consideration when she made a personal application. She often prefaced some little criticism of my work with the remark : "Now, you won't mind if I call your at tention to an expression here that I don't like? I don't find fault with the thought, but here is a word that must be changed. You understand that this is all a mere inechanical matter—just like any other trade. I have had a little more experience than you, and am a little better artisan; that is all. It is nothing but artisanship." its own story. There was no time after the first of June when she did not feel a secret conviction that the end might come at any time, and that each parting might be the last. The words sounded again, more feebly, but with the same sweet message of affectionate regard and cheer, on Saturday, the 8th of August, when we knew the end was at hand. That night, after saying farewell to all about her, placing her hand in her husband's, she passed into a painless slumber, and four days later, on the 12th of "Oh, Mrs. Jackson! Drop those three August, as the day waned here upon earth, extra syllables, and call it art." "No, artisanship!" she would insist with emphasis. Notwithstanding her open disapproval of the average productions of California writers, she took a hearty interest in local literature. Toward THE OVERLAND, especially, she displayed the most kindly feeling, manifested in practical suggestions as well as contributions from her pen, for she regarded the magazine as an assertion of the higher standard she so earnestly advocated. Toward the last she often spoke of the approaching change, and always with the utmost confidence and cheer. Death had no terror for her bright spirit. "It is only just passing from one country to another!" she sometimes said; and once she smilingly reproached me because I tried to disprove her conviction that certain indications pointed to a sure release within a certain definite space of time. "I had decided that it would last just so many days longer, but you have upset all my calculations!" she said pleasantly. "It is very unkind of you. Now, I shall have to go back and figure it all over again." She never said it in so many words, but I knew that the losses we had both suffered formed a strong unspoken bond between us; that in the land where she was going there were beautiful young faces that her mother heart yearned after, and the promise of reunion robbed death of its sting. The "Good-bye, Good-bye, Good-bye!"always thrice repeated, which rang out after me every time I left her this summer, told the bright day of immortality dawned for her. Her last conscious acts were tender deeds of helpfulness for others; her last thoughts, of self-forgetful sympathy for those she left. One little incident will serve to illustrate this beautiful and tender phase of character: Among the numerous pathetic instances of misfortune continually brought to light in our city, the beginning of the summer revealed the needs of a young woman, of humble station, but with singular nobility and purity of character, who was not only in extreme destitution, abandoned by her husband, but had before her the sore trial of maternity. The case chanced to come to Mrs. Jackson's notice, and her ready sympathies were at once enlisted. Unsolicited, she made a substantial contribution toward relieving the wants of the young mother, and followed her fortunes during succeeding weeks with the liveliest interest and solicitude. An utterance of the poor woman's, wrung from her in a moment of despairing anguish, was repeated to Mrs. Jackson, and made a deep impression upon her mind; for she hoarded it in her memory, dwelling upon it again and again, and applauding the loyal spirit of motherhood which had prompted it. A beautiful little girl was born to the poor woman, and in her love and gratitude to the invalid, the mother bestowed upon the child the name of her benefactress. This circumstance never came to Mrs. Jackson's knowledge. She grew so feeble that those about her tried to confine the conversation to light and pleasant topics; but she never forgot. I rarely saw her, when she did not ask: "Well, how is our poor woman now?" and her face would light up when I gave her cheerful news, always endeavoring to keep her from thinking, as far as possible, of the perplexities which loomed up in the future. The thought of the baby, the helpless little creature who had come into the world so inauspiciously, handicapped by her sex, seemed at times to absorb the mind of the dying woman; and on more than one occasion she said to me, with a troubled look : "I cannot understand it; and oh! I won der, I wonder what her life will be. How can we tell, Mrs. Apponyi, that it might not have been better if the little thing had never seen the light? I hope, I do hope, that her life may be a blessing." And now I come to a little incident which I hesitate to relate, for it deals with that shadowy borderland between this life and eternity, which many seek to penetrate, but whose mysteries none have solved. One of Mrs. Jackson's last acts was to designate various articles of wearing apparel to be sent to her needy protége. No one in San Francisco mourned her loss more sincerely than this poor woman, who had never seen her face. When she learned, several days later, of the thoughtful provision made for her by the dying, she was touched and pained beyond expression. Crossing the room to where her little girl was lying upon the bed, she lay down beside her, calling her by the name which had become invested with sacred associations, saying: "My poor little daughter! and that dear lady will never know that you bear her name. If she could only have known how grateful I felt! Why didn't I take you to the house and let them carry you to her? I am sure that the sight of your sweet face would have done her heart good, and made her feel that her kindness had not been lost. Now she is dead, and can never know." This little woman, who is honest and conscientious as well as true-hearted, and who is quite willing to attribute the whole experience to some unconscious day-dream, tells me that at that moment she felt the warm, firm pressure of another hand upon her own, and looking up saw a bright, womanly face bent over her and her child, which seemed to say, with a cheery, reassuring smile: "See! I am not dead; I am here!" and then the vision faded from her sight, and she was alone again with her child. She had never