Life — September 27, 1900 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

246 The Era of the Authoress. OMEN have touched litera- ture in spots from time to time, and streaked it with thin veins * of immortali- Fty, but it is j reserved for this century to crown the active author- ess with the garland of ubiquity. Authoresses abound, not only in parts, but in regions hitherto held aloof from the track of man. In the pine forests of Georgia, in the wild untrod wildernesses within the city limits of Chicago, and west- ward, where “rolls the Oregon, and knows no sound save his own dashings,” author- esses are springing up week after week, and ibing on the dial of time printed subs joy, typographical strivings after the unutterable, and practical novels “peeking” with human int hing ithin the whole range of literature is leit of passionate Icecream Smith, whose Hemlock Heart Beats has fired the mind and pen of every book reviewer in twenty-seven States, is the harvest time of Sadie Rasberry tendon Jones, whose historical novels are feverishly devoured by two generations—o! rising and the other risen, This, indeed, is the heyday of Eleanor Davis-Davis Huckle- berry, whose book on Civilization has been clamorously adopted as an entire course in itself by the unanimous action of the direc- tories of fourteen seminaries. The word female is no longer heard. It has been stricken from the records. A girl is either one of two things—she is married or becomes an authoress, And after she is married, if she discovers that she has made a mistake and ought to have chosen the other road, does she repent of her desire in the silent watches of the night? Does she and quench the bright fire of genius with the wet blanket of domestic duty? Not she. She says, “Here, John, you take the baby. Go out and wash tl the useful broom and do the marketing. have had a call to be an authoress, Tam going to join the great writing majority. Henceforth you are but an echo. Yesterday 1 was a mere wife, but to-morrow you shalt be known as my husband. Let this glory ide her light under a bushel ~LIFE - suffice you, and do not disturb me, for even now thoughts surcharged with momentous consequences to the human race are speeding through my brain.” And John takes up his burden without murmur, knowing his time has come, but seeing, even in his dull, hopeless way, that rebellion would only make things worse; for it would mean more notoriety, and henceforth his lifework is to avoid being seen, henceforth he moves alone—his greatest joy when he has not been mentioned as the husband of the gifted being whose half-tone portraits are darkening the maga- zine horizon. This is, indeed, the Augustan age of the authoress, and dwindling man may well contemplate the future with despair. Even is rapidly drifting toward the shore of a hopeless obscurity. It is not without a shudder that we look back a hundred years and note how the authoress has multiplied in the land. At this rate of increase, what will the end be? Fortunate process of evolution, a check is bound to come. In the course of time, as every woman becomes an authoress, there will be no readers left. Man will probably lack the intelligence—even now he shows signs in this direction—to appreciate the wonderful subtlety, the transcendent culture of what is being published, and, as every woman will be absorbed in her own creations, there will be no aud ence to echo the critic’: and the heart mutte beautiful Sybel A pric Plum will be indifferent and communit, praise, ngs of Grasplot Jost upon an introspective Tom Masson, Our Fresh-Air Fund. Previously acknowledged, $5,714.68 SB. Edith Chase . E. BW, AIC . Proceeds of a Fair held at Drifton, Pa., by the fol- lowing little giris : Emily Sinkler, Anne Sinkler, Elizabeth Stevens, Laura Stevens, Mary Wentz and Helen Baker. Fifth Sahseription on ac- count of Ninth Annual Westchester Subscrip- tlon " 5,00 2.00 25.00 5.00 100.00 $5,043.53 Life's Guide to Voters. Fe War, ‘OR the Con- ‘Teddy, Tax- stitution, Peace, Panic ation and Trusts, and Populism, vote for William vote for W. J. McKinley, Bryan, , tho AVL “champion of the theory that the world is not as good as it used to be, pours out the full vials of her wrath upon Rudyard Kipling and the British public in an essay called Patriotism, or Self-Adeertising? It handles, quite without gloves, events connected with the Boer war, and is interesting chiefly in showing what. its author can do when she is really mad, (J. B. Lippincott Company.) Arden Massiter is the title of a story of adventure in modern Italy. The author, Dr. William Barry, seems desirous, by means of a laboriously classical style, of throwing the charm of mediwvalism over the network of brigands, abductions and murders of which the book is composed. It is like a dime novel by Samuel Johnson, (The Century Company.) Margaret Horton Potter gives us in Uncanonized an historical romance of a new and welcome type. Tho RAISING THE ANTE TEN. comicbooks.com