MRS.   HENRY   L.   PRESTON.                 241
edited The Mid-Continent of Dubuque, and in
1866, The Housekeeper of Minneapolis. She has
been a frequent contributor to The Independent,
the liter-Ocean, the Pioneer-Press, The St.
Louis Magazine, The Northwestern Magazine,
The Hesperian, Golden Days, The Writer, and
other periodicals.
Mrs. Preston (until lately, Mrs. Dvvight T.
Smith) is now about fifty-five years of age.
She is five feet, three inches in height, has
sparkling dark eyes, abundant black hair, a
small sensitive mouth, and a fair complexion.
Add to this a strong, magnetic presence, and an
earnest, candid and sympathetic disposition.
So far, Mrs. Preston has attempted none of
the higher fields of literature ; she has addressed
herself to the masses of readers only, and quite
«ingularly, she has cleverly avoided the Scylla
and the Charybdis of the popular authoress of
the day: gush and sensationalism. Her special
literary sphere has been poetry, fiction, and
papers on subjects of general home and house-
hold interest to women ; in the latter department
she has no superior among western writers.
Her poems display an intimate familiarity with
nature, a tender longing for, and out-reaching
after, the good and the beautiful, a passionate
chafing under  restraint, and  a   calm,   subdued
16