hill of Calvary.  We all wish to save Joseph, but Joseph is not alone, the great Father works not only for yours and mine, but for all; and, out of evil he educes good.  But, after all we were reminded, there can be no evil in love that serves others and not ourselves and is fulfilling of the law.  Mrs. Graham closed with a striking quotation from the poem of Helen N. King, on “The Disciples.”

Mrs. Graham afterwards requested the

[6]

members of the Club to hear something Mrs. Early had to tell us with regard to the use of “black sheep.” Mrs. Early said she had, while abroad met a lady from Australia, who told her that black sheep are an absolute necessity in the large flocks kept in that part of the world; because the white sheep will always follow the black ones.  When a shepherd has one thousand sheep under his care, he puts into every one hundred one black one as the leader of the rest, who are white; and then he can tell where they all are by counting the black ones; so accounting for the whole thousand.  We have all heard that black sheep are attractive—some of them.

The meeting adjourned.

 

167th Meeting.
May 12th, 1896.

The 167th meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, May 12th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral streets.  The President called the meeting to order; and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of May 5th.

The President announced that this was the annual meeting for nominations held one week before the general election, only members of the Club being present.  The Committee on Nominations, consisting of five members,—two from the Board of Management, and three from the ranks

[7]

of the Club,—was then announced;—the names given being those of Mrs. Wylie, Chairman and Judge of Election, Mrs. Uhler,—Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Alan P. Smith, and Mrs. Bullock.  The President, in a few graceful sentences, reminded us that, in the possession of our duties and privileges, we had met to prove ourselves qualified for self-government; and for the conscientious fulfillment of our obligations, in the choice of a Board of Management;—to confer our highest honor on those who will represent us in the highest sense, not only on our literary side, but on all sides.  After announcing that full members only are entitled to vote, the President requested the Judge of Election to read the list of officers elected last year, and also to place on the blackboard the names of the three Directors elected at that time for two years, and who have still another year to serve in office. Mrs. Wylie also read the Rules of Elections.  The Corresponding Secretary was then requested to call the roll of members. Thirty -five members answered to their names, and the arrival of one more was announced before the voting began.

The nomination sheets were then distributed,—filled up by the members, and in a short time collected by the Committee,—who retired to count them in the Committee room.

The President said that as there would be some little time before the nominations could be announced, we would now have the reading of the two papers from the

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Committee on Philanthropy, which had been deferred from the meeting of the last Tuesday.

The first article was by Mrs. Thomas Hill, and was called: “Philanthropy.”  Mrs. Hill spoke of the word Philanthropy as one which covers a wide field of meaning.  It comprehends much love, love in practical action, love, which is our Father’s name—love the magic key to human hearts.  The manifestation of sympathy cannot be eliminated from true love. Mrs. Hill recalled the story told by Mr. Moody, of the little gift and the large sympathy from a stranger that won his heart when he was a forlorn homesick child, and which lived in his memory fifty years afterwards.  She also spoke of the Visiting Nurses Association, which saves from actual starvation, little sick children, who cannot eat the food of adults, and which gives the aid that the poor cannot command for themselves.  She also gave a most interesting description of an Industrial School in the State of New York, for boys who have committed small offences, but who have good qualities, and who generally prove themselves well worth reclaiming, and capable of becoming good citizens.  She referred to a series of articles in the Century Magazine, advocating the teaching of the poor to help themselves, and the giving them high aims. Mrs. Hill spoke of religious associations and Church work and also of the lessons we learn in the homes of the poor; but said she felt it unnecessary to dwell on the recompense promised us, nor on our realization that “it is more blessed to given than to receive.”

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The next article was by Mrs. John D. Early and was called: “Life on the Higher Plane.”  Mrs. Early spoke of our true inheritance of spiritual life, here in this world, in which we sojourn now.—that harmonious life to which Christ gave the key note,—the life that He and His apostles preached rather than doctrines.  Sometimes in solitude, or on the vast ocean, or in homesickness for a better world, we seem to come silently into sympathy with the inner life of the whole universe;—to know the higher life, and the higher love.  We may have a glimpse of what was shown to the prophets of old, of what may have been seen by St. Francis or St. Bernard of Cluny, by Joan of Arc—even by Bunyan by Dante, and by others, of all ages, creeds and churches. Mrs. Early said that in almost every family there is one member who is the most spiritual, the most loved in the household, its visible living tie between earth and heaven.

