Materfamilias

"The pleasant impression left is a lasting one."
-"New York Times."
"The story is fragrant with the breath of farms, the aroma of the salt sea, and the even sweeter essence that exhales from the homely virtues, practiced amid simple surroundings, where family ties are strong, and where love, loyal and true, reigns as queen."
-"Philadelphia Item" [1900]
"This is we should say the best story "Ada Cambridge" has ever written. It appeared originally as a serial, but it should be read as a whole. One sees the leading character better as the traits are accumulated one by one. "Materfamilias," who tells her own story and paints her own picture, is not a bad sort of woman, and she succeeds in always persuading herself that she is right and reasonable and that everyone who contradicts her is wrong. The fate of such a person depends entirely upon her husband. If he stands by her she may get through her battles fairly well; if he does not, she must choose between yielding and misery. Materfamilias was the kind of woman who would always find it hard to yield, but she had an affectionate heart, and greatly as she contrived to worry her children by her vulgarity, her meanness, and her fussiness, she did not lose their love. She tells the whole story very entertainingly from her own point of view, and though one is inclined to pity her husband, Tom, yet perhaps he is no worse off than many others are. The book reminds us very much of Mr. George R. Sims's Memoirs of a Mother-in-Law. It is easy for superior persons to say that such books have no literary merit or serious claim, and in a sense that is true, but they have the merit of being frankly and simply written, true to nature, and thoroughly readable. "Ada Cambridge" is not so good as George R. Sims, who is a master in his own way, but she is good notwithstanding, and we like her much better here than in certain other of her recent productions."
-"The Bookman," Vol. 8 [1899]