seen Mrs. Jackson, or heard any one describe her, but her description of face, manner, and intonation formed a perfect portrait. The story is given without comment, for nothing in my own experience has ever led me to place faith in supernatural visitations; but if spirits are gifted with free volition, or could hover, for a time, over the arena of life's action, I like to think that one of her first desires would have been to look upon the face of the innocent child, before whom stretches an unknown future, and the preservation of whose life, for good or ill, was partly due to her intervention. Some misconception has arisen in regard to the attitude of the people of San Francisco towards this gifted writer, who labored, faltered, and passed away in their midst. No throng of visitors besieged her door, no daily bulletins of her condition were published by the press; and when the long waiting was over, and her weary spirit found the rest it craved, little outward demonstration was made. The newspapers, while showing her all proper respect, observed so noticeable a reticence as to provoke the comment of Eastern visitors, who asked if "H. H.” was so little known upon this coast that Californians felt no realizing sense of the loss the world and literature had sustained. While apparently indifferent to her presence, the people and the press of San Francisco were paying her the highest tribute in their power-that of faithful observance of the wish she had expressed. When she came to our city in feeble health last November, she quietly made known her desire to be left as far as possible undisturbed, and to receive no visits, save from the friends she herself called about her. This request was universally respected. Many little gifts of flowers and fruit, with other unobtrusive courtesies, bore witness that she was held in tender remembrance, and the few who were admitted to the sick-room were besieged with anxious inquiries regarding her condition from people who would have considered a call at her residence an unwarrantable intrusion. Local journalists, who were aware of her condition, knowing her wish to keep it from the knowledge of the public, refrained from any published comment; and so it happened that the first notice of her illness appeared in an Eastern paper sometime in midsummer, a fact which she communicated to me with a sigh of resignation, and the remark, "They have got hold of it at last!" With the exception of one short account of her illness, published by a morning paper in a spirit of mistaken sympathy, and in ignorance of her preferences, the sacredness of the sick room, with its painful record of the gradual encroachments of a wasting disease, was never invaded by the spirit of journalistic enterprise-in happy contrast to the spectacle the country has just witnessed at the East, where a host of ambitious reporters counted the speeding pulse-beats of a dying hero, and regaled him with their speculations as to the length of days allotted him. It was Mrs. Jackson's dying request that no unnecessary parade should be made over her death, and that the press should abstain from giving circulation to any reports which might add to the pain the news would convey to friends dwelling at a distance. This wish was observed by local newspapers, with the same fidelity they had shown in complying with her former requests. As an instance of the tender and reverent sentiment prevailing throughout the commu nity, I may be excused for giving the following extract from a letter written a few days later by a young San Francisco girl to a friend in another State; "One week ago today a bright star ceased to shine on the vision of mortality. Her glory is not dimmed because she has entered heaven. No one who believes in the continuity of love can fail to feel that. Of course you know of whom I speak--Helen Hunt Jackson. I did not know her except as all mustthrough her writings-but she was a warm friend of Mrs. -'s, and I saw her in her last sleep - a lovely, refined, majestic face, with a regal brow. Isn't it wonderfully beautiful, that whatever death may destroy, the brow, the throne of intellect, is always preserved in its pristine beauty. It is almost as if it said, 'Thought cannot die.' "On her coffin there were laid a few clover blossoms-simple meadow flowers that she loved in life. And Dr. Stebbins in his address, which was tender and appropriate, said that she desired her friends not to grieve, but simply to remember how she loved them. The world will cherish and be proud of her fame as a writer, but I like best to think of her as a noble, grand, loving woman who went out of this life cheerfully, and with tender thoughts for others. One of her last acts was to lay aside some garments of her own for the use of a poor woman whom she knew only through Mrs. "Such a life can be well called a truly successful one." I. THE VERSE AND PROSE OF "H. H." Ir has seemed better that some hasty and inadequate critical comment upon the writings of "H. H." should find place in THE OVERLAND just now, while the recent death of their author in our city is causing an impulse of interest in them that keeps them out of the libraries and bookstores, and in readers' hands, than that we should wait for more deliberate ones. "H. H." has not been, until the publication of “ Ramona," an author greatly read in California. Every one here who reads at all knew her more or less through the magazines, and several of her older poems were household words, here as elsewhere; but it is probable that many people in California are today reading her books who scarcely knew before that she had published anything but magazine poems and sketches. These books consist in part of collections of the previous magazine contributions, but not entirely. They are as follows: "Bits of Talk about Home Matters," 1873; "Verses," 1873; "The Story of Boon," 1874, 1878; "Bits of Travel," 1875; "Bits of Talk in Verse and Prose for Young People," 1876; "Mercy Philbrick's Choice," 1876; "Hetty's Strange History," 1877; "Bits of Travel at Home," 1878; "Nelly's Silver Mine," 1878; "Letters from a Cat," 1879; "Verses," 1879; "Mammy Tittleback," 1881; "A Century of Dishonor," 1881; "The Training of Children," 1882; "Ramona," 1884. All these are published by Roberts Brothers, except "A Century of Dishonor," which is from Harper & Bros., and "The Training of Children," which the "Christian Union" published. should consider