EVA KATHERINE CLAPP. VA KATHERINE CLAPP was born in Bradford, Ill., August 10, 1857. Her father removed from Western Massachusetts and preëmpted a section of the best farming land in the State. There he built a log house of the frontier type, and in this his children were born. Miss Clapp's paternal grandmother was Lucy Lee, who was a direct descendant, on her father's side, from the famous Indian princess, Pocahontas. Her mother was Ann Ely, from Litchfield, Conn., a direct descendant from Lady Alice Fenwick, a romantic figure in collonial times, of Old Lyme, Conn. Miss Clapp passed the first eleven years of her life under her mother's watchful care, on her father's farm. After her mother's death she lived with a married sister. She attended school at Amboy, at the Dover Academy, and subsequently at the Milwaukee Female College. While her studies were pursued in a desultory manner and at irregular intervals, she learned very rapidly and easily. When about sixteen years old she visited for a time in the large eastern cities, and subsequently taught school in Western Massachusetts. She commenced to write at an early age. Her first story, written when she was twenty years old, was a novel entitled "Her Bright Future," drawn largely from life. Some thirty thousand copies were sold. This was followed by a A Lucky Mishap" and "Mismated," which reached a sale of about ten thousand copies; "A Woman's Triumph," and a serial first published in one of the Chicago dailies as "Tragedies of Prairie Life," and subsequently published in book form as a A Dark Secret." She has written many short stories and sketches, and has done considerable editorial work. Her poems have had a wide circulation. Miss Clapp's writings are characterized by a high moral tone. "Her Bright Future" is in itself an eloquent sermon on the evil of intemperance, while "Mismated presents forcibly the errors in our social system which its title indicates. " Miss Clapp's poems have appeared in the Chicago Current, the Interior, the Chicago Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Inter Ocean, the Boston Budget, and she writes regularly for the Boston Transcript, and the Register, of Berlin, Germany. Her poems are to be published in book form, under the title, "Songs of Red Rose Land." Miss Clapp became the wife of Dr. C. B. Gibson of Chicago, in 1892, and spent a year in Europe, where Mrs. Gibson made a special study of the literature of Germany and France. I. R. W. GOLDEN--ROD. WHEN the swift field spider weaves Shorn and still, By the brooklet's reedy edge, Doth she wait, When the summer groweth late. Motley is her retinue: Mail-clad beetles-warriors bold- Come to sue E'er the sunshines dries the dew. Butterflies with wings out spread, At her feet, In the sultry August heat. From no well-kept garden bed By the homely weed-grown ways. In her tawny, tangled hair Glows with exquisite design. Through my idly dreaming brain, Princess of the blooming train, Ah! how many fancies chase, Musing on thy ardent graceCome and go, To and fro, Like the ocean's rhythmic flow. A DREAM OF SAPPHO. IN summer nights, when Philomel's despair Fills woodland aisles, and thrills with yearning M pain The breasts of all the listening dryad train, My heart throbs swifter, sudden made aware Of her sad eyes, shadowed by dusky hair, Soft-crumpled where the drowsy Loves have lain. She comes while faint, sweet odors everywhereThe white day-lilies' souls-float thro' the air. Hover and drift above the garden's space. Ah! stately singer, hushed are lute and lyre; What dost thou hear, with pale, impassioned face, In this cold age? No more thy deathless fire Thrills in a kiss or hallows with its grace The sweet yet bitter pain of love's desire. THE SOLDIER'S WIDOW. Ar the dim close of the November day By her lost hero's grave; while backward flow May; Youth, love and hope in rosy colors play Around her head; when, hush! the bugles blow! Columbia's children, of your birthright proud, For us. By generous act with fervid phrase allied, TO VICTOR HUGO. Majestic mother of a hero-race! Old France in arts and honors still the first. He turns from strife to sleep, his message told. MARY R. P. HATCH. RS. MARY R. P. HATCH, poet and story writer, was born in the town of Stratford, N. H., June 19th, 1848. She is the daughter of Charles G. and Mary Blake Platt. Her ancestors were English. The Blakes settled in Dorchester, Mass., in 1620, and the Platts in Stratford, Conn., the families presenting a long line of illustrious names, from Admiral Blake, the naval hero, to Senator Platt, who managed the Copyright Bill in Congress. The list includes the Blakes, Judsons and McLellans of literary fame. Mrs. Hatch's life has been spent in the Connecticut valley. In childhood she possessed a quiet manner, a sensitive disposition, was a close observer and a student of nature. She early developed scholarly and literary tastes. At the age of fifteen she left the common schools and attended the academy at Lancaster, eighteen miles from her home. There she studied the higher mathematics, rhetoric, Latin and French, and there her ability as a writer was discovered and recognized. From that time she contributed sketches on various subjects for the county papers, and articles under her pen-name "Mabel Percy," from time to time appeared in the Portland Transcript, Peterson's Magazine, Saturday Evening Post and other papers and periodicals. Since then, under her true name, she has written for Zion's Herald, Springfield Republican, Chicago Inter-Ocean, the Writer, the Epoch, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper and others. After leaving school she became the wife of Antipas M. Hatch. Their family consists of two sons, and as the wife of an extensive farmer she has been a busy woman. Her management of her home has left her some time to devote to literature, and her versatility has enabled her to do creditable work in the wide realm of short stories, dialect sketches, essays and poems, grave and gay, vers de societe and verses in dialect. "The Bank Tragedy," published serially in the Portland Transcript, was issued in book form and was a great success. Other stories from her pen are "Quicksands,” “The Missing Man" and "Polimpsa: A Psychical Study." Mrs. Hatch is painstaking and careful in all her work, following out lines of thought suggested by little things, and making everything count for its greatest value. Personally she is petite in figure, a blonde, with regular features and an aspect of frailness. She is a pleasing conversationalist, keeps thoroughly posted on the current events of the day, maintains a lively interest in political and religious matters and possesses a generous fund of common H. A. T. sense. |