But how could she pay her board? She owned a, bed and some table linen, and taking these to a boarding house, a bargain was made whereby she could have a room and board in exchange for her household articles.

Her red-letter days had indeed come. She might never have a chance for schooling again; so, without regard to health, she slept only four hours out of the twenty-four, ate her meals hurriedly, and gave all her time to her lessons. Not a scholar in the school could keep up with her. When the teacher gave her Adams' Latin Grammar, telling her to commit such portions as were usual in going over the book the first time, she learned them all in three days!

When the term closed, she had no difficulty in finding a place to teach. All the towns around had heard of the surprising scholar, Mary Lyon, and probably hoped she could inspire the same scholarship in her pupils, a matter in which she was most successful.

As soon as her schools were finished, she would spend the money in obtaining instruction in some particular study, in which she thought herself deficient. Now she would go into the family of Rev. Edward Hitchcock, afterward president of Amherst College, and study natural science of him, meantime taking lessons, of his wife in drawing and painting. Now she would study penmanship, following the copy as closely as a child. Once when a teacher, in deference to her reputation, wrote the copy in Latin, she handed it back and asked him to write in English, lest when the books were examined, she might be thought wiser than she really was. Thus conscientious was the young school-teacher.

She was now twenty-four, and had laid up enough money to attend the school of Rev. Joseph Emerson, at Byfield. He was an unusual man in his gifts of teaching and broad views of life. He had been blest with a wife of splendid talents, and as Miss Lyon was wont to say, "Men judge of the whole sex by their own wives," so Mr. Emerson believed women could understand metaphysics and theology as well as men. He discussed science and religion with his pupils, and the result was a class of self-respecting, self-reliant, thinking women.

Miss Lyon's friends discouraged her going to Byfield, because they thought she knew enough already. "Why," said they, "you will never be a minister, and what is the need of going to school?" She improved her time here. One of her classmates wrote home, "Mary sends love to all; but time with her is too precious to spend it in writing letters. She is gaining knowledge by handfuls."

The next year, an assistant was wanted in the Sanderson Academy. The principal thought a man must be engaged. "Try Mary Lyon," said one of her friends, "and see if she is not sufficient," and he employed her, and found her a host. But she could not long be retained, for she was wanted in a larger field, at Derry, N.H. Miss Grant, one of the teachers at Mr. Emerson's school, had sent for her former bright pupil. Mary was glad to be associated with Miss Grant, for she was very fond of her; but before going, she must attend some lectures in chemistry and natural history by Professor Eaton at Amherst. Had she been a young man, how easily could she have secured a scholarship, and thus worked her way through college; but for a young woman, neither Amherst, nor Dartmouth, nor Williams, nor Harvard, nor Yale, with all their wealth, had an open door. Very fond of chemistry, she could only learn in the spare time which a busy professor could give.

Was the cheerful girl never despondent in these hard working years? Yes; because naturally she was easily discouraged, and would have long fits of weeping; but she came to the conclusion that such seasons of depression were wrong, and that "there was too much to be done, for her to spend her time in that manner." She used to tell her pupils that "if they were unhappy, it was probably because they had so many thoughts about themselves, and so few about the happiness of others." The friend who had recommended her for the Sanderson Academy now became surety for her for forty dollars' worth of clothing, and the earnest young woman started for Derry. The school there numbered ninety pupils, and Mary Lyon was happy. She wrote her mother, "I do not number it among the least of my blessings that I am permitted to do something. Surely I ought to be thankful for an active life."

But the Derry school was held only in the summers, so Miss Lyon came back to teach at Ashfield and Buckland, her birthplace, for the winters. The first season she had twenty-five scholars; the last, one hundred. The families in the neighborhood took the students into their homes to board, charging them one dollar or one dollar and twenty-five cents per week, while the tuition was twenty-five cents a week. No one would grow very rich on such an income. So popular was Miss Lyon's teaching that a suitable building was erected for her school, and the Ministerial Association passed a resolution of praise, urging her to remain permanently in the western part of Massachusetts.

However, Miss Grant had removed to Ipswich, and had urged Miss Lyon to join her, which she did. For six years they taught a large and most successful school. Miss Lyon was singularly happy in her intercourse with the young ladies. She won them to her views, while they scarcely knew that they were being controlled. She would say to them: "Now, young ladies, you are here at great expense. Your board and tuition cost a great deal, and your time ought to be worth more than both; but, in order to get an equivalent for the money and time you are spending, you must be systematic, and that is impossible, unless you have a regular hour for rising.... Persons who run round all day after the half-hour they lost in the morning never accomplish much. You may know them by a rip in the glove, a string pinned to the bonnet, a shawl left on the balustrade, which they had no time to hang up, they were in such a hurry to catch their lost thirty minutes. You will see them opening their books and trying to study at the time of general exercises in school; but it is a fruitless race; they never will overtake their lost half-hour. Good men, from Abraham to Washington, have been early risers." Again, she would say, "Mind, wherever it is found, will secure respect.... Educate the women, and the men will be educated. Let the ladies understand the great doctrine of seeking the greatest good, of loving their neighbors as themselves; let them indoctrinate their children in this fundamental truth, and we shall have wise legislators."

"You won't do so again, will you, dear?" was almost always sure to win a tender response from a pupil.

She would never allow a scholar to be laughed at. If a teacher spoke jestingly of a scholar's capacity, Miss Lyon would say, "Yes, I know she has a small mind, but we must do the best we can for her."

For nearly sixteen years she had been giving her life to the education of girls. She had saved no money for herself, giving it to her relatives or aiding poor girls in going to school. She was simple in her tastes, the blue cloth dress she generally wore having been spun and woven by herself. A friend tells how, standing before the mirror to tie her bonnet, she said, "Well, I may fail of Heaven, but I shall be very much disappointed if I do—very much disappointed;" and there was no thought of what she was doing with the ribbons.

Miss Lyon was now thirty-three years old. It would be strange indeed if a woman with her bright mind and sunshiny face should not have offers of marriage. One of her best opportunities came, as is often the case, when about thirty, and Miss Lyon could have been made supremely happy by it, but she had in her mind one great purpose, and she felt that she must sacrifice home and love for it. This was the building of a high-grade school or college for women. Had she decided otherwise, there probably would have been no Mount Holyoke Seminary.

She had the tenderest sympathy for poor girls; they were the ones usually most desirous of an education, and they struggled the hardest for it. For them no educational societies were provided, and no scholarships. Could she, who had no money, build "a seminary which should be so moderate in its expenses as to be open to the daughters of farmers and artisans, and to teachers who might be mainly dependent for their support on their own exertions"?

In vain she tried to have the school at Ipswich established permanently by buildings and endowments. In vain she talked with college presidents and learned ministers. Nearly all were indifferent. They could see no need that women should study science or the classics. That women would be happier with knowledge, just as they themselves were made happier by it, seemed never to have occurred to them. That women were soon to do nine-tenths of the teaching in the schools of the country could not be foreseen. Oberlin and Cornell, Vassar and Wellesley, belonged to a golden age as yet undreamed of.

For two years she thought over it, and prayed over it, and when all seemed hopeless, she would walk the floor, and say over and over again, "Commit thy way unto the Lord. He will keep thee. Women must be educated; they must be." Finally a meeting was called in Boston at the same time as one of the religious anniversaries. She wrote to a friend, "Very few were present. The meeting was adjourned; and the adjourned meeting utterly failed. There were not enough present to organize, and there the business, in my view, has come to an end."

Still she carried the burden on her heart. She writes, in 1834, "During the past year my heart has so yearned over the adult female youth in the common walks of life, that it has sometimes seemed as though a fire were shut up in my bones." She conceived the idea of having the young women do the work of the house, partly to lessen expenses, partly to teach them useful things, and also because she says, "Might not this single feature do away much of the prejudice against female education among common people?"

At last the purpose in her heart became so strong that she resigned her position as a teacher, and went from house to house in Ipswich collecting funds. She wrote to her mother, "I hope and trust that this is of the Lord, and that He will prosper it. In this movement I have thought much more constantly, and have felt much more deeply, about doing that which shall be for the honor of Christ, and for the good of souls, than I ever did in any step in my life." She determined to raise her first thousand dollars from women. She talked in her good-natured way with the father or the mother. She asked if they wanted a new shawl or card-table or carpet, if they would not find a way to procure it. Usually they gave five or ten dollars; some, only a half-dollar. So interested did two ladies become that they gave one hundred dollars apiece, and later, when their house was burned, and the man who had their money in charge lost it, they worked with their own hands and earned the two hundred, that their portion might not fail in the great work.

In less than two months she had raised the thousand; but she wrote Miss Grant, "I do not recollect being so fatigued, even to prostration, as I have been for a few weeks past." She often quoted a remark of Dr. Lyman Beecher's, "The wear and tear of what I cannot do is a great deal more than the wear and tear of what I do." When she became quite worn, her habit was to sleep nearly all the time, for two or three days, till nature repaired the system.

She next went to Amherst, where good Dr. Hitchcock felt as deeply interested for girls as for the boys in his college. One January morning, with the thermometer below zero, three or four hours before sunrise, he and Miss Lyon started on the stage for Worcester. Each was wrapped in a buffalo robe, so that the long ride was not unpleasant. A meeting was to be held, and a decision made as to the location of the seminary, which, at last, was actually to be built. After a long conference, South Hadley was chosen, ten miles south of Amherst.

