No. 3.

were the rule rather than the exception in Miss Seawell's family; and through her father's mother, who was a sister of President Tyler, she is one with those of whom Henry A. Wise says in his "Seven Decades of the Union": "The women of this family have always been strikingly remarkable for their strength of character and beauty of person."

In this old county, and in a rambling old country-house, "The Shelter," she spent her early life. The only misfortune of her youth was in her name, which is Molly, and not Mary, as it is commonly supposed to be. "I have a very bad name," she feelingly says, "and I have made it worse by foolishly putting my middle name in, with the vain hope of redeeming my first When I get letters addressed to Miss Mary Seawell, as I often do, the iron enters into my soul."

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52

Flimsy Envelopes, 52 - What to Do with Rejected Manuscripts, 52- Creases in Returned Manuscripts.

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name.

THE USE AND MISUSE OF WORDS.

HELPFUL HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS.

A Writer's Memorandum Book.

LITERARY ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS.

NEWS AND NOTES.

MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL.

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Although the war had made chaotic changes, the old community in which the child lived was so cut off from the strenuous modern world, its patriarchal life was so deeply rooted, that the people held on desperately to their former mode of living long after slavery had become a thing of the past. While the young girl was growing up, the old negroes still remained on The Shelter plantation, and things generally wore an air of "before the war." Nobody seems to have realized that the modern conditions required any change in the education of women different from that pursued "before the war"; so the girl was taught chiefly those things that went to make up the happiness and the accomplishments of the women who presided over the quaint Virginia homes. Literature was one of these, and she received a drilling in the English classics such as few women can boast. Her father, who was a lawyer of distinction, had an antique respect

for the literature of the eighteenth century, and the old country-house possessed one of the best libraries of these veteran books in Virginia. Charles Lamb's proposed plan for girls was followed in her education - she was "turned loose in a library full of good books." Novels alone were tabooed, and at seventeen she had only read one novel-"The Vicar of Wakefield "! But poetry was permitted, and, like most young and sensitive creatures, she absorbed rather than read, the poets of the imagination and passions, She had three amusements, reading, riding, and playing the piano. She seems never to have thought of writing, or imagined leading any other life than that around her. She thought the finest destiny in the world was to be mistress of a splendid plantation, and her ambition only went the length of making it very large, with the grandest house in the county on it.

In this simple, quaint, and unpractical life the young girl grew up. Just as she was emerging from womanhood her father's death occurred. This made it advisable to give up the plantation, with its burdens, and the idyl of country life vanished. She made a visit to Europe, and upon her return, her family established itself in Washington. About this time the idea of writing came to her. The excellent training she had got from good reading now manifested itself. Her first story was accepted by Lippincott's Magazine. It was a Russian story under a Russian name, and written with such an air of verisimilitude that most critics and writers were deceived into thinking her a native Russian. This was followed by others, which were widely read and commented upon. All this was very creditable to so young a writer, but she did not earn the full benefit of this credit. The retirement and seclusion of her early life had bred a positive fear of appearing in print in her own name, and she used no less than five pen-names in various periodicals, and changed them most capriciously. But she thereby escaped being judged by her 'prentice work.

The first story published under her own name was the now well-known "Maid Marian," in Lippincott's Magazine. I was then in possession of the editorial chair, and the success of the story in book form as well as in the maga

zine, and the fact that Miss Seawell's play founded on it has had the remarkable good fortune, for a first effort, to be bought by an artist like Miss Rosina Vokes, confirms my own opinion of "Maid Marian" as one of the brightest and cleverest of modern short stories. Its treatment of the Elizabethan period is thus commended in Shakespeariana for October, 1891: "If Ignatius Donnelly had had Miss Seawell's power of writing Elizabethan colloquial English, and her knowledge of the Elizabethan life and ménage, he could have done his Cipher Narrative' much more colorably. She has it all perfectly. Where could she have got it? Perhaps she was once, in a prior state of existence, an Elizabethan one of the queen's maids of honor."

