that editor's office, but she knows that it was this very throwing of herself on her own resources that started her on her successful career. A week from that day the Woman'n Chronicle, supplement to the Cambridge Chronicle, appeared, containing an editorial by the young editor, setting forth the policy of the paper, which was not to be concerned with the sentimental and useless matter usually crowding the so-called woman's pages of our large newspapers, but rather was to be devoted to educational, philanthropic, and social activities of Cambridge women. This first issue contained a resume of all of these lines of work, illustrated with photographs of prominent women interested in them.
From that time, save during the months of July and August of each year, the Woman's Chronicle as long as she edited it kept to the high ideals of the first issue, largely increased the circulation of the paper, and came to be recognized as the official organ of women's societies in Cambridge. All this Miss Geddes accomplished entirely unaided. She collected the matter, wrote the articles, and read the proof for each issue, and at the same time carried on the regular course at Radcliffe, and held the positions of clerk of the Cambridge Art Circle and the Cantabrigia Club. Such were the beginnings of the career of a young woman who is now widely known, not only as an active worker in women's clubs and as a journalist, but as a lecturer and class leader in all branches of English literature.
Alice Spencer Ceddes was born in Athol, Mass., November 13, 1876, and was named for her paternal grandmother, with whom she spent her early years. In 1878 the family moved to Cambridge; and in the following year her parents, William E. and Ella M. Ceddes, went to England to establish business there. As they intended to be absent but a .short time, the daughter was left in her grand-mother's charge. But, where success is, there is contentment; and Mr. and Mrs. Geddes took up their permanent residence in London. Ever since her babyhood, then, the daughter has lived in Cambridge in the winter and in London in the summer.
Miss Geddes is a graduate of Chauncy Hall School, Boston, which she entered at the age of eight, and of Radcliffe College, class of 1899. After leaving Radcliffe, she studied at Newnham College. As a result of her special fondness for English literature and of her familiarity with the homes and haunts of literary men and women abroad, she was led to enter upon the field of work which has brought her fame.
In October, 1901, a large audience listened to a "Recital of Literary Romances" by Miss Geddes. Clearly and distinctly, without affectation, she read the stories .she had written of the love episodes in the lives of Swift and his Stella, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and Carlyle and Jane Welsh. Her hearers, among them being many literary critics, marvelled at the purity and beauty of these sketches, as well as at their keen insight and penetration into character.
The next morning the leading Boston papers announced the appearance of a new star in the literary firmament, and letters congratulatory were followed by letters of inquiry as to terms for lecture and class work. Thus, at the early age of twenty-five. Miss Geddes became much in demand to give lectures and recitals and lead classes in eighteenth century and Victorian literature.
The secret of her popularity lies in the newness of her methods; for in her analysis of a great work of literature she gives merely statistics enough to identify the period, and avoids repeating well-known truisms and general statements. She goes below the outer shell, and unearths the inner meaning of the work, the causes which produced it, and the effect of its existence. She is now preparing a course of ten lectures on "The Novel and Life," which will follow the parallel development of civilization and the English novel.
In spite of the amount of brain work which so many demands call from her, she has not lost her girlishness, and is much sought after at the gatherings of young people in Cambridge. She is much interested in club work, being a member of the Cambridge Art Circle, the Cantabrigia Club, the Woman's Charity Club, the Metaphysical Club, the Actors' Church Alliance, the New England Woman's Press Association, and the Ruskin Club.
