A BRILLIANT AMERICAN WRITER.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 320, 6 October 1908, Page 3

A BRILLIANT AMERICAN WRITER.

On August 10 there died in America a woman who was distinguished in the literary' world of England, as in'that of America, for lier delightful,; gracious .personality, a womanj; who having achieved brilliant literary' success in her youth, lived to take in her old age such an interest'in lier yomiger-literary friends, that though her home,was in America she never missed the annual dinner of tho Women Writers' ■ Club held in London, and who dying has left -behind her. a most fragrant, memory. v ' Years ago a well-known American woman writer Said of- her:—"Louise Moulton is, perhaps, "the. most, personally popular among the literary women of our country; she pleases'so entirely that I doubt if .there is a person in the .world who has any but a warm and admiring feeling towards her.. Her- parents wore people of culture, but rigid Calvinist's, and tlie little lonely imaginative child " used -to- suffer from- .chills of theological .terrors, -which, only her: strong vitality enabled lier to overcome. She invented for/ herself the niost fanciful games as she invented lifer, favourite; playmates' people with- romantic histories and highsounding Spanish names that were a constant sourse of joy to her. When she went to school-she had for a time as schoolmate James: MacNeil Whistler, and to her dying day she cherished pictures that he drew for her when-.they studied together. From the time she was seven she used to write stories, and when she was fifteen she sent off her first verses to a daily, paper, and coming home from scbool onoj day "she, happened," says a chronicler—just-'.'asi though . that: sort ■of thing ever " happened " —" she happened to take the paper from, the office and when she opened it, there were the lines." It is recorded that she walked home'on air. '«•>.

A Lucky Girl. V Three years later a famous »Briston publishing firm published " This,; That and the .Other," a-collection of stories and pbems which had appeared in various magazines and newspapers, and which took the public fancy' at once to the extent of fifteen thousand copies. The young authoress was a, little shocked to seo the hiigeposters headed) " Read this and see what a girl of eighteen can do!" . But the reviews of the book lifted her to the seventh heaven. After another year at 'school the , - girl married Mr. Moulton, who edited and , ' published a paper to which she had. often contributed, and then for yoars after she J published continuously stories and poems in " • ious magazines, including "Harper's," el'-: cribner's," and-the : "Atlantic," and as a i - . nalist'she did brilliant work for the New ' ';'••> k" Tribune," sending from' Boston every Week for-six years three.or four letters 'dealing chiefly with literary matters.. Then came a irip to Europe and to England, where she . wais welcomed by many' of the most interest- ' ing people, and where ever since until the day of her death she was assured of 1 a welcome as warm.' - Browning, Gustavo.-'Dore, Swinburne, George Eliot> . and Kinglake, these'were some of the writers she'met, and her book of poems, which was published by Macmillans-(luring her stay in' England, brought her • congratulatory, letters from many moro. Matthew Arnold, Austin Dobson, and many other poets or critics expressed their delight in her work. She was a beautiful woman of "a rare and indefinable charm, and she formed great and lasting friendships with many great people on both sides of the Atlantic. Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, and Holmes were among her American friends, and their friendship was probably due .more to that charm on which all who mention her insist, rather than to her- brilliant intellectual attainments. Sho is almost the last of that famous set, and it ' is to be-hoped that she.has left a record of her acquaintance with these and other famous 1 men. . Whittior and Longfellow. One writer quotes the following stories as having been told by her'of'Whittier:—' " 'When Whittior was a little boy of seven, he was taken by his mother to see a girl who had lost her character, and who'was now dangerously ill. The pious people of the village let her severely alone, but the poet's mother, who was . a .Quaker woman with a very kind heart, did not allow herself to be influenced by common prejudice. Whittier never,forgot how his mother addressed tho sufferer as ' my dear girl,' gave her food, and attended to her comfort. ' After awhile,' he told me, ' I went out of doors, and looking up to the blue sky, I thought that the God who lived up there must be as good as my mother. If she was so helpful to wicked people, Ho could not be less kind. Since that time,' he added, '1 have never doubted the ultimate goodness of God and His loving puipose for the world.' " Longfellow was one of Mrs. Moulton's dearest friends. She tells of his extreme courtesy in answering the letters of _ ■ • ... "Om one occasion when ho was ill Mrs. M'v'Nin was lunching at his h'oiise, and he si ' ! her an enormous pilo of lettors lying e- - -lt.sk. 'AH these must be answered,' In- ■■ 'M. ' when I am stronger.' 1 But,' I .'why trouble to answer them?' 'Well,! he .inswcrcd, 'it seems to me unkind when people have taken the troiiblo to write to me, not to_ send them somo little reply.' Longfellow was quite different from Lowell. As is well known, Lowell would jokingly say that he found the stamps which were forwarded for reply very useful, and that ho kept them for his own purpose."