[1853- ]

FANNIE K. REICHE

"Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny."-Longfellow.

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ATHARINE PEARSON WOODS, novelist, historian, and poet, was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, January 28, 1853, and because of her remarkable achievements in the field of literature, ranks preeminently among representative writers of the South.

In 1856 her parents removed to Baltimore, Maryland, in connection with which city she is best known. Her work shows, however, that her forbears were pioneers from whom descended to Katharine Woods a broadmindedness, a complete sense of the fitness of things -the juxtaposition of principles and events in the great economy of God and nature—the power to review with impartiality, and impersonally-the power of analysis-to seek out the root and its ramifications.

From the maternal side of the house, from the McCabes, she has inherited what is in no sense secondary to, nor less rare than, the legacy from the house of her paternal ancestors-the deep religious and spiritual intuitiveness which is perhaps the most striking and significant characteristic of her works. This, with the literary ability itself, pure and simple, was inborn in the sons and daughters of the house of McCabe for generations past, and the gift descended thus undiminished and untarnished to Katharine Woods.

It was in 1675 that the first of this family, Owen McCabe, came to America, holding a grant of land under William Penn, and settling in western Pennsylvania. He named his ample estate Tyrone, after his native place in Ireland, and to-day the picturesque town of Tyrone stands on a portion of the original grant. The McCabes were Irish Protestants and lacked not the wit, tenderness, the love of home and country that characterize the race.

During the French and Indian War the grandson of Owen McCabe, Captain James McCabe, or "Pat," as the men of his regiment nicknamed him, was one of General Montgomery's staff, and later was mentioned in the diary of General Washington. After the Revolution, during which conflict he equipped a company at his own expense and fought for the colonies and independence, he sold Tyrone and removed to Virginia.

When but nine years of age, immediately after the death of her father in Baltimore, Katharine Woods removed with her mother to the home of her grandfather, the Rev. James Dabney McCabe, Rector of St. James's Church, West River, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, who was one of the most gifted and well-known clergymen of his day. The atmosphere of this home was both literary and religious, which, together with unchecked intercourse with nature, could not but influence one already both receptive and keenly responsive to such environment, out of which a few years later grew the missionary spirit that has dominated all she has written, and every work she has undertaken.

In October, 1867, Mrs. Woods removed with her family to Baltimore, in order to take advantage of greater educational facilities for her children; but owing to frail health, Katharine did not attend school until three years later, when she entered the seminary of Mrs. Converse and Miss Miller, the latter a former pupil of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

In 1872 the All Saints' Sisters-a religious order in the Anglican Church-came to Baltimore from England, and began its work at Mount Calvary Protestant Episcopal Church, of which Miss Woods was an active member. Day by day mission work claimed more and more of her attention, and so engrossed did she become that she entered the sisterhood of All Saints as a postulant in 1874. As she was of frail physique and in ill-health at the time, both her physician and the Mother Superior deemed it expedient for her to give up the sisterhood forever.

It was within the still, peaceful walls of the convent that the first germs of Christian Socialism took root in the young soul, there blossomed into flower, and, after leaving the convent for the world and its conflict, bore fruit in her work at social settlements and in the productivity of her pen, which she wielded in behalf of the warriors of the forge and the loom, whose champion she has ever been. In 1876 she taught school at Mount Washington, Maryland, and afterward in Wheeling, West Virginia.

To Miss Woods, Christian Socialism presented itself as applied Christianity, and therefore interested her; but Nationalism, which in 1889, the date of publication of her first book, was sweeping the country, was but transitory; and the conservatism of thought which came from her early education kept her aloof from the organized side of the Nationalist movement; and, although to a certain extent in sympathy with its reforms, she declined to join their clubs or to commit herself to that peculiar program. For a time, however, Miss Woods belonged to a local lodge of the Knights of Labor, and resigned membership only when the lodge withdrew from the National

Order. Later, Miss Woods spent a year in settlement work in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Hartford. In 1903-'06 she lived in North Carolina, working as a missionary among the mountaineers. With the exception of the periods just mentioned, Miss Woods has lived in Baltimore, where she is now teaching kindergarten. She loves children; and helping to develop character in real life has always been far more interesting to her than creating it on paper.