One by one, good men became interested in the matter, and one true-hearted minister became an agent for the raising of funds. Miss Lyon was also untiring in her solicitations. She spoke before ladies' meetings, and visited those in high station and low. So troubled were her friends about this public work for a woman, that they reasoned with her that it was in better taste to stay at home, and let gentlemen do the work.

"What do I that is wrong?" she replied. "I ride in the stage coach or cars without an escort. Other ladies do the same. I visit a family where I have been previously invited, and the minister's wife, or some leading woman, calls the ladies together to see me, and I lay our object before them. Is that wrong? I go with Mr. Hawks [the agent], and call on a gentleman of known liberality, at his own house, and converse with him about our enterprise. What harm is there in that? My heart is sick, my soul is pained, with this empty gentility, this genteel nothingness. I am doing a great work. I cannot come down." Pitiful, that so noble a woman should have been hampered by public opinion. How all this has changed! Now, the world and the church gladly welcome the voice, the hand, and the heart of woman in their philanthropic work.

At last, enough money was raised to begin the enterprise, and the corner-stone of Mount Holyoke Seminary was laid, Oct. 3, 1836. "It was a day of deep interest," writes Mary Lyon. "The stones and brick and mortar speak a language which vibrates through my very soul."

"With thankful heart and busy hands she watched the progress of the work. Every detail was under her careful eye. She said: "Had I a thousand lives, I could sacrifice them all in suffering and hardship, for the sake of Mount Holyoke Seminary. Did I possess the greatest fortune, I could readily relinquish it all, and become poor, and more than poor, if its prosperity should demand it."

Finally, in the autumn of 1837, the seminary was ready for pupils. The main building, four stories high, had been erected. An admirable course of study had been provided. For the forty weeks of the school year, the charges for board and tuition were sixty dollars,—only one dollar and twenty-five cents per week. Miss Lyon's own salary was but two hundred a year and she never would receive anything higher. The accommodations were only for eighty pupils, but one hundred and sixteen came the first year.

While Miss Lyon was heartily loved by her scholars, they yet respected her good discipline. It was against the rules for any one to absent herself from meals without permission to do so. One of the young ladies, not feeling quite as fresh as usual, concluded not to go down stairs at tea time, and to remain silent on the subject. Miss Lyon's quick eye detected her absence. Calling the girl's room-mate to her, she asked, "Is Miss —— ill?"

"Oh, no," was the reply, "only a little indisposed, and she commissioned me to carry her a cup of tea and cracker."

"Very well, I will see to it."

After supper, the young lady ascended to her room, in the fourth story, found her companion enjoying a glorious sunset, and seating herself beside her, they began an animated conversation. Presently there was a knock. "Come in!" both shouted gleefully, when lo! in walked Mary Lyon, with the tea and cracker. She had come up four flights of stairs; but she said every one was tired at night, and she could as well bring up the supper as anybody. She inquired with great kindness about the young lady's health, who, greatly abashed, had nothing to say. She was ever after present at meal time, unless sick in bed.

The students never forgot Miss Lyon's plain, earnest words. When they entered, they were told that they were expected to do right without formal commands; if not, they better go to some smaller school, where they could receive the peculiar training needed by little girls. She urged loose clothing and thick shoes. "If you will persist in killing yourselves by reckless exposure," she would say, "we are not willing to take the responsibility of the act. We think, by all means, you better go home and die, in the arms of your dear mothers."

Miss Lyon had come to her fiftieth birthday. Her seminary had prospered beyond her fondest hopes. She had raised nearly seventy thousand dollars for her beloved school, and it was out of debt. Nearly two thousand pupils had been at South Hadley, of whom a large number had become missionaries and teachers. Not a single year had passed without a revival, and rarely did a girl leave the institution without professing Christianity.

She said to a friend shortly after this fiftieth birthday: "It was the most solemn day of my life. I devoted it to reflection and prayer. Of my active toils I then took leave. I was certain that before another fifty years should have elapsed, I should wake up amid far different scenes, and far other thoughts would fill my mind, and other employments would engage my attention. I felt it. There seemed to be no ladder between me and the world above. The gates were opened, and I seemed to stand on the threshold. I felt that the evening of my days had come, and that I needed repose."

And the repose came soon. The last of February, 1849, a young lady in the seminary died. Miss Lyon called the girls together and spoke tenderly to them, urging them not to fear death, but to be ready to meet it. She said, "There is nothing in the universe that I am afraid of, but that I shall not know and do all my duty." Beautiful words! carved shortly after on her monument.

A few days later, Mary Lyon lay upon her death-bed. The brain had been congested, and she was often unconscious. In one of her lucid moments, her pastor said, "Christ precious?" Summoning all her energies, she raised both hands, clasped them, and said, "Yes." "Have you trusted Christ too much?" he asked. Seeing that she made an effort to speak, he said, "God can be glorified by silence." An indescribable smile lit up her face, and she was gone.

On the seminary grounds the beloved teacher was buried, her pupils singing about her open grave, "Why do we mourn departing friends?" A beautiful monument of Italian marble, square, and resting upon a granite pedestal, marks the spot. On the west side are the words:—

MARY LYON, THE FOUNDER OF MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY, AND FOR TWELVE YEARS ITS PRINCIPAL; A TEACHER FOR THIRTY-FIVE YEARS, AND OF MORE THAN THREE THOUSAND PUPILS. BORN, FEBRUARY 28, 1797; DIED, MARCH 5, 1849.

What a devoted, heroic life! and its results, who can estimate?

Her work has gone steadily on. The seminary grounds now cover twenty-five acres. The main structure has two large wings, while a gymnasium; a library building, with thirteen thousand volumes; the Lyman Williston Hall, with laboratories and art gallery; and the new observatory, with fine telescope, astronomical clock, and other appliances, afford such admirable opportunities for higher education as noble Mary Lyon could hardly have dared to hope for. The property is worth about three hundred thousand dollars. How different from the days when half-dollars were given into Miss Lyon's willing hands! Nearly six thousand students have been educated here, three-fourths of whom have become teachers, and about two hundred foreign missionaries. Many have married ministers, presidents of colleges, and leading men in education and good works.

The board and tuition have become one hundred and seventy-five dollars a year, only enough to cover the cost. The range of study has been constantly increased and elevated to keep pace with the growing demand that women shall be as fully educated as men. Even Miss Lyon, in those early days, looked forward to the needs of the future, by placing in her course of study, Sullivan's Political Class-Book, and Wayland's Political Economy. The four years' course is solid and thorough, while the optional course in French, German, and Greek is admirable. Eventually, when our preparatory schools are higher, all our colleges for women will have as difficult entrance examinations as Harvard and Yale.

The housework at Mount Holyoke Seminary requires but half an hour each day for each of the two hundred and ninety-seven pupils. Much time is spent wisely in the gymnasium, and in boating on the lake near by. Habits of punctuality, thoroughness, and order are the outcome of life in this institution. An endowment of twenty thousand dollars, called "the Mary Lyon Fund," is now being raised by former students for the Chair of the Principal. Schools like the Lake Erie Seminary at Painesville, Ohio, have grown out of the school at South Hadley. Truly, Mary Lyon was doing a great work, and she could not come down. Between such a life and the ordinary social round there can be no comparison.

The English ivy grows thickly over Miss Lyon's grave, covering it like a mantle, and sending out its wealth of green leaves in the spring. So each year her own handiwork flourishes, sending out into the world its strongest forces, the very foundation of the highest civilization,—educated and Christian wives and mothers.



HARRIET G. HOSMER.



Some years ago, in an art store in Boston, a crowd of persons stood gazing intently upon a famous piece of statuary. The red curtains were drawn aside, and the white marble seemed almost to speak. A group of girls stood together, and looked on in rapt admiration. One of them said, "Just to think that a woman did it!"

"It makes me proud and glad," said another.

"Who is Harriet Hosmer?" said a third. "I wish I knew about her."

And then one of us, who had stolen all the hours she could get from school life to read art books from the Hartford Athenaeum, and kept crude statues, made by herself from chalk and plaster, secreted in her room, told all she had read about the brilliant author of "Zenobia."

The statue was seven feet high, queenly in pose and face, yet delicate and beautiful, with the thoughts which genius had wrought in it. The left arm supported the elegant drapery, while the right hung listlessly by her side, both wrists chained; the captive of the Emperor Aurelian. Since that time, I have looked upon other masterpieces in all the great galleries of Europe, but perhaps none have ever made a stronger impression upon me than "Zenobia," in those early years.

And who was the artist of whom we girls were so proud? Born in Watertown, Mass., Oct. 9, 1830, Harriet Hosmer came into the welcome home of a leading physician, and a delicate mother, who soon died of consumption. Dr. Hosmer had also buried his only child besides Harriet, with the same disease, and he determined that this girl should live in sunshine and air, that he might save her if possible. He used to say, "There is a whole life-time for the education of the mind, but the body develops in a few years; and during that time nothing should be allowed to interfere with its free and healthy growth."

