Page:Female Prose Writers of America.djvu/314

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

JANE ELIZABETH LARCOMBE.

Miss Larcombe has, within the last three years, won an honourable place among the magazinists of the country. Her tales are sprightly and piquant, and show a degree of originality and a fertility of invention, which augur well for her future and more elaborate efforts. Her stories thus far have appeared in Neal’s Gazette, Godey, Peterson, Sartain, as well as in the Annuals, and all under the assumed name of “Kate Campbell.” She is at present engaged as a regular contributor to some of the religious periodicals of the church to which she belongs—the Baptist.

Miss Larcombe was born January 13, 1829, at Colebrook, Connecticut. The family removed in 1831 to Danbury, Connecticut; in 1834, to Saugerties, New York; and in 1835, to Philadelphia, where they still reside. She is descended, on the mother’s side, of a Scottish family, staunch covenanters. Her father, who was a clergyman, and who, in the latter part of his life, was chaplain to the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, was of French descent, from the Waldenses of Piedmont. The family left France at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and settled in Bristol, England, and thence emigrated to Hartford, Connecticut.


THOUGHTS BY THE WAYSIDE.

A summer twilight! who enjoys it? or rather, who can resist the magnetism which draws one to the open window, beneath which the leaves of the trees tremble in the quiet air, while the Heaven above lies so hushed and smiling, with a calmness as though it had been shedding tears, and, worn and exhausted, could do nought but smile languidly on the broad, sinful earth?

(280)