Naturally, we of the editorial rooms were anxious for more from the same source, and it was at my suggestion that Miss Seawell wrote for the magazine her first novel, "Hale Weston." She claims this as her excuse for having written a novel at all. It was successful, but it commanded the attention of critics more than that of the general public. Letters of inquiry to the magazine came from Europe regarding it, and a well-known German translator asked the privilege of translating it. Her next book, "Throckmorton," published by the Appletons, was highly successful. Miss Seawell had now come to be recognized as one of the most artistic delineators of Southern life and character. To seize the salient points of this interesting and picturesque life needed a nimble intellect, a sympathetic nature, and a good stock of humor. These good gifts Miss Seawell had, and in addition she possessed an elegance of manner that betrays her familiarity with the best English literature. As Scott said of Jane Austen, she does not attempt the big bow-wow style, but confines herself to the dainty, yet vitalizing, touches that add color to incident, and give the breath of life to pictured men and women. More than any of our current authors, she approaches the standard of Jane Austen.

Yet, I am not sure that her novels are the best things Miss Seawell has given us. At all events, I am sure that her short stories, collected in the volume called "Maid Marian, and Other Stories," give promise of still higher perform

ance in the future. These stories have an extraordinary range of subjects, and their versatility called forth much remark at the time of their publication. But Miss Seawell determined upon an incursion into the field of juvenile literature. She had always a "soft spot" for boys, and this sympathetic tenderness for them showed her a straight path to their hearts. It is not surprising, therefore, that her first story for boys, "Little Jarvis," won a prize of $500 offered by the Youth's Companion. It is the true and touching story of a thirteen-year-old midshipman, a regular "pickle," in the early days of the American navy, who, in the language of the resolution of Congress in his honor, "gloriously preferred certain death to the abandonment of his post." As an enthusiastic critic wrote of this story: "All the reading world loved the book." It had an instant and lasting success. Critics vied with each other in praise of its pathos, its humor, and its tenderness. It was read aloud in schools, and at children's celebrations, and Miss Seawell was inundated with delicious, smudged letters from boys whose hearts were won by the heroic "Little Jarvis." So great was its popularity, that it was made the first of a series entitled "Young Heroes of Our Navy," published by D. Appleton & Co. It is beautifully illustrated and bound in nautical style. The second volume, Midshipman

Paulding," had equal success, although Miss Seawell herself owns up to a weakness for "Little Jarvis"-"the only thing I ever wrote that came anywhere near pleasing me," she says. She has found a mine of heroic adventure in the early days of the navy, when there were boy lieutenants and almost baby middies, and she intends exploring it to the full. She is now putting the last touches on "Paul Jones," the most daring sea story she has yet attempted, and undoubtedly the most imposing subject. Very lately she has brought a storm from certain quarters about her head, owing to a lively essay, published in the New York Critic, "On the Absence of the Creative Faculty in Women." Miss Seawell takes the conservative ground, that men have a monopoly of the very highest form of creative intellect. The discussion went on famously, and Andrew Lang, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a great number of ambitious women, and the press generally took a hand in in it. The Critic says that this essay attracted more attention than any other single article ever published in its columns.

So far, Miss Seawell has had unbroken good fortune in her literary career. But she is still unspoiled by her success, and is as natural and unaffected as any woman could possibly be.

NEW YORK, N. Y.

William S. Walsh.

Would it not be wise for authors to refrain from comment on the speech or manner of the characters in their stories? Take the following examples, and they are selected from many that might be cited:

"After so unequivocal a slap in the face, the discussion could hardly continue, and he wound

it up in a manner which lacked neither dignity nor grace."

A letter is introduced thus, "The old gentleman wrote with touching simplicity."

It is not easy for a reader to forget that this is the statement of the writer who is, after all, the originator of the grace and the simplicity