As soon as the child was large enough, she was given a pet dog, which she decked with ribbons and bells. Then, as the Charles River flowed past their house, a boat was provided, and she was allowed to row at will. A Venetian gondola was also built for her, with silver prow and velvet cushions. "Too much spoiling—too much spoiling," said some of the neighbors; but Dr. Hosmer knew that he was keeping his little daughter on the earth instead of heaven.

A gun was now purchased, and the girl became an admirable marksman. Her room was a perfect museum. Here were birds, bats, beetles, snakes, and toads; some dissected, some preserved in spirits, and others stuffed, all gathered and prepared by her own hands. Now she made an inkstand from the egg of a sea-gull and the body of a kingfisher; now she climbed to the top of a tree and brought down a crow's nest. She could walk miles upon miles with no fatigue. She grew up like a boy, which is only another way of saying that she grew up healthy and strong physically. Probably polite society was shocked at Dr. Hosmer's methods. Would that there were many such fathers and mothers, that we might have a vigorous race of women, and consequently, a vigorous race of men!

When Harriet tired of books,—for she was an eager reader,—she found delight in a clay-pit in the garden, where she molded horses and dogs to her heart's content. Unused to restraint, she did not like the first school at which she was placed, the principal, the brother-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne, writing to her father that he "could do nothing with her."

She was then taken to Mrs. Sedgwick, who kept a famous school at Lenox, Berkshire County. She received "happy Hatty," as she was called, with the remark, "I have a reputation for training wild colts, and I will try this one." And the wise woman succeeded. She won Harriet's confidence, not by the ten thousand times repeated "don't," which so many children hear in home and school, till life seems a prison-pen. She let her run wild, guiding her all the time with so much tact, that the girl scarcely knew she was guided at all. Blessed tact! How many thousands of young people are ruined for lack of it!

She remained here three years. Mrs. Sedgwick says, "She was the most difficult pupil to manage I ever had, but I think I never had one in whom I took so deep an interest, and whom I learned to love so well." About this time, not being quite as well as usual, Dr. Hosmer engaged a physician of, large practice to visit his daughter. The busy man could not be regular, which sadly interfered with Harriet's boating and driving. Complaining one day that it spoiled her pleasure, he said, "If I am alive, I will be here," naming the day and hour.

"Then if you are not here, I am to conclude that you are dead," was the reply.

As he did not come, Harriet drove to the newspaper offices in Boston that afternoon, and the next morning the community was startled to read of Dr. ——'s sudden death. Friends hastened to the house, and messages of condolence came pouring in. It is probable that he was more punctual after this.

On Harriet's return from Lenox, she began to take lessons in drawing, modeling, and anatomical studies, in Boston, frequently walking from home and back, a distance of fourteen miles. Feeling the need of a thorough course in anatomy, she applied to the Boston Medical School for admittance, and was refused because of her sex. The Medical College of St. Louis proved itself broader, glad to encourage talent wherever found, and received her.

Professor McDowell, under whom the artists Powers and Clevenger studied anatomy, spared no pains to give her every advantage, while the students were uniformly courteous. "I remember him," says Miss Hosmer, "with great affection and gratitude as being a most thorough and patient teacher, as well as at all times a good, kind friend." In testimony of her appreciation, she cut, from a bust of Professor McDowell by Clevenger, a life-size medallion in marble, now treasured in the college museum.

While in St. Louis she made her home with the family of Wayman Crow, Esq., whose daughter had been her companion at Lenox. This gentleman proved himself a constant and encouraging friend, ordering her first statue from Rome, and helping in a thousand ways a girl who had chosen for herself an unusual work in life.

After completing her studies she made a trip to New Orleans, and then North to the Falls of St. Anthony, smoking the pipe of peace with the chief of the Dakota Indians, exploring lead mines in Dubuque, and scaling a high mountain that was soon after named for her. Did the wealthy girl go alone on these journeys? Yes. As a rule, no harm comes to a young woman who conducts herself with becoming reserve with men. Flirts usually are paid in their own coin.

On her return home, Dr. Hosmer fitted up a studio for his daughter, and her first work was to copy from the antique. Then she cut Canova's "Napoleon" in marble for her father, doing all the work, that he might especially value the gift. Her next statue was an ideal bust of Hesper, "with," said Lydia Maria Child, "the face of a lovely maiden gently falling asleep with the sound of distant music. Her hair is gracefully arranged, and intertwined with capsules of the poppy. A star shines on her forehead, and under her breast lies the crescent moon. The swell of the cheeks and the bust is like pure, young, healthy flesh, and the muscles of the beautiful mouth so delicately cut, it seems like a thing that breathes. She did every stroke of the work with her own small hands, except knocking off the corners of the block of marble. She employed a man to do that; but as he was unused to work for sculptors, she did not venture to have him approach within several inches of the surface she intended to cut. Slight girl as she was, she wielded for eight or ten hours a day a leaden mallet weighing four pounds and a half. Had it not been for the strength and flexibility of muscle acquired by rowing and other athletic exercises, such arduous labor would have been impossible."

After "Hesper" was completed, she said to her father, "I am ready to go to Rome."

"You shall go, my child, this very autumn," was the response.

He would, of course, miss the genial companionship of his only child, but her welfare was to be consulted rather than his own. When autumn came, she rode on horseback to Wayland to say good-bye to Mrs. Child. "Shall you never be homesick for your museum-parlor in Watertown? Can you be contented in a foreign land?"

"I can be happy anywhere," said Miss Hosmer, "with good health and a bit of marble."

Late in the fall Dr. Hosmer and his daughter started for Europe, reaching Rome Nov. 12, 1852. She had greatly desired to study under John Gibson, the leading English sculptor, but he had taken young women into his studio who in a short time became discouraged or showed themselves afraid of hard work, and he feared Miss Hosmer might be of the same useless type.

When the photographs of "Hesper" were placed before him by an artist friend of the Hosmers, he looked at them carefully, and said, "Send the young lady to me, and whatever I know, and can teach her, she shall learn." He gave Miss Hosmer an upstairs room in his studio, and here for seven years she worked with delight, honored and encouraged by her noble teacher. She wrote to her friends: "The dearest wish of my heart is gratified in that I am acknowledged by Gibson as a pupil. He has been resident in Rome thirty-four years, and leads the van. I am greatly in luck. He has just finished the model of the statue of the queen; and as his room is vacant, he permits me to use it, and I am now in his own studio. I have also a little room for work which was formerly occupied by Canova, and perhaps inspiration may be drawn from the walls."

The first work which she copied, to show Gibson whether she had correctness of eye and proper knowledge, was the Venus of Milo. When nearly finished, the iron which supported the clay snapped, and the figure lay spoiled upon the floor. She did not shrink nor cry, but immediately went to work cheerfully to shape it over again. This conduct Mr. Gibson greatly admired, and made up his mind to assist her all he could.

After this she copied the "Cupid" of Praxitiles and Tasso from the British Museum. Her first original work was Daphne, the beautiful girl whom Apollo loved, and who, rather than accept his addresses, was changed into laurel by the gods. Apollo crowned his head with laurel, and made the flower sacred to himself forever.

Next, Miss Hosmer produced "Medusa," famed for her beautiful hair, which Minerva turned into serpents because Neptune loved her. According to Grecian mythology, Perseus made himself immortal by conquering Medusa, whose head he cut off, and the blood dripping from it filled Africa with snakes. Miss Hosmer represents the beautiful maiden, when she finds, with horror, that her hair is turning into serpents.

Needing a real snake for her work, Miss Hosmer sent a man into the suburbs to bring her one alive. When it was obtained, she chloroformed it till she had made a cast, keeping it in plaster for three hours and a half. Then, instead of killing it, like a true-hearted woman, as she is, she sent it back into the country, glad to regain its liberty.

"Daphne" and "Medusa" were both exhibited in Boston the following year, 1853, and were much praised. Mr. Gibson said: "The power of imitating the roundness and softness of flesh, he had never seen surpassed." Rauch, the great Prussian, whose mausoleum at Charlottenburg of the beautiful queen Louise can never be forgotten, gave Miss Hosmer high praise.

Two years later she completed "Oenone," made for Mr. Crow of St. Louis. It is the full-length figure of the beautiful nymph of Mount Ida. The story is a familiar one. Before the birth of Paris, the son of Priam, it was foretold that he by his imprudence should cause the destruction of Troy. His father gave orders for him to be put to death, but possibly through the fondness of his mother, he was spared, and carried to Mount Ida, where he was brought up by the shepherds, and finally married Oenone. In time he became known to his family, who forgot the prophecy and cordially received him. For a decision in favor of Venus he was promised the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. Forgetting Oenone, he fell in love with the beautiful Helen, already the wife of Menelaus, and persuaded her to fly with him to Troy, to his father's court. War resulted. When he found himself dying of his wounds, he fled to Oenone for help, but died just as he came into her presence. She bathed the body with her tears, and stabbed herself to the heart, a very foolish act for so faithless a man. Miss Hosmer represents her as a beautiful shepherdess, bowed with grief from her desertion.

