HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

[Illustration: HELEN HUNT JACKSON.]


Thousands were saddened when, Aug. 12, 1885, it was flashed across the
wires that Helen Hunt Jackson was dead. The _Nation_ said, "The news
will probably carry a pang of regret into more American homes than
similar intelligence in regard to any other woman, with the possible
exception of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe."

How, with the simple initials, "H.H.," had she won this place in
the hearts of the people? Was it because she was a poet? Oh no! many
persons of genius have few friends. It was because an earnest life was
back of her gifted writings. A great book needs a great man or woman
behind it to make it a perfect work. Mrs. Jackson's literary work will
be abiding, but her life, with its dark shadow and bright sunlight,
its deep affections and sympathy with the oppressed, will furnish a
rich setting for the gems of thought which she gave to the world.

Born in the cultured town of Amherst, Mass., Oct. 18, 1831, she
inherited from her mother a sunny, buoyant nature, and from her
father, Nathan W. Fiske, professor of languages and philosophy in the
college, a strong and vigorous mind. Her own vivid description of the
"naughtiest day in my life," in _St. Nicholas_, September and October,
1880, shows the ardent, wilful child who was one day to stand out
fearlessly before the nation and tell its statesmen the wrong they had