T. B. Aldrich's Queen of Sheba One Hundred Years Ago

— Believing as we may that when T. B. Aldrich wrote his Queen of Sheba he had never heard of a lunatic in Hallowell, Maine, who called herself by that name one hundred years ago, I am moved to tell the Club of a discovery I made recently in turning over the early annals of Maine in the Baxter Library at Portland. In looking up missing links in the pedigree of a historical personage, I came upon the account of a woman who bore such a strong resemblance to Ruth Denham, of Aldrich’s story, when temporarily insane, it seemed as if I had unearthed the previous existence of a creation of fiction,— had tracked it to its source.

The Queen of Sheba of Hallowell used to wander about the country “ in a happy mood . . . with an air of conscious command.” The impression she made upon those she met could not have been unlike that of poor Ruth Denham upon Edward Lynde, when, loaded with “ that confounded saddle,” he first saw her on a country road in northern New Hampshire. Drawing herself up haughtily, she told him precisely what the Hallowell lunatic would have told under similar circumstances, —that she was the Queen of Sheba, adding nothing more ! Now, if Edward Lynde had ever heard of the Queen of Sheba, — and no doubt she wandered over that very road one hundred years before, — how naturally he would have concluded that he had seen the ghost of the lunatic !

We get an idea of the imperious character of the Hallowell Queen in the story that is told of the excitement she caused upon a memorable occasion, — when the first term of the court was held in Hallowell, in 1794. The little town was crowded with sightseers. Every morning, at the beat of the drum, the famous jurists and legal dignitaries marched in procession to the meeting - house, where court was held, — the court-room being too small, — three sheriffs in cocked hats, swords, and long white staffs; the court-crier, no doubt, adding wonderfully to the impressiveness of the occasion. One day the Queen of Sheba made her way to the judge’s bench, — no one daring to oppose her, — “ her head uncovered, her bearing composed and dignified.” To the consternation of the judges and the entertainment of the crowd, she calmly took her seat close to the presiding judge ; nor was she to be convinced that she was out of place. Her removal by a sheriff was not easily effected, but with no sacrifice of dignity on her part. There is no record — more’s the pity —that she was ever restored to her right mind.

Possibly the Ghost of to-day is not such a hopeless degenerate, after all. Who knows but It will have a wonderful renaissance when It has adjusted Itself to Its new rôle of appearing in fiction ? Not a bad outlook, all in all, for the novel of the twentieth century.