e-long friendship
between these two authors. Mrs. Child, then Miss Francis and the
author of "Hobomok" and "The Rebels," wrote her that she had nearly
completed a story on Capt. John Smith which now she will not dare to
print, but she surrenders with less reluctance, she says, "for I love
my conqueror." "Is not that beautiful?" says Miss Sedgwick. "Better to
write and to feel such a sentiment than to indite volumes."

"Clarence" was published in 1830, and I am glad to say, she sold the
rights to the first edition for $1,200, before the critics got hold
of it. The scene is laid in New York and in high life. The story, said
the _North American Review_, is "improbable" but not "dull." Miss
Dewey says, "It is the most romantic and at the same time the wittiest
of her novels," but Bryant says it has been the least read. "The
Linwoods, or Sixty Years Since in America," appeared in 1835, and
Bryant called it "a charming tale of home life, thought by many to be
the best of her novels properly so called."

If Miss Sedgwick had written none of these more elaborate works, she
would deserve a permanent place in our literature for a considerable
library of short stories, among which I should name "A Berkshire
Tradition," a pathetic tale of the Revolution; "The White Scarf," a
romantic story of Mediaeval France; "Fanny McDermot," a study of
conventional morality; "Home," of which the _Westminster Review_ said,
"We wish this book was in the hands of every mechanic in England";
"The Poor Rich Man and the Rich Poor Man" of which Joseph Curtis, the
philanthropist, said, "in all his experiences he had never known so
much good fruit from the publication of any book"; and, not least,
"Live and let Live: or domestic service illustrated," of which Dr.
Channing wrote, "I cannot, without violence to my feelings, refrain
from expressing to you the great gratification with which I have read
your 'Live and let Live.' Thousands will be better and happier for
it.... Your three last books, I trust, form an era in our literature."

This was high praise, considering that there was then no higher
literary authority in America than Dr. Channing. However, a message
from Chief Justice Marshall, through Judge Story, belongs with it:
"Tell her I have read with great pleasure everything she has written,
and wish she would write more." She had gained an enviable position in
literature and she had done a great deal of useful work during the
fifteen years sin