lot, totally untrained, thoroughly incompetent when put on their own resources, though docile and tractable and willing to obey. The land, poorly cultivated, yielded little the first year; the overseer sickened and there was none to look after the plantation but the beautiful, unpractical young philanthropist. Finally the malaria crept up the river and attacked these people who were unused to it and unprepared to cope with it. Al sickened though none died. Such discouragements proved too many and the colony was a failure. Weak in body and sick at heart over the bursting of her rainbow bubble with its many hopeful tints, Frances Wright consulted with her trustees and concluded to give up her cherished plan. Her slaves were still her first care, however, and at her own expense she took them down the Mississippi and chartering a small vessel set out for Haiti. There were thirty-one negroes in all, thirteen adults and eighteen children. After an eventful passage they arrived at the island and Miss Wright was granted a tract of land by the Haitian government. She freed them all, established them on this land and left them there, a few sentiments of individual rights, and of liberty planted in their hearts, a dim sense of gratitude in their happy irresponsible minds. And so failed the first industrial training school for negroes that the civilized world knew. Frances Wright might be termed a contemporary of Wilberforce; she anticipated the enthusiasm of Sumner, Brown, Wendell Phillips and Garrison by nearly thirty years, and offered a plan of gradual emancipation so entirely foreign to that of any offered by these that it seemed ab surd to them when their day came The big Nashoba plantation still Her venture came too soon, not sooner perhaps than it was needed, but sooner than even the most hotheaded abolitionist wished. The woman herself was a century ahead of the times. At that day she was an anomaly, an affront to the con servatives who belived women were only meant "to bake and brew, Nurse, dress, gossip and scandalize," and never to think for themselves, or be factors in the great social, political and literary movements of the age. She belonged among the women of to-day and would possibly be considered only an average progressive woman. She was born at Dundee, Scotland, on September 6, 1795, the daughter of a socialist of advanced ideas though high birth. Through her father she was descended from the Campbells of Inverness, the Argyle branch, and the Stewarts of Loch Arne. On her mother's side she came of the lettered aristocracy of England, Mrs. Montagu being her grand-aunt, and Baron Baron Rokeby, "Friend Robinson," her great-uncle. General Duncan Campbell was her grandfather and General William Campbell her uncle; Archbishop Campbell of Baltimore was another near relative. Left an orphan at an early age she was educated with her sister, Sylvia, under the guidance of Gen. Duncan Campbell, whose ideas on the education of girls were much the same as those held by progressive men of today. It is said by some of her biographers that many of her theories of life were imbibed from Jeremy Bentham who was, so it is alleged, one of her instructors. At any rate the manner in which the Wright sisters were educated was highly scandalizing to the good people of the early times. The result of Gen. Campbell's experiment in Frances Wright's case was this queer contradiction,—a beautiful young woman with the logical brain and ambitions of a man, and with a womanly sentiment strong enough to dominate her at times. Naturally the world went hard with her. She was continually misunderstood, persecuted, slandered and derided by the very persons in whose interest she labored. The church called her an infidel, preachers and politicians made her one of a trio against whom they waged wordy war-"Tom Paine, Fanny Wright and the Devil." Yet the paper she published and edited was not overly radical in its policy; her editorials were ever in defense of the weak and oppressed, her philosophy philosophy was clear and logical, her lectares eloquent and forceful, her poetry pure and lyrical. In a letter to Mrs. Shelley she gave this keynote of her faith: "I have devoted my time and fortune," she wrote, "to laying the foundations of an establishment where affection shall form the only marriage, kind feeling and kind action the only religion, respect for the feelings and liberties of others the only restraint, and union of interest the bond of peace and security." Robert Dale Owen, one of her coworkers in philanthropic enterprises, and one who admired her courage and convictions, wrote of her once in all kindness:— "Her courage was not tempered with prudence and her enthusiasm lacked the guiding check of sound judgment." Mrs. Trollope, who knew her and heard her lecture wrote this of Frances Wright: "Her tall and majestic figure, the deep and almost solemn expression of her eyes, the simple contour of her finely formed head, her garment of plain white muslin, which hung around her in folds that recalled the drapery of a Grecian statue, all contributed to produce an effect unlike anything that I have ever seen before, or expect to see again." Even her marriage was a failure. in its cry for happiness. She married William Casimir Sylvan Phiquepal D'Arusmont, a French physician and nobleman, but found it necessary to secure a divorce in a few years. The trustees deeded Nashoba to her and at intervals for many years she came back to the place to live for awhile, and her unusually tall figure was quite a familiar spectacle on Memphis streets for many years, though most of her time was devoted to lecturing in the North and East. Her influence throughout the country was at one time marked. There were "Fanny Wright Societies" founded in her honor, and while she labored for socialism, freethought and pure living, her crusade against slavery was not stayed and her dream of emancipation was nev er forgotten, nor did she cease to hope for its realization. She died, however, before its realization came, and possibly she would have been grievously disappointed to see its more successful termination forty years after her own venture, when freedom for the negro was bought with the best blood of the North and of the South. Sumner did not have her in mind when he wrote the following paragraph but it is curiously appropriate to her life: "I honor any man who in the conscientious discharge of his duty dares to stand alone; the world, with ignorant, intolerant judgment, may