Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/61

44 with her little ones, at a time when the voyage in stormy weather sometimes extended over a space of fifteen or sixteen days, and the perils and hardships of the ocean had not been ameliorated to the extent which obtains at present.

In her early life abroad Mrs. Gifford imbibed a taste for foreign literature, foreign languages, and foreign travel, which shaped her subse- quent career. She has since travelled exten- tively over Europe and the Orient, many of the countries visited having been but recently made accessible to the traveller. Her plans and tours have been all marked out in advance, and her research has been so thorough that the map of Europe to her is like an illuminated book, even the unaccustomed routes being like the beaten track in her own garden. She has delighted the public with a large foreign cor- respondence, her vivid imagination making the scenes of these various countries and the customs and habits of the people stand out before her readers like familiar experiences, her interesting and practical relations furnishing much valuable information to other travellers.

Since 18.3, after the death of her eldest child, Katherine, born in 1870, a young lady of lovely character, Mrs. Gifford has found great solace in literature. In her first travels through Germany, fascinated by German life and the people, she conceived the idea of putting into form a racy account of the Germans from their beginning; and from this idea was developed the series of books, beginning with "Germany: Her People and Their Story," published by the Lothrop Publishing Company in 1899. It is as readable as a romance, one of its great merits being that its historical facts have an attractive setting. Evidently prepared with reference to the requirements of the general reader, it is something more than an outline of the salient features in the progress of the German nation from barbarism to enlightenment, from a confederacy of loosely allied states to a strongly cemented empire. Legend and anecdote have been skilfully woven into the story, and vivid glimpses are given of the national life, and a clear insight into the national character. It was a difficult task the author had before her of condensing within the limits of a six-hundred-page volume twelve hundred years of a nation's growth. There was danger on the one hand of making the volume little more than a chronological record, and on the other of inadequacy. The success with which she has avoided both dangers attests a fine sense of proportion, discriminating judgment, and much literary skill.

"Mrs. Gifford's ’Germany' was received with so much favor by both the people and her publishers that she was encouraged to go on with the series. She has now for several years been collecting material abroad for her ’Italy,' visiting that country many times in order to absorb all the phases of Italian life and character; and 'Italy: Her People and their Story,' bids fair even to excel the first of the series in interest."

Mrs. Gifford has also given much time to club work, writing many papers and giving many lectures and talks. Her papers on "German Literature and German Authors," "Mission Work in India" (the origin of the people from the Aryans, their early religious development, etc.), an article entitled "How to Travel," and her very celebrated lecture, "From the North Cape to the Orient," have attracted much attention. Her series of talks on architecture, condensed for students and travellers, is to be the nucleus of a volume entitled "The Architecture of Cathedrals and Castles, for Students and Travellers," when time shall permit her to complete the work.

Mrs. Gifford through all these years of travel has retained her home in Portland, Me., and when in America it has always been her pleasure to spend her time in this beautiful little city by the sea and again get in touch with real New England life. Both at home and abroad her society is sought by people of culture, and she is a welcome presence in any gathering.

ATE E. GRISWOLD, proprietor and publisher of Profitable Advertising, a monthly magazine issued in Boston, devoted to the interests of advertisers and publishers, is widely known as a successful journalist, the periodical of which she is the sponsor ranking, it is said, as foremost of its kind in the world. Miss Griswold was born about thirty-five years ago at West Hartford,