Elisabeth Woodbridge Morris was born on June 16, 1870 in Brooklyn, New York. After attending school at Packer Collegiate Institute of Brooklyn, she attained an A.B. degree from Vassar College in 1892. On September 27, 1899 she married Charles Gould Morris a lawyer. Together, the couple had five children. As Elisabeth raised her family, she continued her education. By 1908, Elisabeth was one of the first women to receive a PhD from Yale University. Later, she taught English at both the Packer Collegiate Institute and Vassar. John William Leonard’s book Woman’s Who’s Who of America lists some of her hobbies as “all-out hunting, fishing, rowing, tennis and tramping.” It also notes that she supported women’s suffrage. These interests are explored in her personal writing. She was influenced her paternal ancestor, Reverend Jonathan Edwards, and often reflected and wrote about him. Two of her collections of essays focus around him: Jonathan Papers published in 1912, More Jonathan Papers published in 1915. She wrote what some readers called “natural history essays” in Outlook, Atlantic, and Scribner’s. In 1917, she published Days Out and Other Papers. This collection displays her wide-ranging thoughts. Her conversational essays explore domestic life, literature, and human relationships. She also wrote works on theater, criticism, and education—including co-writing A Course in Expository Writing and A Course in Narrative Writing with mentor and colleague Gertrude Buck from Vassar. Elisabeth Woodbridge Morris died April 2, 1964 in Globe, Arizona. (Cassie Keller Cole)
The fact must be that very early in life before I can remember I formed a habit of going on living, and of expecting to go on, which became incorrigible.
Now, humor is a pleasant thing, and a good thing; but perhaps it is being a little overdone, and overdone with a touch of priggery and a touch of stupidity.
For whereas the remoteness of memory is unalterable and eternal, the remoteness of our art-perceptions is apt to be momentary, and in part at least a matter of our own choice.
We Americans are often congratulated, we often congratulate ourselves, on our emancipation from conventions, from forms, from traditions. But are we, I wonder, altogether to be congratulated?
I allow myself to be overwhelmed by the invading host of things, making fitful resistance, but without any real steadiness of purpose.
Patrick Madden's New Book
Quotidiana site founder Patrick Madden has just published a book of his own personal essays, including pieces formerly published in the Best American Spiritual Writing and Best Creative Nonfiction anthologies.
If you enjoy the classical essays on this site, you'll enjoy these contemporary ruminations as well. Soon there'll be a web page here with further information, but for now, you can find out more (and perhaps purchase a copy) at Amazon.com.
"Patrick Madden is an essayist of verve, passion, wit, and dependable moral compass. Quotidiana drew me in powerfully, from page to page and from pleasure to pleasure." —Ian Frazier
2011 Symposium on the Essay
Friend of Quotidiana Kim Dana Kupperman's Welcome Table Press is hosting a one-day symposium at Fordham University on Saturday, October 15th, 2011.
In Praise of the Essay: Practice & Form will feature talks and discussions by Phillip Lopate, Robin Hemley, Barbara Hurd, and more.
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