The encouragement of the great magazines, from the first friendly to women writers, is an important factor in their development. _Harper’s_ dates from 1850; the _Atlantic Monthly_, in 1857, opened a new outlet for literary work of a high grade. Here appeared many of the short stories of Rose Terry, depicting the life of New England; unsurpassable in their fidelity to nature, their spontaneous flow, their grim humor, pathos, tragedy. In the pages of the _Atlantic_, too, suddenly flashed into sight the brilliant exotics of Harriet Prescott, who holds among American women a position as singular as that of Poe among men. Her characters have their being in some remote, gorgeous sunset-land; we feel that the Boston Common of “Azarian” is based upon a cloud rather than solid Yankee earth, and the author can scarce pluck a Mayflower but it turns at her touch to something rich and strange. Native flavor there is in some of her shorter stories, such as “The South Breaker,” and “Knitting Sale-Socks”; but a sudden waft of foreign spices is sure to mingle with the sea-wind or the inland lilac-scents. “The Amber Gods” and “A Thief in the Night” skillfully involve the reader in a dazzling web of deceptive strength. In “Temple House,” “Two Men,” and “The Morgesons,” the peculiarly powerful works of Mrs. Stoddard, the central figures do not seem necessarily of any particular time or country. Their local habitation, however, is impressively painted; with a few swift vigorous strokes, the old coast towns spring up before us; the very savor of the air is imparted. Minor characters strongly smack of the soil; old Cuth, in “Two Men,” dying “silently and firmly, like a wolf”; Elsa, in the same book. There are scenes of a superb, fierce power,—that of the wreck in “Temple House,” for instance. The curt and repressed style, the ironic humor of Mrs. Stoddard, serve to grapple her work to the memory as with hooks of steel; it is as remote as possible from the conventional notion of woman’s writing.