There was land in the West to justify the faith of Columbus; there are wonderful powers of electricity being unfolded before us;—a new element has been recognized in the atmosphere, we are hearing much of radiant energy: the Roentgen rays have revealed their existence;—we have new light by which to see material things; and all things have still their unseen side.  And it is the spiritual, the divine part which makes the life that throbs with the universe;—that lights up the shades; that teaches us to look for health and not for disease; for the light of heaven, rather than for that of the candles of the earth, for the realization of our

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Father’s presence. After the reading of Mrs. Early’s Essay the Committee of Elections returned to the assembly room, and the Chairman proceeded to read the names of the candidate receiving the highest and next to highest number of votes for each office, which were also written on the blackboard.  There were,

For President;  Mrs. Turnbull, 34.

            Miss Brent, 1.

First Vice President;  Mrs. Wrenshall, 22.

         Mrs. Morris, 6.

Second Vice President;  Mrs. Manly, 24.

 Mrs. Lord, 4.

Recording Secretary;     Miss Crane, 35.

Corresponding Secretary;  Miss Balch, 18.

                 Miss Haughton, 16.

Treasurer;      Mrs. Dammann, 34.

Directors;       Mrs. Uhler, 21.

                       Mrs. Lord, 17.

                       Miss Balch, 16.

                       Mrs. Morris, 12.

                       Mrs. Miller, 8.

                       Mrs. Carter, 6.

 

Miss Brent withdrew her name as a candidate for the Presidency.

Some discussion arose with regard to the names which appeared on the list as each of them were candidates for two offices.  Several propositions were made, but no formal vote was taken upon them, and without further action the meeting adjourned.

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168th Meeting.

May 19th, 1896.

The 168th meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, May 19th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets.  This being the third Tuesday in May, was, as announced, the day of our annual Election for officers, who are to serve for the coming year.

The President called the meeting to order; and explained very clearly the nature of the blank voting sheets about to be distributed; dwelling on their three division, the first and second being for nominations already made; and the third for the individual choice of the members who may prefer to vote independently of these nominations.

The blank sheets were given to the members, after registration; and time having been allowed for consideration and for filling them up, they were collected; and the Judge of Election and her Committee retired to count them.

The President then announced that the Treasurer’s Report was now in order, and would be read.  The Report of the Treasurer, Mrs. Dammann, was a very satisfactory one to the Club;—the simple facts and figures showing that much wisdom and economy had been exercised by the Treasurer and the House Committee.  The President spoke of the excellent work that had been done for us, and proposed a vote of thanks to the Treasurer and the House Committee, which of course met unanimous consent.

After some informal conversation

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the members were called to order to receive the report of the Committee of Election on their return with the result of the voting.  The candidates elected were announced.

President, Mrs. Turnbull.

First Vice President, Mrs. Wrenshall.

Second Vice President, Mrs. Manly.

Recording Secretary, Miss Crane.

Corresponding Secretary, Miss Whitney.

Treasurer, Mrs. Dammann.

Directors. Miss Balch.

                 Mrs. Morris.

                 Mrs. Uhler.

 

The President expressed the thanks of the Club to the Committee of Election; and the desire of all of us to promote the best interests of the Club.

Mrs. Graham then gave a very cordial invitation to the Woman’s Literary Club to come to Mt. Washington on the following Monday afternoon, to be the guests of the Lend-a-Hand Club, whose members were on the same occasion to receive the Friday Club. The latter Club would, on that afternoon present a programme of great interest and entertainment.

The business of the meeting having been finished, the Club adjourned.

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169th Meeting.
May 26th, 1896.

The 169th regular meeting of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, was held on Tuesday, May 26th, 1896, at the corner of Franklin and Cathedral Streets.  The President called the meeting to order; and the Recording Secretary read the minutes of the meeting of May 12th, and also those of the meeting of May 19th.

The first article of the programme was given by Mrs. Clapham Pennington, and was called: “A Bird’s Eye View of the Religions of the Orient.”  Mrs. Pennington said that she was once, at a dinner party, called on to tell the difference between the teachings of Buddha, and those of Zoroaster,—manifestly a difficult thing to do sententiously, on the spur of the moment. She could only answer that Zoroaster is the great optimist;—and Buddha, the great pessimist.  She went on to speak of the great ignorance of some very intelligent people—people well informed on other subjects with regard to the religions of the East.  They study philosophy and science and literature, but leave unregarded some of the great lights of the world, the literature that is a mine of wealth, the religions that give the key to the life and history of man, in the most populous part of the world he inhabits.  Mrs. Pennington described first the religion of Brahma.  It was founded, she said, on myths allied to those of Greece and Rome; but more refined and true ones; at least in their earliest and purest forms,

