Julia Ward Howe

It was voted to form the Boston Authors' Club, and at a second meeting in December the club was duly organized.

In January the Authors' Club made its first public appearance in a meeting and di

The brilliant and successful course of the Authors' Club need not be dwelt on here. Her co

Poet Chaucer had a sister,

He, the wondrous melodister.

She didn't write no poems, oh, no!

Brother Geoffrey trained her so.

Honored by the poet's crown,

Her posterity came down.

*        *        *        *        *        *

Ages of ancestral birth

Went for all that they were worth.

Hence derives the Wentworth name

Which heraldic ranks may claim.

That same herald has contrived

How the Higginson arrived.

He was gran-ther to the knight

In whose honor I indite

Burning strophes of the soul

'propriate to the flowing bowl.

Oft the worth I have defended

Of the Laureate-descended,

But while here he sits and winks

I can tell you what he thinks.

"Never, whether old or young,

Will that woman hold her tongue!

Fifty years in Boston schooled,

Still I find her rhyme-befooled.

Oft in earnest, oft in jest,

We have met and tried our best.

Nought I dread an open field,

I can conquer, I can yield,

Self from foes I can defend,

But Heav'n preserve us from our friend!"

She and her "chief Vice" were always making merry together; when their flint and steel struck, the flash was laughter. It may have been at the Authors' Club that the two, with Edward Everett Hale and Dr. Holmes, were receiving compliments and tributes one afternoon.

"At least," she cried, "no one can say that Boston drops its H's!"

This was in the winter of 1900. It was the time of the Boer War, and all Christendom was sorrowing over the conflict. On January 3 the Journal says:—

"This morning before rising, I had a sudden thought of the Christ-Babe standing between the two armies, Boers and Britons, on Christmas Day. I have devoted the morning to an effort to overtake the heavenly vision with but a mediocre result."

These lines are published in "At Sunset."

On the 11th the cap and bells are assumed once more.

"... To reception of the College Club, where I was to preside over the literary exercises and to introduce the readers. I was rather at a loss how to do this, but suddenly I thought of Mother Goose's 'When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing.' So when Edward Everett Hale came forward with me and introduced me as 'the youngest person in the hall,' I said, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, I shall prove the truth of what our reverend friend has just said, by citing a quotation from Mother Goose ['When the pie was opened,' etc.], and the first bird that I shall introduce will be Rev. E. E. Hale.' Begi

"February 4. Wrote a careful letter to W. F. Savage. He had written, asking an explanation of some old manuscript copy of my 'Battle Hymn' and of the theft perpetrated of three of its verses in 'Pen Pictures of the War,' only lately brought to my notice. He evidently thought these matters implied doubt at least of my having composed the 'Hymn.' To this suspicion I did not allude, but showed him how the verses stolen had been altered, probably to avoid detection...."

"March 3. Count di Campello's lecture, on the religious life in Italy, was most interesting. His uncle's movement in founding a National Italian Catholic Church seemed to me to present the first solution I have met with, of the absolute opposition between Catholic and Protestant. A Catholicism without spiritual tyra

"March 13.... Passed the whole morning at State House, with remonstrants against petition forbidding Sunday evening concerts. T. W. H. spoke remarkably well...."

"March 30.... Had a special good moment this morning before rising. Felt that God had granted me a good deal of heaven, while yet on earth. So the veil lifts sometimes, not for long."

April found her in Mi

"May 8. Mi