ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD

(1844-1911)

LIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD was born in Andover, Massachusetts, August 31st, 1844; the daughter of Professor Austin Phelps of the Andover Theological Seminary, and his wife Elizabeth Stuart, the author of 'Sunnyside,'- one of the pioneer stories of New England life after the naturalistic manner.

Miss Phelps's education, a classical and scholarly one, was under the supervision of her father, supplemented by studies in theology and miscellaneous reading. The influence of the Civil War tended to excite and develop the literary faculty.

She began to write at an early age; and before she was twenty was the author of the much-discussed The Gates Ajar,' a speculative treatise in the form of a story, depicting the problematic experiences of the soul after death. Besides the fact that the subject was interesting, and the book intimate and in a peculiar manner an appeal to the imagination, the time was well chosen for its production; and an undoubted piquancy was added that such a revolt from cast-iron tradition should have emanated from the

stronghold of orthodoxy. But the subject, though interesting, was not novel. The success of The Gates Ajar' was therefore due to the author's striking characteristics, and the novelty and originality of her way of expressing her ideas.

'The Gates Ajar,' and its successors 'Beyond the Gates' and 'The Gates Between,' cleverly described as "the annexation of heaven," portray the celestial world as a sublimated earth; human nature and its peculiarities occupying a prominent foreground, and Divine personages appearing only in the distance. In this Utopia, innocent likings of individuals become laws: the sportsman is made happy by the presence of his horses and dogs, and the good little girls nurse their dolls. If, however, a profound theme is treated as a scheme of color, and the composition is not disturbed in the treatment, the gravity of the subject does not exclude it from works of art. These books are consistent, and take a certain possession of the

reader, bereaved or speculative. The humor is largely that of section and environment, with a fidelity to the admixture of sentiment and common-sense which is characteristic of New England; the style, a marked one, displays not so much subtlety of expression as the use of unusual terms laden with esoteric meaning.

The success of The Gates Ajar' was phenomenal: the sale in England alone reached one hundred thousand copies, and translations appeared in five Continental languages; at one step Miss Phelps had arrived at fame. Other works followed in rapid succession,- two volumes of poems, several of short stories, one of essays, and ten novels.

The tone of thought and the way of writing are so peculiarly Miss Phelps's own that no one who has read one of her books has the right to feel impatient with another. Her characteristics are marked in the slightest sketch: a high susceptibility to tragic situation, an impassioned human sympathy, and a noble familiarity with the sorrows of the lowly.

In consequence, she is so much the novelist of emotion that she may be said to write with her soul instead of her pen. In her short stories (as The Madonna of the Tubs' and 'The Supply at St. Agatha') she touches the high-water mark of religious melodrama. A single thought seizes and possesses her till she has dramatized it and proclaimed it. Her mind, as ready to take impressions as the sensitive plate of a camera, has been quickened by a life of ministry. And as there is more of misery than joy in the world which she best knows, and as she is too sincere an artist to paint other than what she knows, she presents a series of shipwrecks, figurative and literal, for which only her ability compels our patience.

Now and then she has written a novel of purely human passion, like The Story of Avis'; but with Miss Phelps, human passion is generally making desperate efforts to assert its rights in a conflict with altruism or fidelity, and life is too serious to waste time and paper on any subject less vital than temperance, the wrongs and rights of women, the common-law system and its iniquities, or the evils of modern dress. Her belief in "the cause," whatever it may be, and in herself as its exponent, carries her audience with the force of conviction, and makes it patient with her prolonged analyses of psychological conditions.

When the tension becomes so strained that disaster is threatened, the author takes a swift leap downward into the every-day world, and all concerned draw a long breath. The palpitating heroine generally has a safety-valve in a practical Down-Easter like Mrs. Butterwell in 'Doctor Zay'; whose sayings, slightly profane, are not lacking in humor or common-sense.

No better example of her power in possessing her reader is to be found than in the novel 'A Singular Life,' - a direct appeal to the spiritual nature, whose end is the significance of the Christian life as portrayed in the New Testament. The noble and beautiful hero fights his hard fight among the drunkards and murderers of the New England seaport town, with the booming ocean for a background; but we do not cease to suffer with him till he is hidden from our sight «wrapped in his purple pall.»

If her genius is emotional, it is also essentially feminine. When she strikes she strikes hard, if not directly, with italics. With feminine adroitness she makes a slave of nature, whose ardent votary she is: and knowing to a throb when the blooming of the lilies or the light on the sea will wave or blaze as background for partings or meetings, she does not disdain to use them. "The hall was dark, but the light of the lily was upon her;" "When she lifted her face, rose curlews hung over her, palpitating with joy." She makes the outer world, with its patient inner meaning, the orchestral accompaniment to her favorite airs.

