Identifier: beautifulgemsfro00bird (find matches)
Title: Beautiful gems from American writers and the lives and portraits of our favorite authors
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Birdsall, William Wilfred, 1854-1909, (from old catalog) ed Jones, Rufus Matthew, 1863- (from old catalog) joint ed
Subjects: American literature
Publisher: Chicago, Ill., International publishing co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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h the li(;uid vaults of air, she nevertheless manages language with an ease and elegance and that refinedfelicity of expression, which is tlie principal charm in poetry. In bliink verse sheis very successful. The poems that she has written in this measure have much ofthe manner of Wordsworth, and may be nearly or quite as highly relished by hisadmirers. To the above eminent critical estimate of Mrs. Sigourneys writings it is unneces-sary to add further comment. The justice of the praise bestowed upon her isevinced by the fact that she has acquired a wider and more pervading reputationthan many of her more modern sisters in the realm of poesy, but it is evident that, oflate years, her poetry has not enjoyed the popular favor which it had prior to 1860. Lydia Huntley was the only child of her parents, and was born at Norwich,Connecticut, September 1st, 1791. Her father was a man of worth and benevolenceand had served in the revolutionary struggle which brought about the independence 252
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lYD/Zf H J/COa/?A/fy fi/zAB^r/y 0/^/<£5 s/^/r// WOMEN POETS OF AMERICA LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY. 253 of America. Of the precocity of the child Duyckinck says: She coukl readfluently at the age of three and composed simple verses at seven, smooth in rhythmand of an invariable religious sentiment. Her girlhood life was quiet and unevent-ful. She received the best educational advantac-es which her neio;hborhood and thesociety of Madam Lathrop, the widow of Dr. Daniel Lathrop, of Hartford, couldbestow. In 1814, when twenty-three years of age, Miss Huntley was induced totake a select school at Hartford, and removed to that city, where the next year, in1815, her first book, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, was published. Theprose essays are introduced by the remark: They are addressed to a number ofyoung ladies under my care, and the writer throughout the volume seems to havehad her vocation as a teacher in view. In the summer of 1819 Miss Huntley be-came the wife of Mr. Charles Sigourne

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