This work was so much liked in America, that the St. Louis Mercantile Library made a liberal offer for some other statue. Accordingly, two years after, "Beatrice Cenci" was sent. The noble girl lies asleep, the night before her execution, after the terrible torture. "It was," says Mrs. Child, "the sleep of a body worn out with the wretchedness of the soul. On that innocent face suffering had left its traces. The arm that had been tossing in the grief tempest, had fallen heavily, too weary to change itself into a more easy position. Those large eyes, now so closely veiled by their swollen lids, had evidently wept till the fountain of tears was dry. That lovely mouth was still the open portal of a sigh, which the mastery of sleep had left no time to close."

To make this natural, the sculptor caused several models to go to sleep in her studio, that she might study them. Gibson is said to have remarked upon seeing this, "I can teach her nothing." This was also exhibited in London and in several American cities.

For three years she had worked continuously, not leaving Rome even in the hot, unhealthy summers. She had said, "I will not be an amateur; I will work as if I had to earn my daily bread." However, as her health seemed somewhat impaired, at her father's earnest wish, she had decided to go to England for the season. Her trunks were packed, and she was ready to start, when lo! a message came that Dr. Hosmer had lost his property, that he could send her no more money, and suggested that she return home at once.

At first she seemed overwhelmed; then she said firmly, "I cannot go back, and give up my art." Her trunks were at once unpacked and a cheap room rented. Her handsome horse and saddle were sold, and she was now to work indeed "as if she earned her daily bread."

By a strange freak of human nature, by which we sometimes do our most humorous work when we are saddest, Miss Hosmer produced now in her sorrow her fun-loving "Puck." It represents a child about four years old seated on a toadstool which breaks beneath him. The left hand confines a lizard, while the right holds a beetle. The legs are crossed, and the great toe of the right foot turns up. The whole is full of merriment. The Crown Princess of Germany, on seeing it, exclaimed, "Oh, Miss Hosmer, you have such a talent for toes!" Very true, for this statue, with the several copies made from it, brought her thirty thousand dollars! The Prince of Wales has a copy, the Duke of Hamilton also, and it has gone even to Australia and the West Indies. A companion piece is the "Will-o'-the-wisp."

About this time the lovely sixteen-year-old daughter of Madam Falconnet died at Rome, and for her monument in the Catholic church of San Andrea del Fratte, Miss Hosmer produced an exquisite figure resting upon a sarcophagus. Layard, the explorer of Babylon and Nineveh, wrote to Madam Falconnet: "I scarcely remember to have seen a monument which more completely commanded my sympathy and more deeply interested me. I really know of none, of modern days, which I would rather have placed over the remains of one who had been dear to me."

Miss Hosmer also modeled a fountain from the story of Hylas. The lower basin contains dolphins spouting jets, while in the upper basin, supported by swans, the youth Hylas stands, surrounded by the nymphs who admire his beauty, and who eventually draw him into the water, where he is drowned.

Miss Hosmer returned to America in 1857, five years after her departure. She was still young, twenty-seven, vivacious, hopeful, not wearied from her hard work, and famous. While here she determined upon a statue of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, and read much concerning her and her times. She had touched fiction and poetry; now she would attempt history. She could scarcely have chosen a more heroic or pathetic subject. The brave leader of a brave people, a skilful warrior, marching at the head of her troops, now on foot, and now on horseback, beautiful in face, and cultured in mind, acquainted with Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Egyptian, finally captured by Aurelian, and borne through the streets of Rome, adorning his triumphal procession.

After Miss Hosmer's return to Rome, she worked on "Zenobia" with energy and enthusiasm, as she molded the clay, and then the plaster. When brought to this country, it awakened the greatest interest; crowds gathered to see it. In Chicago it was exhibited at the Sanitary Fair in behalf of the soldiers. Whittier said: "It very fully expresses my conception of what historical sculpture should be. It tells its whole proud and melancholy story. In looking at it, I felt that the artist had been as truly serving her country while working out her magnificent design abroad, as our soldiers in the field, and our public officers in their departments." From its exhibition Miss Hosmer received five thousand dollars. It was purchased by Mr. A.W. Griswold, of New York. So great a work was the statue considered in London, that some of the papers declared Gibson to be its author. Miss Hosmer at once began suits for libel, and retractions were speedily made.

In 1860 Miss Hosmer again visited America, to see her father, who was seriously ill. How proud Dr. Hosmer must have been of his gifted daughter now that her fame was in two hemispheres! Surely he had not "spoiled" her. She could now spend for him as he had spent for her in her childhood. While here, she received a commission from St. Louis for a bronze portrait-statue of Missouri's famous statesman, Thomas Hart Benton. The world wondered if she could bring out of the marble a man with all his strength and dignity, as she had a woman with all her grace and nobility.

She visited St. Louis, to examine portraits and mementos of Colonel Benton, and then hastened across the ocean to her work. The next year a photograph of the model was sent to the friends, and the likeness pronounced good. The statue was cast at the great royal foundry at Munich, and in due time shipped to this country. May 27, 1868, it was unveiled in Lafayette Park, in the presence of an immense concourse of people, the daughter, Mrs. John C. Fremont, removing the covering. The statue is ten feet high, and weighs three and one-half tons. It rests on a granite pedestal, ten feet square, the whole being twenty-two feet square. On the west side of the pedestal are the words from Colonel Benton's famous speech on the Pacific Railroad, "There is the East—there is India." Both press and people were heartily pleased with this statue, for which Miss Hosmer received ten thousand dollars, the whole costing thirty thousand.

She was now in the midst of busy and successful work. Orders crowded upon her. Her "Sleeping Faun," which was exhibited at the Dublin Exhibition in 1865, was sold on the day of opening for five thousand dollars, to Sir Benjamin Guinness. Some discussion having arisen about the sale, he offered ten thousand, saying, that if money could buy it, he would possess it. Miss Hosmer, however, would receive only the five thousand. The faun is represented reclining against the trunk of a tree, partly draped in the spoils of a tiger. A little faun, with mischievous look, is binding the faun to the tree with the tiger-skin. The newspapers were enthusiastic about the work.

The London Times said: "In the groups of statues are many works of exquisite beauty, but there is one which at once arrests attention and extorts admiration. It is a curious fact that amid all the statues in this court, contributed by the natives of lands in which the fine arts were naturalized thousands of years ago, one of the finest should be the production of an American artist." The French Galignani said, "The gem of the classical school, in its nobler style of composition, is due to an American lady, Miss Hosmer." The London Art Journal said, "The works of Miss Hosmer, Hiram Powers, and others we might name, have placed American on a level with the best modern sculptors of Europe." This work was repeated for the Prince of Wales and for Lady Ashburton, of England.

Not long ago I visited the studio of Miss Hosmer in the Via Margutta, at Rome, and saw her numerous works, many of them still unfinished. Here an arm seemed just reaching out from the rough block of marble; here a sweet face seemed like Pygmalion's statue, coming into life. In the centre of the studio was the "Siren Fountain," executed for Lady Marion Alford. A siren sits in the upper basin and sings to the music of her lute. Three little cupids sit on dolphins, and listen to her music.

For some years Miss Hosmer has been preparing a golden gateway for an art gallery at Ashridge Hall, England, ordered by Earl Brownlow. These gates, seventeen feet high, are covered with bas-reliefs representing the Air, Earth, and Sea. The twelve hours of the night show "Aeolus subduing the Winds," the "Descent of the Zephyrs," "Iris descending with the Dew," "Night rising with the Stars," "The Rising Moon," "The Hour's Sleep," "The Dreams Descend," "The Falling Star," "Phosphor and Hesper," "The Hours Wake," "Aurora Veils the Stars," and "Morning." More than eighty figures are in the nineteen bas-reliefs. Miss Hosmer has done other important works, among them a statue of the beautiful Queen of Naples, who was a frequent visitor to the artist's studio, and several well-known monuments. With her girlish fondness for machinery, she has given much thought to mechanics in these later years, striving to find, like many another, the secret of producing perpetual motion. She spends much of her time now in England. She is still passionately fond of riding, the Empress of Austria, who owns more horses than any woman in the world, declaring "that there was nothing she looked forward to with more interest in Rome, than to see Miss Hosmer ride."

Many of the closing years of the sculptor's long life were spent in Rome, where she had a wide circle of eminent American and English friends, among whom were Hawthorne, Thackeray, George Eliot, and the Brownings. She made several discoveries in her work, one of which was a process of hardening limestone so that it resembled marble. She also wrote both prose and poetry, and would have been successful as an author, if she had not given the bulk of her time to her beloved sculpture.

After her long sojourn in Rome she spent several years in England, executing important commissions, and then turned her face toward America. In Watertown, where she was born, she again made her home; and here she breathed her last, February 21, 1908, after an illness of three weeks. She was in her seventy-eighth year. By her long life of earnest work and self-reliant purpose, coupled with her high gift, she has made for herself an abiding place in the history of art.



MADAME DE STAEL.



It was the twentieth of September, 1881. The sun shone out mild and beautiful upon Lake Geneva, as we sailed up to Coppet. The banks were dotted with lovely homes, half hidden by the foliage, while brilliant flower-beds came close to the water's edge. Snow-covered Mont Blanc looked down upon the restful scene, which seemed as charming as anything in Europe.

