"Deephaven" Authoress

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 87, 21 February 1941, Page 5

"Deephaven" Authoress

i Secs New England States have a long history and a proud one. They were colonised between 1620 and 1640, when 21,000 persons came here from England. They were people of strong religious beliefs and sound character. They were earnest, vigorous and courageous, and the love of learning was strong among them. It is no wonder that from New England have come the most powerful influences in the development of the United States, influences quite out of proportion to the size of the territory. You may remember that in my talk on Harriet Beecher Stowe I mentioned that after she went to live in New England, she used local material for a few novels. These novels were read greedily by a little girl who live¢ in Maine, Sarah Orne Jewett. She was a delicate little girl, often unable" to go to school, but her father, a country doctor and a wise man of wide interests, had a good library in which Sarah read omnivorously. Besides, she often used to go about with her father on his visits to country patients, and from their talks she unconsciously learnt to observe every detail of the countryside. She met, too, the people of the country, and the fisher folk and farmers. And so, when she begar: to write seriously she had a complete knowledge of her subject — people of Maine in their native setting. A series of sketches and stories were collected under the title "Deephaven," the name she gave in her writings to her native town, Berwick. She became recognised as one of the leading writers of New England. Sarah Orne Jewett died in 1909 at the age of sixty. Her achievement was that she fixed for ever a picture of New England when the prosperity brought by its West Indian trade had deserted it, and before the modern period of smoke and steam had begun.- ("A Few Minutes With Women Noveiists" (13) Some New England Writers, By Margaret Johnston, 2YA, February 8).