Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

It is not the

It is not the straining for great things that is most effective; it is the doing the little things, the common duties, a little better and better. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

Surely it is one of the requisites of a tasteful garb that the expression of effort to please shall be wanting in it; that the mysteries of the toilet shall not be suggested by it; that the steps to its completion shall be knocked away like the sculptor’s ladder from the statue, and the mental … Read more

The Girl of the

The Girl of the Period, sauntering before one down Broadway, is one panorama of awful surprises from top to toe. Her clothes characterize her. She never characterizes her clothes. She is upholstered, not ornamented. She is bundled, not draped. She is puckered, not folded. She struts, she does not sweep. She has not one of … Read more

Out of my discomforts,

Out of my discomforts, which were small enough, grew one thing for which I have all my life been grateful, the formation of fixed habits of work. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

A good short story

A good short story is a work of art which daunts us in proportion to its brevity…. No inspiration is too noble for it; no amountof hard work is too severe for it. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

I read, with a

I read, with a kind of hopeless envy, histories and legends of people of our craft who \”do not write for money.\” It must be a pleasant experience to be able to cultivate so delicate a class of motives for the privilege of doing one’s best to express one’s thoughts to people who care for … Read more

… when one reflects

… when one reflects on the books one never has written, and never may, though their schedules lie in the beautiful chirography which marks the inception of an unexpressed thought upon the pages of one’s notebook, one is aware, of any given idea, that the chances are against its ever being offered to one’s dearest … Read more

A literary woman\\’s best

A literary woman’s best critic is her husband. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

It is impossible to

It is impossible to forget the sense of dignity which marks the hour when one becomes a wage-earner… I felt that I had suddenly acquired value to myself, to my family, and to the world. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

… it seems to

… it seems to have been my luck to stumble into various forms of progress, to which I have been of the smallest possible use; yet for whose sake I have suffered the discomfort attending all action in moral improvements, without the happiness of knowing that this was clearly quite worth while. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps … Read more