We alighted from the boat, and walked up from the landing, between great rows of oaks, horsechestnuts, and sycamores, to the famous home we had come to look upon,—that of Madame de Stael. It is a French chateau, two stories high, drab, with green blinds, surrounding an open square; vines clamber over the gate and the high walls, and lovely flowers blossom everywhere. As you enter, you stand in a long hall, with green curtains, with many busts, the finest of which is that of Monsieur Necker. The next room is the large library, with furniture of blue and white; and the next, hung with old Gobelin tapestry, is the room where Madame Recamier used to sit with Madame de Stael, and look out upon the exquisite scenery, restful even in their troubled lives. Here is the work-table of her whom Macaulay called "the greatest woman of her times," and of whom Byron said, "She is a woman by herself, and has done more than all the rest of them together, intellectually; she ought to have been a man."

Next we enter the drawing-room, with carpet woven in a single piece; the furniture red and white. We stop to look upon the picture of Monsieur Necker, the father, a strong, noble-looking man; of the mother, in white silk dress, with powdered hair, and very beautiful; and De Stael herself, in a brownish yellow dress, with low neck and short sleeves, holding in her hand the branch of flowers, which she always carried, or a leaf, that thus her hands might be employed while she engaged in the conversation that astonished Europe. Here also are the pictures of the Baron, her husband, in white wig and military dress; here her idolized son and daughter, the latter beautiful, with mild, sad face, and dark hair and eyes.

What brings thousands to this quiet retreat every year? Because here lived and wrote and suffered the only person whom the great Napoleon feared, whom Galiffe, of Geneva, declared "the most remarkable woman that Europe has produced"; learned, rich, the author of Corinne and Allemagne, whose "talents in conversation," says George Ticknor, "were perhaps the most remarkable of any person that ever lived."

April 27, 1766, was the daughter of James Necker, Minister of Finance under Louis XVI., a man of fine intellect, the author of fifteen volumes; and Susanna, daughter of a Swiss pastor, beautiful, educated, and devotedly Christian. Necker had become rich in early life through banking, and had been made, by the republic of Geneva, her resident minister at the Court of Versailles.

When the throne of Louis seemed crumbling, because the people were tired of extravagance and heavy taxation, Necker was called to his aid, with the hope that economy and retrenchment would save the nation. He also loaned the government two million dollars. The home of the Neckers, in Paris, naturally became a social centre, which the mother of the family was well fitted to grace. Gibbon had been deeply in love with her.

He says: "I found her learned without pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant in manners; and the first sudden emotion was fortified by the habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance.... At Crassier and Lausanne I indulged my dream of felicity; but on my return to England I soon discovered that my father would not hear of this strange alliance, and that, without his consent, I was myself destitute and helpless. After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate; I sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son." Gibbon never married, but retained his life-long friendship and admiration for Madame Necker.

It was not strange, therefore, that Gibbon liked to be present in her salon, where Buffon, Hume, Diderot, and D'Alembert were wont to gather. The child of such parents could scarcely be other than intellectual, surrounded by such gifted minds. Her mother, too, was a most systematic teacher, and each day the girl was obliged to sit by her side, erect, on a wooden stool, and learn difficult lessons.

"She stood in great awe of her mother," wrote Simond, the traveller, "but was exceedingly familiar with and extravagantly fond of her father. Madame Necker had no sooner left the room one day, after dinner, than the young girl, till then timidly decorous, suddenly seized her napkin, and threw it across the table at the head of her father, and then flying round to him, hung upon his neck, suffocating all his reproofs by her kisses." Whenever her mother returned to the room, she at once became silent and restrained.

The child early began to show literary talent, writing dramas, and making paper kings and queens to act her tragedies. This the mother thought to be wrong, and it was discontinued. But when she was twelve, the mother having somewhat relented, she wrote a play, which she and her companions acted in the drawing-room. Grimm was so pleased with her attempts, that he sent extracts to his correspondents throughout Europe. At fifteen she wrote an essay on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and another upon Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws.

Overtaxing the brain with her continuous study, she became ill, and the physician, greatly to her delight, prescribed fresh air and sunshine. Here often she roamed from morning till night on their estate at St. Ouen. Madame Necker felt deeply the thwarting of her educational plans, and years after, when her daughter had acquired distinction, said, "It is absolutely nothing compared to what I would have made it."

Monsieur Necker's restriction of pensions and taxing of luxuries soon aroused the opposition of the aristocracy, and the weak but good-hearted King asked his minister to resign. Both wife and daughter felt the blow keenly, for both idolized him, so much so that the mother feared lest she be supplanted by her daughter. Madame de Stael says of her father, "From the moment of their marriage to her death, the thought of my mother dominated his life. He was not like other men in power, attentive to her by occasional tokens of regard, but by continual expressions of most tender and most delicate sentiment." Of herself she wrote, "Our destinies would have united us forever, if fate had only made us contemporaries." At his death she said, "If he could be restored to me, I would give all my remaining years for six months." To the last he was her idol.

For the next few years the family travelled most of the time, Necker bringing out a book on the Finances, which had a sale at once of a hundred thousand copies. A previous book, the Compte Rendu au Roi, showing how for years the moneys of France had been wasted, had also a large sale. For these books, and especially for other correspondence, he was banished forty leagues from Paris. The daughter's heart seemed well-nigh broken at this intelligence. Loving Paris, saying she would rather live there on "one hundred francs a year, and lodge in the fourth story," than anywhere else in the world, how could she bear for years the isolation of the country? Joseph II., King of Poland, and the King of Naples, offered Necker fine positions, but he declined.

Mademoiselle Necker had come to womanhood, not beautiful, but with wonderful fascination and tact. She could compliment persons without flattery, was cordial and generous, and while the most brilliant talker, could draw to herself the thoughts and confidences of others. She had also written a book on Rousseau, which was much talked about. Pitt, of England, Count Fersen, of Sweden, and others, sought her in marriage, but she loved no person as well as her father. Her consent to marriage could be obtained only by the promise that she should never be obliged to leave him.

Baron de Stael, a man of learning and fine social position, ambassador from Sweden, and the warm friend of Gustavus, was ready to make any promises for the rich daughter of the Minister Necker. He was thirty-seven, she only a little more than half his age, twenty, but she accepted him because her parents were pleased. Going to Paris, she was, of course, received at Court, Marie Antoinette paying her much attention. Necker was soon recalled from exile to his old position.

The funds rose thirty per cent, and he became the idol of the people. Soon representative government was demanded, and then, though the King granted it, the breach was widened. Necker, unpopular with the bad advisers of the King, was again asked to leave Paris, and make no noise about it; but the people, hearing of it, soon demanded his recall, and he was hastily brought back from Brussels, riding through the streets like "the sovereign of a nation," said his daughter. The people were wild with delight.

But matters had gone too far to prevent a bloody Revolution. Soon a mob was marching toward Versailles; thousands of men, women, and even children armed with pikes. They reached the palace, killed the guards, and penetrated to the queen's apartments, while some filled the court-yard and demanded bread. The brave Marie Antoinette appeared on the balcony leading her two children, while Lafayette knelt by her side and kissed her hand. But the people could not be appeased.

Necker finding himself unable to serve his king longer, fled to his Swiss retreat at Coppet, and there remained till his death. Madame de Stael, as the wife of the Swedish ambassador, continued in the turmoil, writing her father daily, and taking an active interest in politics. "In England," she said, "women are accustomed to be silent before men when political questions are discussed. In France, they direct all conversation, and their minds readily acquire the facility and talent which this privilege requires." Lafayette, Narbonne, and Talleyrand consulted with her. She wrote the principal part of Talleyrand's report on Public Instruction in 1790. She procured the appointment of Narbonne to the ministry; and later, when Talleyrand was in exile, obtained his appointment to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Matters had gone from bad to worse. In 1792 the Swedish government suspended its embassy, and Madame de Stael prepared to fly, but stayed for a time to save her friends. The seven prisons of Paris were all crowded under the fearful reign of Danton and Marat. Great heaps of dead lay before every prison door. During that Reign of Terror it is estimated that eighteen thousand six hundred persons perished by the guillotine. Whole squares were shot down. "When the police visited her house, where some of the ministers were hidden, she met them graciously, urging that they must not violate the privacy of an ambassador's house. When her friends were arrested, she went to the barbarous leaders, and with her eloquence begged for their safety, and thus saved the lives of many.

At last she must leave the terror-stricken city. Supposing that her rank as the wife of a foreign ambassador would protect her, she started with a carriage and six horses, her servants in livery. At once a crowd of half-famished and haggard women crowded around, and threw themselves against the horses. The carriage was stopped, and the occupants were taken to the Assembly. She plead her case before the noted Robespierre, and then waited for six hours for the decision of the Commune. Meantime she saw the hired assassins pass beneath the windows, their bare arms covered with the blood of the slain. The mob attempted to pillage her carriage, but a strong man mounted the box and defended it. She learned afterward that it was the notorious Santerre, the person who later superintended the execution of Louis XVI., ordering his drummers to drown the last words of the dying King. Santerre had seen Necker distribute corn to the poor of Paris in a time of famine, and now he was befriending the daughter for this noble act. Finally she was allowed to continue her journey, and reached Coppet with her baby, Auguste, well-nigh exhausted after this terrible ordeal.

