451

EM

EMELIE TRACY Y. SWETT.

MELIE TRACY Y. SWETT was born in San Francisco, March 9, 1863. Her father, the Hon. John Swett, is known as "the father of Pacific Coast education," and he is also the author of many excellent works in that field. His books are not only used in every normal school in the United States, but have been translated into other languages, and are in use in England, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Australia. From both father and mother Miss Swett-now Mrs. John W. Parkhurst has inherited her literary talent, and her grandfather, Frederick Palmer Tracy, was well known during Lincoln's administration as a writer and an orator of marked repute. Miss Swett's education was partly received in the public schools, and partly at home with various tutors in modern and ancient languages, literature, music and mathematics. Her first published story, written when she was sixteen, won the first prize of a gold watch, offered by the San Francisco Chronicle for the best short story contributed by boys and girls.

Miss Swett was at one time a successful and loved teacher in the kindergarten schools of San Francisco. She afterwards taught vocal and instrumental music, Greek, French and German in a ladies' college. She left there to go abroad young in search of health, and while away acted as correspondent to several eastern and western papers. The first earnest literary work done by her consisted of translations of French and German scientific works and historical novels for a New York firm which has now passed out of existence. Later, at the urgent request of the editor of The Overland Monthly, then Charles Howard Shinn, she wrote a number of short stories, which were very favorably received.

Verse writing, which so often comes first to a writer, came as a later gift to Miss Swett. She says she owes what success she may have gained to the kind encouragement of James T. White, the New York publisher; to Charles H. Shinn, at one time editor of The Overland; to George R. Cathcart, of New York, and to W. C. Bartlett, of the San Francisco Bulletin.

During the past two years Miss Swett's work has embraced the editing of a large book on the mineral springs of California for one of the leading physicians of that state; the dramatization for opera of "Ramona," Helen Hunt Jackson's great novel; a biography in both French and English of Charles Edouard DeVillers, to be brought out simultaneously in London and Paris; a work embracing short, chatty biographical sketches of and selec

tions from the works of the women writers of the Pacific Coast; and, lastly, a series of portfolio sketches, for the use of botanists and artists, of the wild flowers of the Pacific Coast.

Miss Swett is the manager of a literary bureau which she established last year, and which now handles the work of more than six hundred writers. The principal work of the bureau is to write, or have written, finely illustrated out-door articles for the eastern and London magazines. Miss Swett is a constant contributor to The Overland Monthly, the American Home Journal, the San Francisco Call, San Francisco Bulletin, Philadelphia Times, Outing, Popular Science News, Golden State Catholic, Pacific States, and is an occasional contributor to other periodicals.

Miss Swett has lived in many of the large cities in America and Europe, and has met and entertained many of the prominent men and women of the day. She was married in 1889 to Mr. John W. Parkhurst, of the Bank of California, a cultivated and agreeable gentleman, who fully sympathizes with the literary attainments of his gifted young wife. Miss Swett-she retains her maiden name in writing-is of medium height, slender, and with a sweet womanly face, lovely in the soul that shines through sad eyes of changing hues; a woman who lives for something higher than the mere conventional forms and empty aims, a true friend and an enthusiastic and sympathetic helper. C. B. M.

A CHRISTMAS CHIME FROM THE OLD MISSION DOLORES.

THERE stands the Mission Dolores, but the reverent hands of its builders

Lie buried beneath the adobe; buried, but never forgotten.

Somber and bare seems the chapel, to one who is luxury-sated;

Beautiful then it appeared to the eyes by the wilderness wearied.

Tolling and chiming to-day, the Mission bells tell us a story

Of the fathers from Spain who came hither, allured by the legends of plenty

Enduring privations and hardships, in making the wearisome journey

Over the grim Cordilleras, till the goal burst upon

them in beauty.

Still stands the Mission Dolores; what a change to

the massive cathedral

That the sun of to-day illumines in a golden and crimson-hued glory.

THE COUNTRY WORKSHOP.

THE crisp and fragrant shavings fall from 'neath the singing plane;

The sawdust to the ground descends in ceaseless, noiseless rain;

A swallow beats the air with steady wing, as through the door

It swerves and curves its nest to find beneath the hay-loft floor.

