Woman of the Century/Mollie Evelyn Moore Davis

DAVIS, Mrs. Mollie Evelyn Moore, poet and author, was born in Talladega, Ala., in 1852. Her parents emigrating, she grew up on a Texas plantation With her brother she learned not only to read, but to ride, shoot and swim, and received at home, under the supervision of a wise, book-loving mother and a Highly intellectual father, her mental training. Very early she began to write. Her first volume of poems, entitled "Minding the Gap" (Houston, Texas, 1867), was published before she was sixteen, and enlarged and corrected it has passed through five editions. Her later work has attracted critics at home and abroad. "Keren Happuch and I" is a series of sketches contributed to the New Orleans "Picayune." "In War Times at La Hose Blanche" was a collection of delightful stories (Boston, 1888). That mystic and beautiful prose poem. "The Song of the Opal." the already classical "Pere Daepbert," "Throwing the Wanga." "The Center rigger," and "The Elephant's Track." were written for the Harpers, while many poems and sketches have been published in other periodicals. " Snaky baked a Hoe-Cake," "Grief" and others, contributed to "Wide Awake" in 1876, were among MOLLIE EVELYN MOORE DAVIS. the first, if not the very first, negro dialect stories which appeared in print. Certainly they preceded the furore for southern negro stories. In 1874 Miss Moore became the wife of Major Thomas E. Davis, of an excellent Virginia family, and now editor-in-chief of the New Orleans "Picayune," a gentleman, genial, refined and scholarly, who develops and cherishes what is best in his gifted wife. In 1880 Major and Mrs. Davis made their home in New Orleans, and every year their historic house in Royal street receives all the clever people in town, both French and American residents, while strangers find their way to the cozy drawing-room where General Jackson once discussed his plans of battle. With all her social cares she finds time for much reading and study and much unostentatious hospitality. Her domestic life is as complete as if her fingers were innocent of ink stains and her desk of publishers' proposals. She is an accomplished French scholar and also a lover and student of Spanish literature. She is president of the "Geographies." a select literary circle, and is a vice-president of the "Quarante," a large and fashionable club, also literary-. In both those organizations she is recognized as a mental guide, philosopher and friend. She is a successful author and a magnetic woman, who draws al>out her the best representatives of southern society.