and told of the gentle molds of ancestry from which she sprang. It was said of Hotspur that "by his light did all the chivalry of England move, to do brave deeds." But the animating spirit of the South-from Sumter to Appomattoxwas the Confederate woman. The hero in gray loved her. She seemed to embody the principles for which he foughtto furnish the golden casket in which his gems were enshrined. With sublime self-abnegation, mothers sacrificed their sons, maidens their sweethearts, sisters their brothers, wives their husbands, upon the altar of Constitutional Freedom. If knights were never braver, it was because vestals at the shrine were never purer-never more unwearied in keeping alive the temple fires. It was to defend them that the Southern soldier fought. It was to protect his loved ones and to keep his hearth-stone inviolate, that he went to war; and, in safe-guarding his holiest treasure from harm, no Israelite under Joshua ever fought more bravely for the Ark of the Covenant. Well she deserved such homage. Her soul was in the cause to which she gave her dearest earthly belongings. She was the last of all to surrender; and even when defeat was lettered upon our flag-when its tattered folds were drooping and its ragged followers were few in number and faint with exhaustion-she held out still, and even pledged her trinkets and her jewels in order that failure might not come until the resources of devotion were exhausted. The soul of the Southern woman! It blazed on the very firing line of battle. It hovered over the sleeping bivouac in which the weary soldiers dreamed of home. It paced the sentinel rounds of the camp. It inspired Lee to write that glorious order at Chambersburg-a model for his enemies-in which he forbade a single act of vandalism by his men, while in the country of the foe. It hallowed and preserved every letter from the front. It treasured ten thousand locks of hair-ten thousand faded photographsat ten thousand gateways, it kept tryst at twilight, and in ten thousand windows, it kept unwearied watch till dawn. It busied itself in making garments for the soldiers at the front. It bent over the wounded and the dying, on the battle-field and in the hospital. Hourly, in a never-ending prayer to God, through the day and through the night, it winged its way to heaven, to find composure in a peace beyond the stars. It gathered up the hallowed remnants of the heroic slain, lifted slabs above the lowly mounds, inspired the beautiful custom of Memorial Day, and lovingly, through all the years, has kept the hillocks green. It was the soldier's golden spur of knighthood; his reward in victory; his solace in defeat; while, even in surrender, it buoyed him with hope, till he saw in prophecy a New South rise and, on the horizon in Virginia, he caught "The maiden splendor of the morning star." Our war-queen of the sixties! God make us worthy of her gentle memory-emulative of her sweet loyalty—and true to her heroic traditions. We cannot raise for her too many monuments. Let us build them all over the landfrom the Patapsco to the Rio Grande; and long may they tower and whiten in the Southern sun! But better than inanimate marble or "praise-encumbered stone," is a living monument. Such is the tribute which, in this rare work, is herewith presented to the public by its gifted author. It is a fit monument to the Confederate woman, because it enshrines her soul. It is spiced with the aroma of her brave deeds. It tells of her beautiful devotion to the South, in days of trial, of her patient suffering, of her sublime unselfishness. This volume is a rich store-house of memories—a portrait-gallery, in which the reader at will may wander, perchance, to make new friends, but recognizing, upon the walls, many familiar faces. These are Dixie's own daughters, all of them cast in the gentle molds of our beautiful Southland, all of them true to its best ideals and inspirations. The High Priest alone could enter the Holy of Holies. Only one in spirit akin to those of whom she writes-one of the very elect number-could hazard such an undertaking. But Mrs. Collier is of the South. Its gentlest aristocracy is in her veins; and she brings to her sacred task a heart of tenderness, filled with all its memories and dowered by all its muses. It has long been her dream to produce something truly worth while for the South, and the publication of this book is a worthy ambition realized and a splendid dream fulfilled. The author is to be congratulated, first, upon the magnificent vision in which such a work had its genesis; and, in the second place on the artistic manner in which she has performed her work and brought a task so colossal to completion. It is not only a finished product, but a flower of genius. Mrs. Collier's family is distinctly Georgian. Its antecedents reach back to the days of the Revolution and into colonial times. She inherits those traditions which enable her, with fidelity to truth, to portray a great past and to be, in the best sense of the word, an interpreter of her section. There is not a phase of Southern life or character, with which she is not familiar; and scarcely a page of Southern history whose contents she cannot repeat. Her childhood's home was among the peaks of the Blue Ridge, in the beautiful old town of Dalton, with its burning memories of Sherman's march. Later, she removed to Washington, Ga., the ancestral home of her family, for many generations. Her maiden name was Margaret Wootten, and she was the youngest daughter of Dr. John Fletcher Wootten, a man of unusual brilliancy of intellect, who served four years as surgeon in the Confederate Army, and distinguished himself for skill, fidelity, and devotion, in serv |