The quality of Mrs. Ward's genius is as unusual as her theories of life are out of the common. But to adapt the saying of one master of contemporary fiction concerning another, «Sentimentality is the dominant note of her music, but her art has made her sentimentality interesting.» Mrs. Ward's later work includes (Within the Gates) (1901), (Though Life Do Us Part) (1908), The Empty House) (1910), and (The Chariot of Fire) (1910). She died on January 28th, 1911.

In 1889 Miss Phelps was married to Mr. Herbert D. Ward. They collaborated on two novels: (Come Forth) and The Master of the Magicians.)

IN THE GRAY GOTH

From 'Men, Women, and Ghosts. Copyright 1869, by Fields, Osgood & Co. F THE wick of the big oil lamp had been cut straight, I don't believe it would ever have happened.

But as I was going to say, when I started to talk about '41, to tell the truth, Johnny, I'm always a long while coming to it, I believe. I'm getting to be an old man,- a little of a coward, maybe; and sometimes, when I sit alone here nights and think it over, it's just like the toothache, Johnny. As I was

saying, if she had cut that wick straight, I do believe it wouldn't have happened,-though it isn't that I mean to lay the blame on her now.

I'd been out at work all day about the place, slicking things up for to-morrow; there was a gap in the barnyard fence to mend, I left that till the last thing, I remember; I remember everything, some way or other, that happened that day,— and there was a new roof to put on the pig-pen, and the grapevine needed an extra layer of straw, and the latch was loose on the south barn-door; then I had to go round and take a last look at the sheep, and toss down an extra forkful for the cows, and go into the stall to have a talk with Ben, and unbutton the coopdoor to see if the hens looked warm,-just to tuck 'em up, as you might say. I always felt sort of homesick - though I wouldn't have owned up to it, not even to Nancy-saying goodby to the creeturs the night before I went in. There, now! it beats all, to think you don't know what I'm talking about, and you a lumberman's son! "Going in" is going up into the woods, you know, to cut and haul for the winter,-up, sometimes, a hundred miles deep,-in in the fall and out in the spring; whole gangs of us shut up there sometimes for six months, then down with the freshets on the logs, and all summer to work the farm,-a merry sort of life when you get used to it, Johnny: but it was a great while ago, and it seems to me as if it must have been very cold.-Isn't there a little draft coming in at the pantry door?

So when I'd said good-by to the creeturs, I remember just as plain how Ben put his great neck on my shoulder and whinnied like a baby; that horse knew when the season came round and I was going in, just as well as I did,—I tinkered up the barnyard fence, and locked the doors, and went in to supper.

I gave my finger a knock with the hammer, which may have had something to do with it; for a man doesn't feel very goodnatured when he's been green enough to do a thing like that, and he doesn't like to say it aches either. But if there is anything I can't bear, it is lamp smoke; it always did put me out, and I expect it always will. Nancy knew what a fuss I made about it, and she was always very careful not to hector me with it. I ought to have remembered that, but I didn't. She had lighted the company lamp on purpose, too, because it was my last night. I liked it better than the tallow candle.

So I came in, stamping off the snow, and they were all in there about the fire, the twins, and Mary Ann, and the rest; baby was sick, and Nancy was walking back and forth with him, with little Nancy pulling at her gown. You were the baby then, I believe, Johnny; but there always was a baby, and I don't rightly remember. The room was so black with smoke that they all looked as if they were swimming round and round in it. I guess coming in from the cold, and the pain in my finger and all, it made me a bit sick. At any rate, I threw open the window and blew out the light, as mad as a hornet.

"Nancy," said I, "this room would strangle a dog, and you might have known it, if you'd had two eyes to see what you were about. There now! I've tipped the lamp over, and you just get a cloth and wipe up the oil."

"Dear me!" said she, lighting a candle, and she spoke up very soft too. "Please, Aaron, don't let the cold in on baby. I'm sorry it was smoking, but I never knew a thing about it: he's been fretting and taking on so the last hour, I didn't notice anyway."

"That's just what you ought to have done," says I, madder than ever. "You know how I hate the stuff, and you ought to have cared more about me than to choke me up with it this way the last night before going in."

Nancy was a patient, gentle-spoken sort of woman, and would bear a good deal from a fellow; but she used to fire up sometimes, and that was more than she could stand. "You don't deserve to be cared about, for speaking like that!" says she, with her cheeks as red as peat-coals.

That was right before the children. Mary Ann's eyes were as big as saucers, and little Nancy was crying at the top of her lungs, with the baby tuning in, so we knew it was time to stop. But stopping wasn't ending; and folks can look things that they don't say.

We sat down to supper as glum as pump-handles: there were some fritters I never knew anybody beat your mother at fritters-smoking hot off the stove, and some maple molasses in one of the best chiny tea-cups; I knew well enough it was just on purpose for my last night, but I never had a word to say; and Nancy crumbed up the children's bread with a jerk. Her cheeks didn't grow any whiter,-it seemed as if they would