HARRIET H. ROBINSON. IN these days when woman's place in the com In theity as well as in the family is coming to be acknowledged, when the labor of her hands, head and heart is everywhere abundantly honored, it is well for our younger toilers to see what has been accomplished by those who grew up under circumstances more difficult than those by which they are surrounded. Labor has always been honorable for anybody in our steady-going, highprincipled New England life; but it was not as easy for a young woman to put her mental machinery into working order forty years ago as it is now. Her ambition for the education of her higher faculties was, however, all the greater for the check that was put upon them by the necessities of the longer day's toil and the smaller compensation of the older time. It is one of the wholesome laws of our nature that we value most that which we most persistently strive after, through obstacles and hinderances. The author of "The New Pandora" is an illustration of what has been achieved by one such woman, the development of whose mind began as a child in the Lowell cotton mills half a century ago. The book is commended by reviewers as an admirably written composition, a beautiful and successful dramatic poem of woman. It is the result of ripe years of thought. "Nor indeed," says a critic, "could any one write so without the experiences of life behind her work.” Mrs. Robinson's maiden name was Harriet Hanson. She was born in Boston, February 8, 1825, and in 1832 removed with her widowed mother and her brothers to Lowell, where they lived for some years on the Tremont Corporation. She wrote occasionally for the Lowell Offering, and was on intimate terms with its editors and contributors. In 1848 she married William S. Robinson, then editor of the Boston Daily Whig. Mr. Robinson afterwards became well known as "Warrington" in the Springfield Republican and in the New York Tribune; and he was for eleven years Clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He died March 11, 1876. Mrs. Robinson's first published work was “Warrington Pen Portraits," a memoir of her husband, with selections from his writings. She has also written "Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement," a history; "Captain Mary Miller," a drama; and "Early Factory Labor in New England"; and is a contributor to newspapers and magazines. But her best literary achievement is her latest, "The New Pandora,” a poem of which any writer might well be proud, and which deserves a large circulation, both on account of its substance and its execution. The poem is no mere attempt at rewriting the old classical legend,—it is modern in all its suggestions, and puts the possibilities of humanity-inclusive of manhood and womanhood— on a noble upward plane. There are passages of exquisitely clear-cut poetry in the drama, and gleams of true poetic aspiration lighting up the homely toil of the woman who knows herself not of earthly lineage. The "Chorus of Ills" beginning their flight is a strong chant, as classical in its strain as some of Shelley's in his imaginative dramas. Indeed, the whole poem is so classically thought out and shaped as to be lifted quite above what is "popular" in style, and is for that reason less likely to attract the attention it deserves. To the writer of this brief notice, it is pleasant to recall the time when the author of this beautiful poem and herself were children together,-school companions and work-mates,—when an atmosphere of poetry hung over the busy city by the Merrimac, and when its green borders burst into bloom with girlish dreams and aspirations. Perhaps her "Pandora's Prayer" breathes the very truest aspirations of many a heart among that far-away throng of industrious onward-looking maidens: "But this I ask, that I may be allowed by thee L. L. And every deed they wrought fruition brings, To all the people, with adjustment fine Of God's great law. For nations rise, decline, As do their leaders teach. So secret springs Control the rivers' flow. But see, there wings A new procession toward the heights divine, And lo, a woman leads! whose deeds no song Of poet sweet, nor page of history keeps. Not great, or wise, she claimed not to belong To such as these; not this the praise she reaps, But o'er her grave, whose pen could write no wrong, The pure young girlhood of the nation weeps. THE INWARD VOICE. I SAID unto my soul, "Be still, nor haunt And pleading to the voice that once was mine THE THYME-LEAVED SANDWORT. WHEN first I met you, little milk-white flower, And yet, along your puny stalk, the dower Of each day's bloom, a tiny seed there lay Safe held within,-the flower of yesterday, To bloom again and fill your little hour. O, blossom small, a lesson well you teach! Unto my highest bound and climb amain, LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. MARCH 6, 1888. AND SO they pass along the receding line, The men who make the age, its leaders, kings, MY MADONNA. MADONNA! most gracious Madonna! I could not interpret the mystery, That veiled in thy motherhood sacred But thou, O my chosen Madonna! How all through the soul of the mother LOVE. True love Who loves, forgets himself, oppresseth not The wooden spoon and gilds the gourd with gold. THOUGHT. How beautiful is thought! It wraps the soul, and makes the body seem As might have had their birth 'midst woods and flowers. And when I make the fire in early morn, Or sweep the hearthstone up, such glorious scenes Along the climbing blaze arise, ascend, As well may fill the sun-god's home, or stream Through Heaven's blue, adown his shining beam. -Ibid. MORN. And plant and gather food to feed mankind? Her eye and cheek. She lives! to earth she came Great Jove! 'tis I, Pandora, mother of my kind. Let me not die while still the only good lies hid |