separately, and in full, her poetry; her sketches and essays; her writ ings as a student of the Indian question; her fiction; her children's stories and talks. A few suggestions towards such critcism are all that I can here offer. II. IN 1869, a poem called "Coronation," and signed "Mrs. H. H. Hunt," appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly." I believe that others had already made their appearance in weeklies and dailies; but this was the earliest magazine poem, and that it was very early in the author's membership in the literary corps is evident from the signature to this, and again the signature " Mrs. Helen Hunt" to "The Way to Sing," a year later. In the fall of 1870, the signature "H. H." seems to have been settled upon, and signed consistently to all such verse and prose as Mrs. Hunt desired 'to acknowledge her own. It seems strange that the literary life of " H. H.” should have covered a period of only fif teen years, so long is it since we have been accustomed to think of her as occupying an assured position in the front rank of magazine writers. But, in fact, she occupied this rank almost from the first; she wasted no time in apprenticeship. This poem "Coronation" was, in its way, a classic almost from the time it was printed. It takes its place in collections from the time of its publication on. So, too, other early poems, "Tides,” or "Spinning " This list of only fifteen books covers the whole field of possible literary activity: poetry, fiction, pure essay, sketch, research and controversy, writing for children everything except technical scholarship. And all these different things are done well. So much for the trained mind-for it was not by natural versatility that this universal ability came. Such variety of achievement is not uncommon where a wide mental training is added to some special natural gift-in spite of the popular impression that a special ability dwarfs its possessor in other directions. Neither Matthew Arnold, Mr. Lowel!, nor Dr. Holmes, suffered anything as essayists or critics for being poets, and few editors in the country were more efficient political writers than Mr. Bryant. So far as "H. H." is anything spontaneously, it is a poet. Outside of poetry, all that she did any one may do who begins with as much intelligence, receives as much help from surroundings, and trains himself with as much care and as high a standard. Poet, unquestionably, "H. H." is first of all, and as poet chiefly will live in literature. To criticise adequately her writings, one the poems of "H. H." have the elements of "Like a blind spinner in the sun --" Such poems as these were adopted into lit erature at once. What, then, are the qualities, and what is the rank of these poems? It is a little too early yet to say with much decision what rank they will finally hold. Although upon an author's death, his whole work lies before us, forever unchangeable, not to be added to nor subtracted from, if he has died in his prime it needs some years of varying tastes and schools of letters to enable us really to take his measure. Yet it seems clear that seems permanency more than of popularity. There no reason why the most of them should not stand always on record, even as they stand now, to be read and valued by those who love beauty enough to seek it, but not to catch the attention of those who do not. For, with all their tenderness, most of her poems are somewhat cold. It is hard to say wherein this coldness consists: not in their perfect dignity and restraint, for no poet by forgetting these virtues has ever come nearer, in the long run, to the heart of the people. Longfellow, who is, of all American poets, most generally dear, is in a high degree personally reticent in verse. Nor is it, as we have have just said, for lack of feeling; for they are full of feeling, a sort of under-thrill of deep sensitiveness and tenderness breaking through the fine precision, the faultless finish, of the verse. I should say, however, that " H. H." rarely wrote on broad lines of common human experience and feeling, but usually expressed the moods, the perceptions, of exceptional and sensitive spir its. It is easier to illustrate this trait of her poetry than to define it. Take, for instance, Semitones. Ah me, the subtle boundary between What pleases and what pains! The difference For which the mightiest are without defense. Where suns are warm from those where suns are cold. 'Twixt harmonies divine as chords can hold, And torturing discords, lie but semitones. Now this is truth, and it is poetry; -truth to a very frequent and a very keen human feeling, and poetry of a high dignity, simplicity, and precision of expression. But it is not truth which recommends itself as such to the busy man, though he be a man of feeling and a lover of poetry. Possibly he has had at least some inkling of the experience nized that he had it, nor attaches any importance in his memory to such flutters of sensibility. In short, much of this poetry is concerned with subtleties of emotional experience, such as only many sensitive women and a few sensitive men care about. Again, there is little of the "lyric cry" about it. This may be seen by comparing "H. H." with Mrs. Browning or Miss Ingelow. Both of these poets can be well compared with her, because they have tones in common with her; that grave, finished beauty of expression which is so uniformly a trait of her poetry, appears occasionally in theirs; but they soar upward from it into a lyric intensity (and often in Mrs. Browning's case, without due regard for preserving dignity and reticence) while she remains always near the same level. For instance : "my heart that erst did go Most like a tired child at a show That sees through tears the mummers leap," or again "Though all great deeds were proved but fables fine; But both were doomed to end with this our clay;Though all these were not,-to the ungraced heir Would this remain-to live as though they were," might be presented to us as extracts from the poems of "H. H.," and if we did not already know them to be Mrs. Browning's and Miss Ingelow's, we should see nothing incredible in even the first one being written by the same hand as "Like a blind spinner in the sun, I tread my days; I know that all the threads will run Appointed ways; I know each day will bring its task, And, being blind, no more I ask." the sonnet speaks of; but he has not recog- But even if we had never heard of |