The Swiss home soon became a place of refuge for those who were flying from the horrors of the Commune. She kept a faithful agent, who knew the mountain passes, busy in this work of mercy.

The following year, 1793, longing for a change from these dreadful times, she visited England, and received much attention from prominent persons, among them Fanny Burny, the author of Evelina, who owned "that she had never heard conversation before. The most animated eloquence, the keenest observation, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, were united to charm her."

On Jan. 21 of this year, the unfortunate King had met his death on the scaffold before an immense throng of people. Six men bound him to the plank, and then his head was severed from his body amid the shouts and waving of hats of the blood-thirsty crowd. Necker had begged to go before the Convention and plead for his king, but was refused. Madame de Stael wrote a vigorous appeal to the nation in behalf of the beautiful and tenderhearted Marie Antoinette; but on Sept. 16, 1793, at four o'clock in the morning, in an open cart, in the midst of thirty thousand troops and a noisy rabble, she, too, was borne to the scaffold; and when her pale face was held up bleeding before the crowd, they jeered and shouted themselves hoarse.

The next year 1794, Madame Necker died at Coppet, whispering to her husband, "We shall see each other in Heaven." "She looked heavenward," said Necker in a most affecting manner, "listening while I prayed; then, in dying, raised the finger of her left hand, which wore the ring I had given her, to remind me of the pledge engraved upon it, to love her forever." His devotion to her was beautiful. "No language," says his daughter, "can give any adequate idea of it. Exhausted by wakefulness at night, she slept often in the daytime, resting her head on his arm. I have seen him remain immovable, for hours together, standing in the same position for fear of awakening her by the least movement. Absent from her during a few hours of sleep, he inquired, on his return, of her attendant, if she had asked for him? She could no longer speak, but made an effort to say 'yes, yes.'"

When the Revolution was over, and France had become a republic, Sweden sent back her ambassador, Baron de Stael, and his wife returned to him at Paris. Again her salon became the centre for the great men of the time. She loved liberty, and believed in the republican form of government. She had written her book upon the Influence of the Passions on the Happiness of Individuals and Nations, prompted by the horrors of the Revolution, and it was considered "irresistible in energy and dazzling in thought."

She was also devoting much time to her child, Auguste, developing him without punishment, thinking that there had been too much rigor in her own childhood. He well repaid her for her gentleness and trust, and was inseparable from her through life, becoming a noble Christian man, and the helper of all good causes. Meantime Madame de Stael saw with alarm the growing influence of the young Corsican officer, Bonaparte. The chief executive power had been placed in the hands of the Directory, and he had control of the army. He had won brilliant victories in Italy, and had been made commander-in-chief of the expedition against Egypt He now returned to Paris, turned out the Directory, drove out the Council of Five Hundred from the hall of the Assembly at the point of the bayonet, made the government into a consulate with three consuls, of whom he was the first, and lived at the Tuileries in almost royal style.

All this time Madame de Stael felt the egotism and heartlessness of Napoleon. Her salon became more crowded than ever with those who had their fears for the future. "The most eloquent of the Republican orators were those who borrowed from her most of their ideas and telling phrases. Most of them went forth from her door with speeches ready for the next day, and with resolution to pronounce them—a courage which was also derived from her." Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte, the brothers of Napoleon, were proud of her friendship, and often were guests at her house, until forbidden by their brother.

When Benjamin Constant made a speech against the "rising tyranny," Napoleon suspected that she had prompted it, and denounced her heartily, all the time declaring that he loved the Republic, and would always defend it! He said persons always came away from De Stael's home "less his friends than when they entered." About this time her book, Literature considered in its Relation to Social Institutions, was published, and made a surprising impression from its wealth of knowledge and power of thought. Its analysis of Greek and Latin literature, and the chief works in Italian, English, German, and French, astonished everybody, because written by a woman!

Soon after Necker published his Last Views of Politics and Finance, in which he wrote against the tyranny of a single man. At once Napoleon caused a sharp letter to be written to Necker advising him to leave politics to the First Consul, "who was alone able to govern France," and threatening his daughter with exile for her supposed aid in his book. She saw the wisdom of escaping from France, lest she be imprisoned, and immediately hastened to Coppet. A few months later, in the winter of 1802, she returned to Paris to bring home Baron de Stael, who was ill, and from whom she had separated because he was spending all her fortune and that of her three children. He died on the journey.

Virtually banished from France, she now wrote her Delphine, a brilliant novel which was widely read. It received its name from a singular circumstance.

"Desirous of meeting the First Consul for some urgent reason," says Dr. Stevens in his charming biography of Madame de Stael, "she went to the villa of Madame de Montessan, whither he frequently resorted. She was alone in one of the salles when he arrived, accompanied by the consular court of brilliant young women. The latter knew the growing hostility of their master toward her, and passed, without noticing her, to the other end of the salle, leaving her entirely alone. Her position was becoming extremely painful, when a young lady, more courageous and more compassionate than her companions, crossed the salle and took a seat by her side. Madame de Stael was touched by this kindness, and asked for her Christian name. 'Delphine,' she responded. 'Ah, I will try to immortalize it,' exclaimed Madame de Stael; and she kept her word. This sensible young lady was the Comtesse de Custine."

Her home at Coppet became the home of many great people. Sismondi, the author of the History of the Italian Republics, and Literature of Southern Europe, encouraged by her, wrote here several of his famous works. Bonstetten made his home here for years. Schlegel, the greatest critic of his age, became the teacher of her children, and a most intimate friend. Benjamin Constant, the author and statesman, was here. All repaired to their rooms for work in the morning, and in the evening enjoyed philosophic, literary, and political discussions.

Bonstetten said: "In seeing her, in hearing her, I feel myself electrified.... She daily becomes greater and better; but souls of great talent have great sufferings: they are solitary in the world, like Mont Blanc."

In the autumn of 1803, longing for Paris, she ventured to within ten leagues and hired a quiet home. Word was soon borne to Napoleon that the road to her house was thronged with visitors. He at once sent an officer with a letter signed by himself, exiling her to forty leagues from Paris, and commanding her to leave within twenty-four hours.

At once she fled to Germany. At Frankfort her little daughter was dangerously ill. "I knew no person in the city," she writes. "I did not know the language; and the physician to whom I confided my child could not speak French. But my father shared my trouble; he consulted physicians at Geneva, and sent me their prescriptions. Oh, what would become of a mother trembling for the life of her child, if it were not for prayer!"

Going to Weimar, she met Goethe, Wieland, Schiller, and other noted men. At Berlin, the greatest attention was shown her. The beautiful Louise of Prussia welcomed her heartily. During this exile her father died, with his latest breath saying," She has loved me dearly! She has loved me dearly!" On his death-bed he wrote a letter to Bonaparte telling him that his daughter was in nowise responsible for his book, but it was never answered. It was enough for Napoleon to know that she did not flatter him; therefore he wished her out of the way.

Madame de Stael was for a time completely overcome by Necker's death. She wore his picture on her person as long as she lived. Only once did she part with it, and then she imagined it might console her daughter in her illness. Giving it to her, she said, "Gaze upon it, gaze upon it, when you are in pain."

She now sought repose in Italy, preparing those beautiful descriptions for her Corinne, and finally returning to Coppet, spent a year in writing her book. It was published in Paris, and, says Sainte-Beuve, "its success was instantaneous and universal. As a work of art, as a poem, the romance of Corinne is an immortal monument." Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, called the author the greatest writer in France since Voltaire and Rousseau, and the greatest woman writer of any age or country. Napoleon, however, in his official paper, caused a scathing criticism on Corinne to appear; indeed, it was declared to be from his own pen. She was told by the Minister of Police, that she had but to insert some praise of Napoleon in Corinne, and she would be welcomed back to Paris. She could not, however, live a lie, and she feared Napoleon had evil designs upon France.

Again she visited Germany with her children, Schlegel, and Sismondi. So eager was everybody to see her and hear her talk, that Bettina von Arnim says in her correspondence with Goethe: "The gentlemen stood around the table and planted themselves behind us, elbowing one another. They leaned quite over me, and I said in French, 'Your adorers quite suffocate me.'"

While in Germany, her eldest son, then seventeen, had an interview with Bonaparte about the return of his mother. "Your mother," said Napoleon, "could not be six months in Paris before I should be compelled to send her to Bicetre or the Temple. I should regret this necessity, for it would make a noise and might injure me a little in public opinion. Say, therefore, to her that as long as I live she cannot re-enter Paris. I see what you wish, but it cannot be; she will commit follies; she will have the world about her."

On her return to Coppet, she spent two years in writing her Allemagne, for which she had been making researches for four years. She wished it published in Paris, as Corinne had been, and submitted it to the censors of the Press. They crossed out whatever sentiments they thought might displease Napoleon, and then ten thousand copies were at once printed, she meantime removing to France, within her proscribed limits, that she might correct the proof-sheets.

What was her astonishment to have Napoleon order the whole ten thousand destroyed, and her to leave France in three days! Her two sons attempted to see Bonaparte, who was at Fontainebleau, but were ordered to turn back, or they would be arrested. The only reason given for destroying the work was the fact that she had been silent about the great but egotistical Emperor.

