Lives of Girls Who Became Famous

Lives of Girls Who Became
Famous

Project Gutenberg's Lives of Girls Who Became Famous, by Sarah
Knowles Bolton This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Lives of Girls Who Became Famous
Author: Sarah Knowles Bolton
Release Date: April 19, 2004 [EBook #12081]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF
GIRLS WHO BECAME FAMOUS ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Mike Boto, Ylva Lind
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

LIVES
OF

GIRLS WHO BECAME FAMOUS.
BY
SARAH K. BOLTON,
AUTHOR OF "POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS," "SOCIAL
STUDIES IN ENGLAND," ETC.
1914

"Earth's noblest thing, a woman perfected." --JAMES RUSSELL
LOWELL.
"Sow good services; sweet remembrances will grow from them."
--MADAME DE STAEËL.

TO
MY AUNT,
MRS. MARTHA W. MILLER, Whose culture and kindness I count
among the blessings of my life.

PREFACE.
All of us have aspirations. We build air-castles, and are probably the
happier for the building. However, the sooner we learn that life is not a
play-day, but a thing of earnest activity, the better for us and for those
associated with us. "Energy," says Goethe, "will do anything that can
be done in this world"; and Jean Ingelow truly says, that "Work is
heaven's hest."
If we cannot, like George Eliot, write Adam Bede, we can, like

Elizabeth Fry, visit the poor and the prisoner. If we cannot, like Rosa
Bonheur, paint a "Horse Fair," and receive ten thousand dollars, we can,
like Mrs. Stowe and Miss Alcott, do some kind of work to lighten the
burdens of parents. If poor, with Mary Lyon's persistency and noble
purpose, we can accomplish almost anything. If rich, like Baroness
Burdett-Coutts, we can bless the world in thousands of ways, and are
untrue to God and ourselves if we fail to do it.
Margaret Fuller said, "All might be superior beings," and doubtless this
is true, if all were willing to cultivate the mind and beautify the
character.
S.K.B.

CONTENTS.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE Novelist
HELEN HUNT JACKSON Poet and Prose Writer
LUCRETIA MOTT Preacher
MARY A LIVERMORE Lecturer
MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI Journalist
MARIA MITCHELL Scientist
LOUISA M ALCOTT Author
MARY LYON Teacher
HARRIET G HOSMER Sculptor
MADAME DE STAËL Novelist and Political Writer
ROSA BONHEUR Artist

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING Poet
"GEORGE ELIOT" Novelist
ELIZABETH FRY Philanthropist
ELIZABETH THOMPSON BUTLER Painter
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE Hospital Nurse
LADY BRASSEY Traveller
BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS Benefactor
JEAN INGELOW Poet
* * * * *

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
[Illustration: HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.]
In a plain home, in the town of Litchfield, Conn., was born, June 14,
1811, Harriet Beecher Stowe. The house was well-nigh full of little
ones before her coming. She was the seventh child, while the oldest
was but eleven years old.
Her father, Rev. Lyman Beecher, a man of remarkable mind and
sunshiny heart, was preaching earnest sermons in his own and in all the
neighboring towns, on the munificent salary of five hundred dollars a
year. Her mother, Roxana Beecher, was a woman whose beautiful life
has been an inspiration to thousands. With an education superior for
those times, she came into the home of the young minister with a
strength of mind and heart that made her his companion and reliance.
There were no carpets on the floors till the girl-wife laid down a piece
of cotton cloth on the parlor, and painted it in oils, with a border and a

bunch of roses and others flowers in the centre. When one of the good
deacons came to visit them, the preacher said, "Walk in, deacon, walk
in!"
"Why, I can't," said he, "'thout steppin' on't." Then he exclaimed, in
admiration, "D'ye think ya can have all that, and heaven too?"
So meagre was the salary for the increasing household, that Roxana
urged that a select school be started; and in this she taught French,
drawing, painting, and embroidery, besides the higher English branches.
With all this work she found time to make herself the idol of her
children. While Henry Ward hung round her neck, she made dolls for
little Harriet, and read to them from Walter Scott and Washington
Irving.
These were enchanting days for the enthusiastic girl with brown curls
and blue eyes. She roamed over the meadows, and through the forests,
gathering wild flowers in the spring or nuts in the fall, being educated,
as she afterwards said, "first and foremost by Nature, wonderful,
beautiful, ever-changing as she is in that cloudland, Litchfield. There
were the crisp apples of the pink azalea,--honeysuckle-apples, we
called them; there