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before they were obscured by the masks of idolatry.  She spoke of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and of the Brahminical conception of immortality.  She referred to the democratic intruder, Buddhism; which was, for a while, predominant in Hindustan,—but which afterwards yielded supremacy to the older faith now prevailing in that country.  She then described the religion of the Zoroaster, which was, she said a remarkable instance of a religion which became the established faith of the nation during the life of its founder.  Its followers, she reminded us, have continued for thirty-three centuries living according to this faith, and now dwell among Hindoos [Hindus] as Hebrews do among Christians.  She spoke of the precepts of Zoroaster himself as pure and noble, enforcing true morality and tending to happiness.  She spoke of his conception of the duality of power,—of good and evil,—of light and darkness, and she showed wherein his doctrines seem to approach those of our own Christian faith.

Mrs. Pennington said that Buddhism was the one of these Eastern religions with which she had no sympathy,—although it has been idealized by Edwin Arnold and others. She considered it not a religion, but a system of philosophy.  She thought that the reason of its late apparent popularity was the tendency to agnosticism in the mental life of the present age.  Buddhism has, she said, no soul, no God, no hope; its desire is annihilation.  It is sordid and disagreeable in real life, and in the

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contemplation of the unexplained.  Though he gave precepts of good morality, Buddha was, she thought, a nervous dyspeptic; and the conclusion of his philosophy seems to be: “As no one can be happy, let us all be as miserable as possible.”

Mrs. Pennington spoke of Confucius as a great lover of man, an ardent conservative and respecter of the past, who seems to have believed in immortality, but to have been unwilling to say much on a subject of which he naturally felt ignorant.  He taught justice and fair dealing in this life; and is still a power among the millions in China.

Mrs. Pennington spoke last of Mohammed, to whom she gave a very high place among reformers and religious teachers.  Some people have, she said only a general impression regarding Mohammed, to the effect that he advocated polygamy, and taught that women have no souls.  But, she went on to say,—Mohammed was not the inventor of polygamy; he found it existing around him; he restricted it, he made divorce more difficult than before; and improved the condition of women as far as he could, under the circumstances in which he was placed.  She told of his suppression of the drinking and the gambling to which his people had been addicted.  She spoke of the events of his life; spoke of his wife as a noble woman; told of his manner of propagating his doctrines and explained those doctrines themselves.  Mrs. Pennington dwelt on the unity of the Mohammedan faith all over the lands in which it has prevailed.  She closed by deploring the fact that “the

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broad strong river of truth, ‘Christianity’ has been divided into many streams.”

The President said that we can all enjoy the facts given us in Mrs. Pennington’s paper; at the same time passing no judgement on the religions described to us.

The President announced that the members of the Club are requested to send to the heads of Committees the record of any literary work they have done during the year, and any items of interest relating to the special work of the Committees of the Club; especially those in the departments of Art, Music, or Criticism.  She also said that the Chairman of the Committee on Autographs, Mrs. Graham, would be glad to receive specimens of interest, especially autographic letters.  One contribution was announced as having been received from Mrs. William Whitelock, the work of her husband, the Life of John Jay, his own copy, containing his autograph.

The next article of the programme was by Miss Malloy, and was called “A Dramatic Sketch.”  Miss Malloy informed us that she was not giving an article; but that she had culled a few gems relating to the theatrical press agent; the necessary advertiser of the dramatic star.  He is supposed to have a keen eye for effect,—a vivid imagination, and a talent for embellishment besides possessing a large stock of stories and anecdotes, suitable to any time place or person, to fall back upon. Madam Modjeska told her that, on her first visit to this country, the press agents reported her to be dying of consumption, though she was

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not aware of any such disadvantage,—and that they advised the public to “see her now,” as the time might be short for doing so.  She was also reported as having been refused accommodations in a hotel, because she insisted on taking her pet dog into it with her; whereas she never had a pet dog, and was not specially fond of those animals.  Some surprising phases of the evolution of the art of advertising were given us, especially in their relation to the modern sensational drama, and the stars that illumine it.