Broken in spirit, she returned to Geneva. Amid all this darkness a new light was about to beam upon her life. In the social gatherings made for her, she observed a young army officer, Monsieur Rocca, broken in health from his many wounds, but handsome and noble in face, and, as she learned, of irreproachable life. Though only twenty-three and she forty-five, the young officer was fascinated by her conversation, and refreshed in spirits by her presence. She sympathized with his misfortunes in battle; she admired his courage. He was lofty in sentiments, tender in heart, and gave her what she had always needed, an unselfish and devoted love. When discouraged by his friends, he replied, "I will love her so much that I will finish by making her marry me."

They were married in 1811, and the marriage was a singularly happy one. The reason for it is not difficult to perceive. A marriage that has not a pretty face or a passing fancy for its foundation, but appreciation of a gifted mind and noble heart,—such a marriage stands the test of time.

The marriage was kept secret from all save a few intimate friends, Madame de Stael fearing that if the news reached Napoleon, Rocca would be ordered back to France. Her fears were only too well founded. Schlegel, Madame Recamier, all who had shown any sympathy for her, began to be exiled. She was forbidden under any pretext whatever from travelling in Switzerland, or entering any region annexed to France. She was advised not to go two leagues from Coppet, lest she be imprisoned, and this with Napoleon usually meant death.

The Emperor seemed about to conquer the whole world. Whither could she fly to escape his persecution? She longed to reach England, but there was an edict against any French subject entering that country without special permit. Truly his heel was upon France. The only way to reach that country was through Austria, Russia, and Sweden, two thousand leagues. But she must attempt it. She passed an hour in prayer by her parent's tomb, kissed his armchair and table, and took his cloak to wrap herself in should death come.

May 23, 1812, she, with Rocca and two of her children, began their flight by carriage, not telling the servants at the chateau, but that they should return for the next meal.

They reached Vienna June 6, and were at once put under surveillance. Everywhere she saw placards admonishing the officers to watch her sharply. Rocca had to make his way alone, because Bonaparte had ordered his arrest. They were permitted to remain only a few hours in any place. Once Madame de Stael was so overcome by this brutal treatment that she lost consciousness, and was obliged to be taken from her carriage to the roadside till she recovered. Every hour she expected arrest and death.

Finally, worn in body, she reached Russia, and was cordially received by Alexander and Empress Elizabeth. From here she went to Sweden, and had an equally cordial welcome from Bernadotte, the general who became king. Afterward she spent four months in England, bringing out Allemagne. Here she received a perfect ovation. At Lord Lansdowne's the first ladies in the kingdom mounted on chairs and tables to catch a glimpse of her. Sir James Mackintosh said: "The whole fashionable and literary world is occupied with Madame de Stael, the most celebrated woman of this, or perhaps of any age." Very rare must be the case where a woman of fine mind does not have many admirers among gentlemen.

Her Allemagne was published in 1813, the manuscript having been secretly carried over Germany, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the Baltic Sea. The first part treated of the manners of Germany; the second, its literature and art; the third, its philosophy and morals; the fourth, its religion. The book had a wonderful sale, and was soon translated into all the principal tongues of Europe. Lamartine said: "Her style, without losing any of its youthful vigor and splendor, seemed now to be illuminated with more lofty and eternal lights as she approached the evening of life, and the diviner mysteries of thought. This style no longer paints, no longer chants; it adores.... Her name will live as long as literature, as long as the history of her country."

Meantime, great changes had taken place in France. Napoleon had been defeated at Leipsic, leaving a quarter of a million murdered on his battle-fields; he had abdicated, and was on his way to Elba. She immediately returned to Paris, with much the same feeling as Victor Hugo, when he wept as he came from his long exile under "Napoleon the Little." Again to her salon came kings and generals, Alexander of Russia, Wellington, and others.

But soon Napoleon returned, and she fled to Coppet. He sent her an invitation to come to Paris, declaring he would now live for the peace of Europe, but she could not trust him. She saw her daughter, lovely and beautiful, married to the Duc de Broglie, a leading statesman, and was happy in her happiness. Rocca's health was failing, and they repaired to Italy for a time.

In 1816 they returned to Paris, Napoleon having gone from his final defeat to St. Helena. But Madame de Stael was broken with her trials. She seemed to grow more and more frail, till the end came. She said frequently, "My father awaits me on the other shore." To Chateaubriand she said, "I have loved God, my father, and my country." She could not and would not go to sleep the last night, for fear she might never look upon Rocca again. He begged her to sleep and he would awaken her often. "Good night," she said, and it was forever. She never wakened. They buried her beside her father at Coppet, under the grand old trees. Rocca died in seven months, at the age of thirty-one. "I hoped," he said, "to have died in her arms."

Her little son, and Rocca's, five years old, was cared for by Auguste and Albertine, her daughter. After Madame de Stael's death, her Considerations on the French Revolution and Ten Years of Exile were published. Of the former, Sainte-Beuve says: "Its publication was an event. It was the splendid public obsequies of the authoress. Its politics were destined to long and passionate discussions and a durable influence. She is perfect only from this day; the full influence of her star is only at her tomb."

Chateaubriand said, "Her death made one of those breaches which the fall of a superior intellect produces once in an age, and which can never be closed."

As kind as she was great, loving deeply and receiving love in return, she has left an imperishable name. No wonder that thousands visit that quiet grave beside Lake Geneva.



ROSA BONHEUR



In a simple home in Paris could have been seen, in 1829, Raymond Bonheur and his little family,—Rosa, seven years old, August, Isadore, and Juliette. He was a man of fine talent in painting, but obliged to spend his time in giving drawing-lessons to support his children. His wife, Sophie, gave lessons on the piano, going from house to house all day long, and sometimes sewing half the night, to earn a little more for the necessities of life.

Hard work and poverty soon bore its usual fruit, and the tired young mother died in 1833. The three oldest children were sent to board with a plain woman, "La mere Catherine," in the Champs Elysees, and the youngest was placed with relatives. For two years this good woman cared for the children, sending them to school, though she was greatly troubled because Rosa persisted in playing in the woods of the Bois de Boulogne, gathering her arms full of daisies and marigolds, rather than to be shut up in a schoolroom. "I never spent an hour of fine weather indoors during the whole of the two years," she has often said since those days.

Finally the father married again and brought the children home. The two boys were placed in school, and M. Bonheur paid their way by giving drawing lessons three times a week in the institution. If Rosa did not love school, she must be taught something useful, and she was accordingly placed in a sewing establishment to become a seamstress.

The child hated sewing, ran the needle into her fingers at every stitch, cried for the fresh air and sunshine, and finally, becoming pale and sickly, was taken back to the Bonheur home. The anxious painter would try his child once more in school; so he arranged that she should attend, with compensation met in the same way as for his boys. Rosa soon became a favorite with the girls in the Fauborg St. Antoine School, especially because she could draw such witty caricatures of the teachers, which she pasted against the wall, with bread chewed into the consistency of putty. The teachers were not pleased, but so struck were they with the vigor and originality of the drawings, that they carefully preserved the sketches in an album.

The girl was far from happy. Naturally sensitive—as what poet or painter was ever born otherwise?—she could not bear to wear a calico dress and coarse shoes, and eat with an iron spoon from a tin cup, when the other girls wore handsome dresses, and had silver mugs and spoons. She grew melancholy, neglected her books, and finally became so ill that she was obliged to be taken home.

And now Raymond Bonheur very wisely decided not to make plans for his child for a time, but see what was her natural tendency. It was well that he made this decision in time, before she had been spoiled by his well-meant but poor intentions.

Left to herself, she constantly hung about her father's studio, now drawing, now modeling, copying whatever she saw him do. She seemed never to be tired, but sang at her work all the day long.

Monsieur Bonheur suddenly awoke to the fact that his daughter had great talent. He began to teach her carefully, to make her accurate in drawing, and correct in perspective. Then he sent her to the Louvre to copy the works of the old masters. Here she worked with the greatest industry and enthusiasm, not observing anything that was going on around her. Said the director of the Louvre, "I have never seen an example of such application and such ardor for work."

One day an elderly English gentleman stopped beside her easel, and said: "Your copy, my child, is superb, faultless. Persevere as you have begun, and I prophesy that you will be a great artist." How glad those few words made her! She went home thinking over to herself the determination she had made in the school when she ate with her iron spoon, that sometime she would be as famous as her schoolmates, and have some of the comforts of life.

Her copies of the old masters were soon sold, and though they brought small prices, she gladly gave the money to her father, who needed it now more than ever. His second wife had two sons when he married her, and now they had a third, Germain, and every cent that Rosa could earn was needed to help support seven children. "La mamiche," as they called the new mother, was an excellent manager of the meagre finances, and filled her place well.

Rosa was now seventeen, loving landscape, historical, and genre painting, perhaps equally; but happening to paint a goat, she was so pleased in the work, that she determined to make animal painting a specialty. Having no money to procure models, she must needs make long walks into the country on foot to the farms. She would take a piece of bread in her pocket, and generally forget to eat it. After working all day, she would come home tired, often drenched with rain, and her shoes covered with mud.

