Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/360

 344 ALICE GARY. [1840-50. wonderful ability; and I still think that sister was unusually gifted. Just as she came into womanhood — she was not yet sixteen — death separated us, and that event turned my disposition, naturally melancholy, into almost morbid gloom. To this day she is the first in memory when I wake, and the last when I sleep. Many of my best poems refer to her. Her grave is near by the old homestead, and the myrtles and roses of my planting run wild there." Then followed years of loneliness which few can ap- preciate who have not been similarly endowed mentally, and similarly circumstanced. She says : "In my memory there are many long, dark years of labors at variance with my inclinations, of bereavement, of constant struggle, and of hope deferred." That this life of sacrifice and denial should serve to depress a highly poetic temperament is not strange. In those years of self-struggle we find the source of the sad tone which pervades her earlier, as well as some of her later, productions. The date of Miss Gary's first efforts at rhythmic composition we have not. At the age of eighteen her verses were first given to the public, by the Cincinnati press. Their reception was enthusiastic, surprising more than all others the timid author. She resolved to be worthy of her evident talent, and entered upon a patient and thor- ough study of authors and works calculated to develop her taste and to promote her knowledge of the world and its people. During those years of study she continued, from time to time, to give her poems to the press. They served to command an in- creasing attention ; and, as has been said, "occasional words of cheer came to her quiet retreat from some poet of fame, who, not knowing her, still wrote kindly, approv- ingly — as one bird answers another across the waters." She thus gracefully and gratefully refers to those years of study and mental expe- rience : " The poems I wrote in those times, and the praises they won me, were to my eager and credulous apprehension the prophecies of wonderful things to be done in the future. Even now, when I am older, and should be wiser, the thrill of delight with which I read a letter full of cordial encouragement and kindness from the charm- ing poet, Otway Curry, is in some sort renewed. Then the voices that came cheer- ingly to my lonesome and obscure life from across the mountains, how precious they were to me ! Among these the most cherished are Edgar A. Poe and Rufus TV. Gris- wold." In 1850, Alice and Phoebe left their "Clovernook" home for the more varied and active life of the metropolis. New York, and there they have since resided, successfully pursuing the career of authorship, and proving themselves worthy of their first high promise. Their first volume of poems was given to the public from Philadelphia, in 1850. No "first volume," by any American writer, experienced a more satisfactory reception. In the year following Alice produced the first series of " Clovernook Papers." Its success was somewhat remarkable. Several large editions sold in this country, and also in Great Britain, where the name of the author has since become a household word. We may be permitted to remark that these papers possess the merit of origi- nality — a merit now becoming rare — the characters being drawn with a power and perception which show how profoundly the writer has studied the human heart, and