Woman of the Century/Clara H. Mountcastle

MOUNTCASTLE, Miss Clara H., artist, author and elocutionist, born in the town of Clinton, CLARA H. MOUNTCASTLE. Province of Ontario, Canada. 26th November, 1837, where she has passed her busy life. Her parents were English born, of mixed Scotch and Irish descent. Her early years were passed on her father's farm where she cultivated the acquaintance of nature in all her moods, early evincing a taste for poetry and painting that the hardships incident to a home of limited means could not subdue. Later she studied painting in Toronto. She has taken prizes in all the provincial exhibitions and is very proficient in pencil drawing. As a teacher she is very successful. In 1882 a Toronto firm published "The Mission of Love," a volume of poems by Miss Mountcastle, which has been very favorably received. She then wrote "A Mystery," a novelette, which was purchased and published by the same firm. It had a good sale. Her style is clear, chaste and forcible. Miss Mountcastle was recently elected an honorary member of the Trinity Historical Society, Dallas, Texas. Her first important painting, "Spoils of the Sable," was exhibited in the Royal Canadian Academy, and it brought her instant recognition. Other fine pictures have extended her reputation. Her poems and prose works have been very popular throughout Canada and in the United States. Her platform work has included the rendition of her own essays and poems. She is a forcible and dramatic reader, a versatile author, and an artist of strong, varied powers.