She took other means to study animals. In the outskirts of Paris were great abattoirs, or slaughter-pens. Though the girl tenderly loved animals, and shrank from the sight of suffering, she forced herself to see the killing, that she might know how to depict the death agony on canvas. Though obliged to mingle more or less with drovers and butchers, no indignity was ever offered her. As she sat on a bundle of hay, with her colors about her, they would crowd around to look at the pictures, and regard her with honest pride. The world soon learns whether a girl is in earnest about her work, and treats her accordingly.

The Bonheur family had moved to the sixth story of a tenement house in the Rue Rumfort, now the Rue Malesherbes. The sons, Auguste and Isadore, had both become artists; the former a painter, the latter a sculptor. Even little Juliette was learning to paint. Rosa was working hard all day at her easel, and at night was illustrating books, or molding little groups of animals for the figure-dealers. All the family were happy despite their poverty, because they had congenial work.

On the roof, Rosa improvised a sort of garden, with honeysuckles, sweet-peas, and nasturtiums, and here they kept a sheep, with long, silky wool, for a model. Very often Isadore would take him on his back and carry him down the six flights of stairs,—the day of elevators had not dawned,—and after he had enjoyed grazing, would bring him back to his garden home. It was a docile creature, and much loved by the whole family. For Rosa's birds, the brothers constructed a net, which they hung outside the window, and then opened the cage into it.

At nineteen Rosa was to test the world, and see what the critics would say. She sent to the Fine Arts Exhibition two pictures, "Goats and Sheep" and "Two Rabbits." The public was pleased, and the press gave kind notices. The next year "Animals in a Pasture," a "Cow lying in a Meadow," and a "Horse for sale," attracted still more attention. Two years later she exhibited twelve pictures, some from her father and brother being hung on either side of hers, the first time they had been admitted. More and more the critics praised, and the pathway of the Bonheur family grew less thorny.

Then, in 1849, when she was twenty-seven, came the triumph. Her magnificent picture, "Cantal Oxen," took the gold medal, and was purchased by England. Horace Vernet, the president of the commission of awards, in the midst of a brilliant assembly, proclaimed the new laureate, and gave her, in behalf of the government, a superb Sevres vase.

Raymond Bonheur seemed to become young again at this fame of his child. It brought honors to him also, for he was at once made director of the government school of design for girls. But the release from poverty and anxiety came too late, and he died the same year, greatly lamented by his family. "He had grand ideas," said his daughter, "and had he not been obliged to give lessons for our support, he would have been more known, and to-day acknowledged with other masters."

Rosa was made director in his place, and Juliette became a professor in the school. This same year appeared her "Plowing Scene in the Nivernais," now in the Luxembourg Gallery, thought to be her most important work after her "Horse Fair." Orders now poured in upon her, so that she could not accede to half the requests for work. A rich Hollander offered her one thousand crowns for a painting which she could have wrought in two hours; but she refused.

Four years later, after eighteen long months of preparatory studies, her "Horse Fair" was painted. This created the greatest enthusiasm both in England and America. It was sold to a gentleman in England for eight thousand dollars, and was finally purchased by A. T. Stewart, of New York, for his famous collection. No one who has seen this picture will ever forget the action and vigor of these Normandy horses. In painting it, a petted horse, it is said, stepped back upon the canvas, putting his hoof through it, thus spoiling the work of months.

So greatly was this picture admired, that Napoleon III. was urged to bestow upon her the Cross of the Legion of Honor, entitled her from French usage. Though she was invited to the state dinner at the Tuileries, always given to artists to whom the Academy of Fine Arts has awarded its highest honors, Napoleon had not the courage to give it to her, lest public opinion might not agree with him in conferring it upon a woman. Possibly he felt, more than the world knew, the insecurity of his throne.

Henry Bacon, in the Century, thus describes the way in which Rosa Bonheur finally received the badge of distinction. "The Emperor, leaving Paris for a short summer excursion in 1865, left the Empress as Regent. From the imperial residence at Fontainebleau it was only a short drive to By (the home of Mademoiselle Bonheur). The countersign at the gate was forced, and unannounced, the Empress entered the studio where Mademoiselle Rosa was at work. She rose to receive the visitor, who threw her arms about her neck and kissed her. It was only a short interview. The imperial vision had departed, the rumble of the carriage and the crack of the outriders' whips were lost in the distance. Then, and not till then, did the artist discover that as the Empress had given the kiss, she had pinned upon her blouse the Cross of the Legion of Honor." Since then she has received the Leopold Cross of Honor from the King of Belgium, said to be the first ever conferred upon a woman; also a decoration from the King of Spain. Her brother Auguste, now dead, received the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1867, two years after Rosa.

In preparing to paint the "Horse Fair" and other similar pictures, which have brought her much into the company of men, she has found it wise to dress in male costume. A laughable incident is related of this mode of dress. One day when she returned from the country, she found a messenger awaiting to announce to her the sudden illness of one of her young friends. Rosa did not wait to change her male attire, but hastened to the bedside of the young lady. In a few minutes after her arrival, the doctor, who had been sent for, entered, and seeing a young man, as he supposed, seated on the side of the bed, with his arm round the neck of the sick girl, thought he was an intruder, and retreated with all possible speed. "Oh! run after him! He thinks you are my lover, and has gone and left me to die!" cried the sick girl. Rosa flew down stairs, and soon returned with the modest doctor.

She also needs this mannish costume, for her long journeys over the Pyrenees into Spain or in the Scottish Highlands. She is always accompanied by her most intimate friend, Mademoiselle Micas, herself an artist of repute, whose mother, a widow, superintends the home for the two devoted friends.

Sometimes in the Pyrenees these two ladies see no one for six weeks but muleteers with their mules. The people in these lonely mountain passes live entirely upon the curdled milk of sheep. Once Rosa Bonheur and her friend were nearly starving, when Mademoiselle Micas obtained a quantity of frogs, and covering the hind legs with leaves, roasted them over a fire. On these they lived for two days.

In Scotland she painted her exquisite "Denizens of the Mountains," "Morning in the Highlands," and "Crossing a Loch in the Highlands." In England she was treated like a princess. Sir Edwin Landseer, whom some persons thought she would marry, is reported to have said, when he first looked upon her "Horse Fair," "It surpasses me, though it's a little hard to be beaten by a woman." On her return to France she brought a skye-terrier, named "Wasp," of which she is very fond, and for which she has learned several English phrases. When she speaks to him in English, he wags his tail most appreciatively.

Rosa Bonheur stands at the head of her profession, an acknowledged master. Her pictures bring enormous sums, and have brought her wealth. A "View in the Pyrenees" has been sold for ten thousand dollars, and some others for twice that sum.

She gives away much of her income. She has been known to send to the Mont de Piete her gold medals to raise funds to assist poor artists. A woman artist, who had been refused help by several wealthy painters, applied to Rosa Bonheur, who at once took down from the wall a small but valuable painting, and gave it to her, from which she received a goodly sum. A young sculptor who greatly admired her work, enclosed twenty dollars, asking her for a small drawing, and saying that this was all the money he possessed. She immediately sent him a sketch worth at least two hundred dollars. She has always provided most generously for her family, and for servants who have grown old in her employ.

She dresses very simply, always wearing black, brown, or gray, with a close fitting jacket over a plain skirt. When she accepts a social invitation, which is very rare, she adorns her dress with a lace collar, but without other ornament. Her working dress is usually a long gray linen or blue flannel blouse, reaching nearly from head to foot. She has learned that the conventional tight dress of women is not conducive to great mental or physical power. She is small in stature, with dainty hands and feet, blue eyes, and a noble and intelligent face.

She is an indefatigable worker, rising usually at six in the morning, and painting throughout the day.

So busy is she that she seldom permits herself any amusements. On one occasion she had tickets sent her for the theatre. She worked till the carriage was announced. "Je suis prete," said Rosa, and went to the play in her working dress. A daintily gloved man in the box next to hers looked over in disdain, and finally went into the vestibule and found the manager.

"Who is this woman in the box next to mine?" he said, in a rage. "She's in an old calico dress, covered with paint and oil. The odor is terrible. Turn her out. If you do not, I will never enter your theatre again."

The manager went to the box, and returning, informed him that it was the great painter.

"Rosa Bonheur!" he gasped. "Who'd have thought it? Make my apology to her. I dare not enter her presence again."

She usually walks at the twilight, often thinking out new subjects for her brush, at that quiet hour. She said to a friend: "I have been a faithful student since I was ten years old. I have copied no master. I have studied Nature, and expressed to the best of my ability the ideas and feelings with which she has inspired me. Art is an absorbent—a tyrant. It demands heart, brain, soul, body, the entireness of the votary. Nothing less will win its highest favor. I wed art. It is my husband, my world, my life-dream, the air I breathe. I know nothing else, feel nothing else, think nothing else, My soul finds in it the most complete satisfaction.... I have no taste for general society,—no interest in its frivolities. I only seek to be known through my works. If the world feel and understand them, I have succeeded.... If I had got up a convention to debate the question of my ability to paint 'Marche au Chevaux' [The Horse Fair], for which England paid me forty thousand francs, the decision would have been against me. I felt the power within me to paint; I cultivated it, and have produced works that have won the favorable verdicts of the great judges. I have no patience with women who ask permission to think!"