Bees hum without, and on the window-ledge the sleepy flies

Lie in a sluggish drowse, while in the murmuring woods the cries

Of quail and thrush and mourning-dove the song of life complete.

A full content the world imbues, in action, in retreat;

The men who work, the men who rest, the birds, and e'en the flowers,

All breathe the spirit of that peace that sanctifies the hours

Of country life, where Time rebels against the rushing pace

Of crowded towns-the home of vice and sorrowand the race

WHY?

BIRTH AND DEATH.

SCARCE do we meet ere we are told,

In the deepening gloom of day grown old, New paths to tread, our tents to fold; How soon Death's robe is round us rolled!

GOD'S ACRE.

ALL around me men are sleeping.

Not a man amongst them waketh,
Not a breath their slumber breaketh
As o'er them a watch I'm keeping.
Warm their couches are, and soft,

Not a sorrow haunts their slumber,
Not a pain can one soul number,
Though I've questioned them full oft.
The wood-dove sighs; the pine tree mourns;
Women weep; strong men are sobbing.
In the pulse of life that's throbbing
There is naught to cull but thorns.
Only here where watch I'm keeping
Finds the soul a peace unbroken
And a comfort all unspoken,
In the garden of the sleeping.

THE CHANT-ROYAL OF THE PINE-TREES. O FOR the voice of the forest, the chant-royal of the pine-trees;

My heart leaps to life just to hear it, the recurrent,

melodic, rushing,

Now near and now distant, now silent, the air in

its stillness oppressive,

Till the winds sweep again o'er the harp-strings, the pine-needles quiver and tremble,

And offer up incense balsamic. My spirit with intoxication,

Yields unto dreaming, and visions crowd swiftly through half-conscious brain-cells.

O life-giving soul of the pine-trees! thou'rt here in my dead balsam pillow

Yet thy soul disembodied restoreth; the dreams of the mountains and forests

Unloose me awhile from the thralldom of city walls close and confining,

And I sink into slumber refreshing, to the chantroyal of the pine-trees.

ANNA J. HAMILTON.

455

ISS HAMILTON was born on April 20, 1860. Descended on her mother's side from the old Kentucky family of Caldwells, and on the paternal side from the Hamiltons of Pennsylvania, she inherits the marked intellectual traits which distinguished her ancestors. Louisville, Ky., her birthplace, is still her home. Here she attended the public schools, and in 1878 graduated from the Louisville Female High School.

A student from her childhood, she grew to womanhood ardent in her love of study, and after her graduation, accepted a position as teacher in the Third Ward school, which she still occupies. Original in her methods, attention has been attracted to her work, and she has already become a leader among her colleagues. Teaching in both day and night schools, the time she has given to thought-voicing has been necessarily very limited.

As a pupil, her compositions were always noted for facility of expression and poetic fancy, yet not until 1885, while visiting the house of a friend in the country, was her first poem written. The two young ladies were discoursing sweet sounds with their violins, when both were charmed by one entrancing air. In answer to her friend's regret that the air had never been given words, Miss Hamilton in a few moments composed a poem to accompany the music. This was the beginning, and is a fair illustration of the manner in which her succeeding poems were written. Most of Miss Hamilton's poems have been published in the Louisville Courier-Journal. L. B. W.

PRAY HOW.

A ROSE says mildly, "I'm sweet, I'm sweet."
The air sighs gently, "Pray how, pray how?
Send me thy fragrance to greet, to greet,
The truth I can then avow, avow."

A streamlet murmurs, "I cheer, I cheer."
Earth says eagerly, "Pray how, pray how?
Lend me thy waters so clear, so clear,

The truth I can then avow, avow."

A maid tells sweetly, "I love, I love!”

Her lover entreats, "Pray how, pray how? Give me your love, O my dove, my dove, The truth I can then avow, avow."

AT SET OF SUN.

THE soft'ning twilight creeps apace, The after mood of stormful day, And close within its fond embrace The yielding shadows pass awa", At set of sun.