Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/312

 CHAPTER 16

of 1934, during a literary discussion, an Oregon writer asked with sincere curiosity: "Who was she? Who was Belle W. Cooke?"

Most people in Oregon, except the older pioneers and a few book collectors, will probably receive mention of her name with the same inquiry, because of the neglect into which her poetry has fallen during the last 50 years.

It was not long ago that the author of this history first became familiar enough with her verse to realize that she had suffered an unmerited obscurity. His interest, which ended in a conviction that she was much too good a poet to be so completely forgotten, was started in an accidental way. He was looking through the early volumes of Bret Harte's Overland Monthly in the Portland Library, when he found in the December number, 1871, the following book review:

Tears and Victory. By Belle W. Cooke

Salem, Oregon: E. M. Waite

This is a home production; as such, it is deserving of pleasant mention. The printing, material, and binding of this volume are all good. When we have said this, we have exhausted about all we have to say. There is something of fluency, something of prettiness, in some of the verses; but there is a very little of poetry. It is merely a simulation, a counterfeit, of true poetry. Occasionally there flits a pleasing