[CATHERINE A. WARFIELD]
Mrs. Catherine Ann Warfield, poet and novelist, was born at Natchez, Mississippi, June 6, 1816, the daughter of Nathaniel H. Ware. She was educated at Philadelphia with her sister, Eleanor P. Ware Lee (1820-1849), with whom she afterwards collaborated in her first two volumes. Catherine Ware was married at Cincinnati, in 1833, to Robert Elisha Warfield, of Lexington, Kentucky, and Kentucky was her home henceforth. The Wife of Leon, and Other Poems, by Two Sisters of the West (New York, 1844), and The Indian Chamber, and Other Poems (New York, 1846) were the works of the sisters. In 1857 Mrs. Warfield removed from Lexington to Pewee Valley, Kentucky, near Louisville, and some three years later her masterpiece appeared, entitled The Household of Bouverie (New York, 1860, two vols.). This work brought her into wide notice. During the Civil War Mrs. Warfield wrote some of the most spirited lyrics which that mighty conflict called forth. After the war she turned again to prose fiction, producing the following books: The Romance of the Green Seal (1867); Miriam Monfort (1873); A Double Wedding (1875); Hester Howard's Temptation (1875); Lady Ernestine (1876); Miriam's Memoirs (1876); Sea and Shore (1876); Ferne Fleming (1877); and her last novel, The Cardinal's Daughter (1877). Mrs. Warfield died at Pewee Valley, Kentucky, May 21, 1877, at the time of her greatest popularity. Of her books The Household of Bouverie is the only one that is generally known to-day, and is, perhaps, the only one that is at all readable and interesting. Mrs. Warfield was an early edition of "The Duchess" and Mary Jane Holmes, though she did write fine war lyrics and one good story, which is just a bit better than either of the other two women did.
Bibliography. Women of the South Distinguished in Literature, by Mary Forrest (New York, 1861); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1910, v. xii).
CAMILLA BOUVERIE'S DIARY
[From The Household of Bouverie (New York, 1860, v. ii)]
Another queer scene with little Paul, whose quaint ways divert and mystify me all the time. During Mr. Bouverie's absence of a week, I have nothing else to amuse me nor to write about. He has called me familiarly "Camilla" until now; but fearing that Mr. Bouverie might not like the appellation, or rather that it might make me appear too childish in his sight, I said to him recently:
"Paul, you are a little fellow, and I am your guardian's wife. Don't you think it would sound better if you were to add a handle to my name, as common folks say? Call me 'Cousin Camilla' or 'Aunt Camilla,' whichever you prefer; which shall it be, Quintil?"
"Neither," he replied, manfully, "for you are neither of those things to me, and I do not like to tell stories; but I will call you 'madam,' if you choose, as you are a 'madam;'" and something like a sneer wreathed his childish lips.