قراءة كتاب Louise Chandler Moulton Poet and Friend
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
exercises of the afternoon.
"Why, I can't tell," she answered; "it all wrote itself from my own mind."
The instructor looked at her earnestly for a moment,—this dainty young girl with the rose-flush deepening in her sweet face,—and replied: "Then I sincerely congratulate you." And she went on her way.
The commonplace books of her thirteenth year, kept while she was still a pupil at this school, show more clearly than ever the dawning power of the young poet. Her reading was not indiscriminate, but selective, inclining almost equally to poetry and to serious prose. Of the usual schoolgirl love of novels is little evidence; and this is the more curious as her fancy was active, and she was writing many stories. Literary form, also, was beginning to appeal to her, and she copies "A Remarkable Specimen of Alliteration."
She took life seriously in the fashion of her generation. It was a time when every girl loved a diminutive; she wrote her name "Nellie" and signed her verses "Nellie C." Those were the days of the annuals, "Friendship's Wreath," "The Literary Garland" and the like, and to these after once she began to see herself in print, "Nellie C." became quickly a favorite contributor.
She tasted the rapture of a poet born who first sees his verses in print, when she was fourteen. This is her account:
"I used to rhyme as long ago as I can remember anything, and I sent my first contribution to a newspaper when I was fourteen years old.... I remember how secretly, and almost as if it were a crime, I sent it in; and when I found the paper one evening, upon calling at the post-office on my way home from school, and saw my lines—my very own lines—it seemed to me a much more wonderful and glorious event than has anything since that time.... Perhaps it was unfortunate for me that it was accepted at once, since it encouraged me in the habit of verse,—making a habit which future occupations confirmed. But one gain, at least, came to me,—the friendship and encouragement of authors whose work I loved. I was scarcely eighteen when my first book was published. I called it 'This, That, and the Other,' because it was made up of short stories, sketches (too brief and immature to call essays), and the rhymes into which, from the first, I put more of myself than into any other form of expression. Strangely enough, the book sold largely."
This early poem was printed in a daily of Norwich, Connecticut, and no recognition of after years could ever give quite the same thrill as this first sight of her name and her own verse in print.
Among her girl-friends was Virginia F. Townsend, later to be known also as a writer of stories and of verse, and the pair exchanged numerous rhymes, rather facile than poetic, but doubtless useful in the way of 'prentice work. A poem which Miss Chandler wrote in her sixteenth year and called "Lenore"—in those days every youthful rhymester rhymed to Lenore,—and designated as "for music," was much praised by the newspapers of the day. It is as admirably typical of the fashion of the day as the bonnets of the forties which one finds in a dusty attic.
| Hush thy footfall, lightly tread; Passing by a loved one's bed. Dust hath gathered on her brow, Silently she resteth now. Sank she into dreamless rest Clasping rosebuds to her breast; With her forehead pale and fair 'Neath the midnight of her hair.... There we laid her down to sleep Where the wild flowers o'er her weep. Earth below and blue sky o'er, Sweetly sleeps our own Lenore. |
Another lyric, written about this time to Governor Cleveland on the death of his only daughter, contained these lines:
| What time she braided up her hair With summer buds and sprays of flowers, It was as if some saint had shed Heaven's light on this dim world of ours; And kneeling where her feet have trod, We watched to see the glory break When angel fingers at the dawn Heaven's portals opened for her sake. |
Of these lines Edmund Clarence Stedman wrote with youthful enthusiasm:
"This is almost equal to the picture of Madeline in 'The Eve of St. Agnes,' as she kneels before the oriel window of the casement, high and triple-arched, in all the holiness of prayer."
The stories which the young writer contributed to the gift-books bore the most startling titles: "Inez Caisco; or, The Flower of Catalonia"; "Beatrice; or, The Beautiful Tambourine Girl"; "Evilia; or, The Enchantress." Of Isabel Sydenham, the heroine of one of these tales, it is told that she "threw open her casement,"—no self-respecting story-teller of the mid-century called a window anything but a casement,—and sighed: "If he were only here, how we might enjoy the surpassing loveliness!" Of this sensitive creature, who naturally "yearns" for all sorts of impossible things, her creator remarks that "ideality was the predominating characteristic of her mind." According to gift-book standards no heroine could be more eminently satisfactory.
Not content with being a contributor to the annuals of others, Miss Chandler compiled a gift-book of her own: "The Book of the Boudoir; a Gift for All Seasons, Edited by Ellen Louise." By her publisher's insistence her own portrait formed the frontispiece, and the book contained also an engraving of Elmwood Cottage. The letter-press opened with an "Invocation to the Spirit of Poetry" by the youthful editor, and besides sketches and verses of her own the volume offered contributions by Mrs. Sigourney, Virginia F. Townsend, George S. Burleigh, Amanda M. Douglas, and others.
With this publication Miss Chandler may be said to have come fully and formally into full-fledged authorship. She was deeply tinged with the sentimental fashions which reigned universally in America in the middle of the nineteenth century, and which had, indeed, by no means disappeared in England; but she had genuine feeling, a natural instinct for literary form, an ear unusually sensitive to metrical effect, and her real power had already shown itself unmistakably. From this time on her progress in her art was sure and constant.
One influence of her youthful environment may be mentioned here since it has been often commented upon. The strain of melancholy habitual in Mrs. Moulton's poetry has been ascribed to the shadow which was cast upon her childhood by the sternness of the Calvinistic faith. An English critic has written:
"She was brought up in abysmal Puritan Calvinism, and her slumber at night was disturbed by terrific visions of a future of endless torment. The doctrine of election pressed heavily on her youthful soul.... The whole upbringing of children in Puritan circles in those days was strict and stern to a degree impossible to be realized in a day when vulgar sentimentalism rules supreme, and when it is considered cruel and harsh to flog a rebellious boy. The way in which children were brought up by the Puritans of New England in Mrs. Moulton's day may have had its faults, but it turned out a class of person whom it is hopeless to expect the present day methods of education will ever be able to produce."
In this are both truth and exaggeration. The parents of Mrs. Moulton were, it is true, Calvinists, but they were neither