One can but smile at this rhapsody of the child of eleven, but it is after all suggestive of literary powers genuine if undeveloped. It shows, too, a nature sensitive to beauty and a heart full of quick responsiveness to friendship. The gifts of the woman are foreshadowed even in the extravagances of the girl.
The blank books in which Louise recorded her impressions and thoughts and copied out her verses in the years between eight and eighteen afford material for a curious study of unfolding tendencies. A religious meeting to which she is taken suggests a long dissertation on "The Missionary;" and this sketch assumes an imaginative form. The missionary and his bride are described as voyaging over the ocean to the field of his labors in these terms:
"… But when they had entirely lost sight of land Charles clasped his loved one to his heart and whispered, 'Be comforted, dearest; we go not alone, for is not He with us who said, "Lo, I am with thee always, even unto the end of the world!"'… The young bride burst into an agony of tears.... Her husband led her on deck, and showed her the sun's last, golden rays that lay upon the waves, sparkling like a thousand brilliants.... It seemed a sea of burning gold.... A high and holy resolve rose in the hearts of the young missionaries.... They had left a circle of brilliant acquaintances for the untutored heathen.... They left the deck to sit down in a quiet nook and read the word of Him for whom they forsook all earthly pleasures."
Not only do the note-books give such hints of the future story-teller, but they abound in verse. It is noticeable that although much of this is crude and inevitably childish, it is yet remarkably free from false measures. The child had been gifted by heaven with an ear wonderfully true. The books contain also many quotations copied from the volumes she was from time to time reading. Moore, Mrs. Hemans, Tupper, Willis, Longfellow, Whittier, Campbell, are among the names found here most frequently. Curiously enough the record shows no trace of Scott, of Byron, of Wordsworth, or of Coleridge.
One of the felicitous orderings of her schooldays was that which placed her as a pupil of the Rev. Roswell Park, the Episcopal rector in Pomfret, and Principal of a school called Christ Church Hall. Here she easily carried off the honors when "compositions" were required.
"Will Miss Ellen Louise Chandler please remain a moment after the school is dismissed," was the disconcerting request of the teacher one day.
The purpose of the interview was a private inquiry where the girl had "found" the poem which she had read in the literary 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