Miss Woods states that her books have been but a subsidiary consideration-a means to an end; and she feels as if the very best of herself never got into them. But, as a calm review of her works will show, there is no evidence to prove that such is the case; on the contrary, there is abundant proof that everything she has written bears witness to a loftiness of purpose and living, the seeking for good and the finding it, and the bettering of that which is not all bad-this is her creed of life, as it shines forth from the pages of her books.

Except for the broad, intellectual brow, and a certain light of understanding and infinite tenderness that shines forth from the deep gray eyes, there is nothing about Miss Woods that is indicative of the unusual power she has wielded, not alone as an advocate of reform and reformation as set forth in her books, but by her personality as well. Quiet, retiring, and gentle, with a womanliness that finds its highest realization in the women of the South, and a low voice, whose sweetness or the compelling truth it utters bids us listen, the general refinement of person and manner, and a face in which there is a suggestion of spirituality that her life does not beliethis is Katharine Pearson Woods in the flesh.

Few pictures of Miss Woods ever have been published, nor does she approve of this or of any method of advertising one's productiveness in literature.

Distinguished as are all her works, in conception, plot, and treatment, by a sane, radical, and clear-cut enunciation, at times Miss Woods shows as deep an insight into nature-human and superhuman-as George Eliot; her types are distinctive, and because they are real-akin to the great humanity-with its contrasting sunshine and shadow, its joys and its griefs, they will live and be loved.

Miss Woods's prose is marked less by vividness and warmth of coloring, subtle blendings and labyrinthine mazes, than by a certain dignity and mildness of expression, but straight forward and deliberate arrival at the end in view-for never for one moment does she leave us in doubt as to her meaning.

As a historian, it is regrettable that there is but one work to mark her ability. Perhaps one of the most valuable and original features of 'The True Story of Captain John Smith' is her definite identifica

tion of the River Bruapo, which countless historians claim had no existence save in the mind of Captain Smith, but which Miss Woods asserts and proves to be the River Don.

In 'The Mark of the Beast,' 'Metzerott, Shoemaker'-considered by many her best work-and 'A Web of Gold,' Miss Woods has espoused the cause of the laborer, in an effort to establish a more amiable and just relationship between capital and labor, and has struck a blow at perverted economic, industrial, and sociological conditions that cannot but undermine the bulwarks of the nation.

These compositions are the romances of the masses-not as a distorted imagination re-creates them, nor as one who knows them, but from a distance views them-but as one who having lived and worked among them has measured their heights and sounded their depths, and laments the great spirit of unrest that pervades alike their communities, and the abodes of the rich and the powerful.

While, to a certain extent, the theories and reforms as advocated in these three works were ideal, they are more in harmony with the thought of to-day than of the day in which they were written-at which time they were far in advance of current thought.

'From Dusk to Dawn' is a forerunner of the Emmanuel movement in that it predicts the necessity for a fuller development of the priestly office in the direction of physical healing; but the theories. are behind rather than in advance of theories as set forth to-day, though ahead of the time at which they were written. The definition of matter as "a balance, an equilibrium of forces equilibrium more or less stable," as it occurs in this work, comes very close to the latest theory in electrical science. The book's original title was 'Salted with Fire,' but was altered to satisfy the publishers, who claimed the title would not be a selling one.

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In 'John, a Tale of King Messiah,' and 'A Son of Ingar' Miss Woods has drawn from a quite different store-house-the romance of the Scriptures; and has given to the world stories that make very near and dear the Twelve Apostles and those with whom Christ came into closest contact while on earth, and each is told with dramatic fervor.

In no other work more than in 'The Face of Christ' has she so deftly drawn the strange and subtle power of the inner spirit—that which subdues the world and the flesh, and verily makes the two as dust that crumbles under the force of the power divine. Exquisite in style, there is the very poetry of prose in the well-poised and finelydrawn picture; the whole is a classic, and as a classic will taste of immortality.

As a poet, Miss Woods has been a frequent contributor to mag