Art and Handcraft in the Woman's Building
of the World's Columbian Exposition

IN THE WOMAN’S BUILDING. 103 she has laid down the pen, and passes her days quietly at home, devoting much time to the flowers she loves so fondly. Gladly as we hold the thought that Mrs. Stowe is still with us in the land of our sojourn, it is none the less true that she belongs to the last period of literature, not to the present. It is in the figure of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe that we must greet the foremost literary woman of to-day. Though she has long years to look back upon, Mrs. Howe is still wholly of the present, and her clear eyes look forward with intelligent comprehension to the future. She was born in 1819, the daughter of Samuel Ward, a New York merchant of the old stately school. A stu- dent all her life, a writer from early childhood, it was not till some years after her marriage that she thought of publishing any of her work. Slie has told the writer how, when she was perhaps nineteen years of age, she showed some of her poems to Margaret Fuller, at the request of a mutual friend. Miss Fuller was de- lighted with them, and eagerly advised Miss Ward to have them CARVED WOOD AND LEATHER STOOL. Princess Victoria of Wales. England. published. Mrs. Howe still remembers the shock this suggestion gave her. It was still considered “ singular ” for a woman to pub- lish her writings. It was out of the question for Mr. Ward's daughter to think of such a tiling; it ssemccL a, pity that Miss Fuller should even have suggested it, so the maiden thought at the time. Msanwliile the word, was spoken, tlie sesd. dropped, to germinate in its own good time, and blossom in unfading beauty. Her work is so woll known that it iS'unnccessaiy to allu.d.6 to it in detail. From the publication of “Passion Flowers,” in 1853,