Perhaps this is a plan that J. P. would 

 have endorsed, if she must be edited at 

 al', though doubtless she would have pre- 

 ferred her whole message to be given for 

 the world to make the best, of it. (Ob- 

 viously her Diary was written with this 

 possibility in mind). Her pages are full of 

 the serious expression of her "desire to 

 help." which grew to be her ardent passion. 

 "The only thing in the world that makes 

 me feel rich is to spend myself richly in the 

 effort to share Beauty," she says under 

 the date June, 1904. "Oh ! To be helping 

 something or somebody !" she exclaims In 

 the midst of her happiest days. "It Is 

 worth many spiritual hardships to have 

 given heart to a young thing for an uphill 

 charge." 



The editor has chosen skilfuly for her 

 purpose. The emerging impression of the 

 poet, richly endow^, generous-minded, de- 

 veloping through anxiety and yearning, 

 without losing faith in the essentials of 

 her ideal ; attaining by patience, discipline, 

 work and will-power to eminence among 

 the foremost of her art ; winning ultimate 

 happiness and fame in a most dramatic 

 climax ; passing tragically amid the beat of 

 wings into the too-early dusk ; — it Is 

 poignant and absorbing in the extreme. 

 The poet never conceived anything more 

 dramatic than her own Diaries of thirty- 

 two spiritually strenuous years. 



To those who knew J. P. iDest in her 

 girlhood — Mrs. Baker was a friend of later 

 days— one bit of editorial comment must 

 come as a shook. It is the reference to the 

 "poverty" of her youtfh In a home whose 

 "outward circumstances" were "lonely 

 and unlovely." To be sure the Diarist her- 

 self chafes almost daily in her narrow 

 sphere, and she refers in womanhood to 

 that youth with gloomy retrospect. Her 

 adventurous spirit tarried too long, cabined, 

 cribbed, confined by circumstances beyond 

 her control: petty cares, interruption of 

 her work, anxiety over others' troubles, 

 cramped finances. But to stigmatize her 

 circumstances as "unlovely" gives a mis- 

 leading impression of starli want and de- 

 privation. 



The Peabody homes In succession, from 

 that in " "Darkest Suburbs" to those neigh- 

 boring the University, were far from un- 

 lovely. Those who knew her best recall 

 her slender flower-grace in its dainty 

 green sheath against a not inappropriate 

 background of quiet, cultured comfort.' 

 Luxurious it was not. But tasteful, with 

 an indefinable picturesqueness and atmos- 

 phere wherewith the clever and artistic 

 sisters managed to grace everything they 

 touched, from their pretty, inexpensive 

 frocks to the colorful draperies and suit- 

 able accessories. There was a piano and 

 plenty of music and books ; excellent ri 

 pictures and furniture, clieerful flowers 

 ■ways, service, and generous hospitality. 

 It seemed a different country from ordinary 

 everyday life, with a glamour of bright 

 whimsy, quaint fancy, high and noble am- 

 bitions In which the two beautiful girls 

 moved like princesses. "Poverty" indeed, 

 with such a dower as hers ; and "un- 

 lovellness" about the "Child of Light ! ' 



"I have stars and I have moonlight. I 

 have the uttermost thoughts of the trees. 

 My riches almost scare me." (June, 1899) 

 ' "Oh, a wonderful lite I lead — cette vie de 

 I Cinderella— half a glitter in crystal shoes: 



halt mice and pumpkin and cinders ! Who- 

 ever lived such a life of adventure in a 

 nutshell." (February, 1902) "Aware how 

 often since I was born have I been housed 

 with praise — bowered — covered with leaves 

 and flowers and petals : Heaven knows why. 

 No Cinderella of any story was more 

 adorned from time to time by friendly 

 hands with unwonted things beautiful. It 

 Is an ever-recurring surprise and retre.<4h- 

 roent in my life, and it makes me utterly 

 forgetful, for the time of wonder, of the 

 recurrent soiitude and hurts," (May, 1000). 



The re.al poverty of her life — one gift 

 forgotten by the Fairy Godmother — was the 

 lack of sufficient physical vitality and en- 

 durance to offset her spendtlirift emotional, 

 mental and spiritual largesse of self from 

 day to day. While the dawn often brought 

 such heigiits of ecstasy as only a poet 

 can know, too often the sun sank into 

 corresponding depths of gloom. One feels 

 this as one reads. She speaks of it fre^ 

 quently herself. 



Humor bubbles up through letters and 

 diary like the inexhaustible' brook which 

 It was her delight to follow. Would there 

 were more of her wholly gay, delightfully 

 mischievous letters given , complete. For 

 one misses from the book its due propor- 

 tion of the tricksy spirit which was one of 

 the most endearing sides of J. P. One could 

 better spare some of the many passages 

 of stoic courage or of sheer desperation. ' 

 Could anything be more wholesome for 

 the "young artists" than to consider how 

 this girl of genius varied the serious, the 

 difficult, the painful crises of her life with 

 this saving grace which she herself speaks 

 of. In another person, as — "the far-seeing 

 gleam of humor that has transcended all 

 kinds of grief and horrors. It's the way 

 thistle-down defies a tomahawk." She sets 

 down a brief record of a certain date as, 

 "Thirteenish." The word suffices ! She 

 speaks of herself in workaday-mood as a 

 "meek-eyed grub." "Some day, you nice 

 little pin-feathered cherubim, let me go 

 along in the sun, walking and leaping and 

 praising God !" She speaks in a letter of 

 trimm.Ing a hat "in fifteen minutes, with 

 certain ingredients I found at home, and 

 a certain fine Nonchalance. (Nonchalance, 

 I discover, is a spleAdid trimming for hats 

 in extremis!)" "Busy — busy — I fee! like a 

 housewifely vision of Bzekiel, with six 

 wings !" "We are in this state of sweet- 

 but-shalcy Peace, like a jellified dish ; good 

 to eat, but trembly." The temptation to 

 quote must be smothered. 



Among the most interesting of the :et- 

 ters are those to Horace B. Scudder, then 

 editor of the Atlantic Monthly, who waf , 

 the first person of emine.ice to give the j 

 budding poet wholesome advice and en- j 

 couragement. She always felt to him the i 

 heartiest gratitude, as to her literary god- i 

 father. One marvels at those jarly let- 

 ters of a girl in her budding twenties, show- 

 ing such sincerity of conviction, confidence 

 in her self, together with a humble seek- | 