The President then introduced to the Club our visitor Miss Howison, who has been giving readings and lectures in different cities, and who had consented to read a poem to us.  Miss Howison then spoke of her having lectured on the Life and Works of Robert Burns.  She also reminded us that in Scotland and elsewhere, the next 21st of July will be observed as the centennial of the death of this favorite poet of Scotchmen everywhere.  We then had the pleasure of hearing Miss Howison read, with great spirit and expression a poem by Wallace Bruce, on the erection of the statue of Robert Burns in Central Park, New York.  The statue stands near to that of Sir Walter Scott, and also to that of Shakespeare. The poem represented Sir Walter as introducing the newcomer “Robbie Burns,” to his companion “Will Shakespeare,” in “this land, as fair as that between the Doon and the Ayr.”

The President expressed to Miss Howison the thanks of the Club for her inspiring reading, and the meeting adjourned.

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Salon.
June 2nd, 1896.

The closing meeting and Salon of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore for the season of 1895 and 1896, took place on Tuesday, June 2nd, 1896.  The programme for this meeting was under the direction of Miss Zacharias, Chairman of the Committee on Music.

The President called the meeting to order.  The usual reading of minutes was omitted, and the programme with “An Impromptu,” by Schubert, played by Miss Kimball.

The programme next called for the “Introduction of Officers of the Board of Management of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore for 1896 and 1897.  The President spoke of the pleasure she felt in introducing the group to whose members had been confided the interests of the Club for its seventh year; who have been judged qualified, and whose duty and pleasure it will be, to care for its honor and well-being.  She conveyed to them the congratulations and welcome of the Club. She also spoke of the Board of the past year, and expressed the thanks of herself and their other fellow members for their good work and loyal efforts to maintain our high standard in literature, and to add light to our lives.

We were next favored with the favorite old song: “The Harp that once through Tara’s Halls,” etc.  It was sung by Miss Donoth; and accompanied—on the piano—by Miss Zacharias, and—on the harp—most appropriately—by Miss Cecile Murphy.

This was followed by another

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favorite old song, given us by Miss Mary C. Brown, with power and expression.  It was “Kathleen Mavourneen;” and was sung from the original manuscript of the composer.

The programme next called for the annual “Address of the President.”  Mrs. Turnbull spoke of the mission of woman to maintain and advance the ideal and spiritual life of this world, to be strong to endure; and to show the worth and beauty of noble womanhood.  And never has woman’s part in the life of this world been more needed than now it is.  She can reveal the soul of poetry.  She can uphold in literature the part of the Ideal, against the undue and overdue claims of realism, and of materialism;—she can give to literary work the larger view and the catholic spirit that makes for the well-being of our race.  We are conscious of the spirit of our age, of the so-called fads around us, of the fading away of sweet traditions, of the restless craving for popularity and applause.  But to true and good women, literature and art are true and beautiful, and must be kept so still.  And we were reminded in art as in nature we can club by visible ways to things unseen.

Mrs. Turnbull spoke of the relations of literature to life, to home life, and to ideal life.  She spoke of the loss of ideals, and of the discarding of old-time graces by those who do not appreciate them.  She referred to the difference between knowledge and culture.  Also of that pursuit of realism that may miss the truth.  But that we must hold

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to the truth, not stand aside, and use our powers with more faith, more hope,—larger trust and courage, and the best of life shall prevail.  Mrs. Turnbull spoke of Darwin’s complaint of having lost his taste for poetry. She then went on to speak of those beautiful souls—some of whom have been within—who have kept their childlike faith and youthful aspirations in the life of art and science and literature, and have given inspiration to the souls of others.

We then had the pleasure of hearing two French songs sung by Miss Mary C. Brown “Aime Moi,” and “L’Amour est pur.”  She was accompanied by Miss Kimball.  The President said that we would now have the song of our artist in words.  Miss Lizette W. Reese gave us a poem called “Song,” to which we were glad to listen.  We were next favored with two piano solos, given by Miss Kimball. These were followed by two songs sung by Miss Louise Osborne Haughton.  The music was by Louis Rutter, and words of the second one called “Listen,” were by Miss Haughton herself.  The programme was finished with a beautiful Harp Solo, given by Miss Cecile Murphy.

The President proposed our thanks to the musicians who had so well entertained us and they were given by a standing vote.  The President also requested that each member of the Club would take a copy of the Programme of Topics from her table.

Mrs. Graham afterwards proposed that the “President’s Address” should be printed for the use and benefit of the Club, to which unanimous consent was given by

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A standing vote.  The members of the Club enjoyed conversation and refreshments for the next hour or two, and the members of the Club parted with pleasant hopes for our meeting next October.

[END OF SEASON]