condemn, the countenances of relatives may be averted, and the hearts of friends grow cold, but the sense of duty done shall be sweeter than the applause of the world, the countenances of relatives, or the hearts of friends." I My Creed By CORA A. MATSON DOLSON DEEM it matters little what betide, If but our souls reach for the perfect Guide; Feel the deep wounds on cross of Calvary made, And own the vastness of the debt He paid. I deem it matters little what our creed, The Passing of a Soul By LUCRETIA DUNHAM HE doctor's buggy was coming slowly along the road in the heat of the June day. The sun's rays beat down on its black, shiny top, and on the well-worn reins dangling loosely over the old mare's back. Great patches of sunshine lay athwart the road, stretching its long, dusty length, with now and then at welcome bit of shadow from some overhanging tree or bush. The air held in it a brooding stillness; it was as though all nature had succumbed to the first scorching breath of summer. Even the life of the fields was hushed. A hawk, wheeling and circling overhead in the blue expanse, glanced for a moment across the sun like a dark speck. In the lazy hush the old horse jogged slowly along, with eyes halfclosed, and kicking up great clouds of dust. From within the black depths of the old buggy, the doctor's genial face peered forth. Beneath his wide-brimmed hat, a few locks of white hair fell over his temples; now and then he raised his hand and brushed them back. An old linen duster served as a protection against the storm of dust. He let the reins hang loosely over the dashboard, and allowed the mare to jog along at will. "A shower wouldn't come amiss, just now," he mused, as he pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his red face. The road turned abruptly, and the horse in response to a sudden, quick jerk of the right rein, turned with it, and in the same pervading stillness, ambled along its half-mile length. It ended in a short lane, and presently the doctor felt the grateful shade of an avenue of pines, their slender tops bending and touching over the carpet of needles beneath. "Old Si would 'a been proud of these trees, could he just 'a lived a few years longer. Strange, how short the span o' human life is when we come right down to it. Don't seem much more'n yestiddy, when he sat in the porch yonder, smokin' his old pipe and pointin' to 'em. 'I set them trees out myself, when I wuz a boy, an' I've growed right up along with 'em; seem's though the sun's rays teched 'em fust thing in the mornin' and left 'em the las' thing at night.'' The doctor leaned forward out of the buggy. "The tops didn't come anywheres near anywheres near to meetin' then. Why, I wa'n't much more'n a boy myself, an' Si's been dead this many a year. Yes, an' he left a goodly heritage." His eye traveled off over the broad meadow-lands stretching away to the setting sun; over the shimmering fields and the orchards with their gnarled and knotted limbs and the sunshine sifting through the green. It represented years of labor; years of sweat and toil. "Mandy need never want fer nothin'," he said to me that day, "'neither her nor her children. An' when I'm gone, Jim can carry on the farm. He's a good worker, Jim is.' And with the passing of the years the old place had prospered. In the heat of summer suns the great fields of grain waved to and fro; in the full of harvest moons the great barns were filled to bursting. The house— a broad, square, many-windowed structure, with low, gabled roofhad come to Mandy, together with the broad acres and orchards. Its weather-beaten sides bore evidence of many a summer's sun, and many a winter's storm. Beneath the projecting eaves generations of swallows had built their nests and reared their young. But all around there showed the touches of a woman's hand. Rows of hollyhocks bordered the walk that led to the porch in the rear. There was a scent of lavender; of wild thyme, pansies and mignonette. A great bed of flaming tulips made a bright patch of color. The roses clambering over the porch were in full bloom, and here in the shadow of the vines, Mandy often sat with her pan of peas to shell or potatoes to pare, and here, too, she and Jim sat alone in the cool of the summer evenings, with the scent of the roses, the faint, far cry of the whip-poorwills and the croaking of frogs in the meadow-pond. A man's heavy step on the porch roused the doctor from his reverie. The old mare had come to a standstill. "Thet you, doctor? Glad to see ye. Come right in now. Sun's a little hot to-day, ain't it?" Jim's great stalwart form and frank, goodnatured face stood framed in the network of vines. ""Twas only this mornin' thet Mandy was askin' ef ye weren't comin' to-day. Better set right ther in thet easy chair an' rest an' cool off a bit 'fore ye go up stairs. I'll fetch a drink." The doctor took off his linen duster and laid it carefully over the arm of the shiny, haircloth sofa; put his hat and gloves on the table, with his well-worn leather case beside them, and leaned his head against the chintz-covered cushion of the chair. "Well, how does she seem today?" he asked, as he held out his hand for the glass. "Seem'd quite bright an' cheerful like this mornin'; more like her old self. 'Bout 'leven o'clock I give her the medicine and then went down to the ten-acre lot. 'Ye ain't goin' to be gone long, be ye Jim?' she asked, so when I come back agin I jest took a look in at the door, an' she seemed to be sleepin'. I'd hed to stay a little longer'n I me'nt to, givin' some orders to the men, so I tiptoed acrost the room to pull the curtains, so's the sun shouldn't shine in so, an' she opened her eyes. I went over to the bed an' took her hand. 'Be ye asleep, Mandy?' I sez. She looked up at me, but she didn't say nothin'. I thought her face looked turrible white an' pinched like, but I s'pose she'll look like thet now the fever's left 'er an' she's a-gettin' well. But ain't it kind o' queer, doctor, thet she ain't never asked 'bout the baby?" He paused, and his eyes halftroubled, searched the doctor's face. The latter rose quickly from his chair. "I guess I'll be going up now," he said, shortly, and picked up his case from the table. It left an outline on the polished wood. Jim smiled as he saw it. "Wonder what Mandy'd say to that?" he observed. "It's 'stonishin' how the dirt begins to creep into the corners an' the dust to settle on things, when the wimmen folks ain't 'round." He followed slowly on up the |