Smyrna times., 1872-02-07
Alice Cary.


it possible for a woman like Alice Cary to have |
any feeling toward him higher than gratitude |
for service rendered and we always felt some |
| thing of pain and repulsion whenever We heard |
| their names associated.
| 1t was, therefore, with feeling of deep
satisfaction that we read, in the Independent,
from the pen of Mrs. Mary Clemmer Ames,
the true story of her love and lite. Here it is
| "If public career comes to a wOmanly
woman, the secret almost always lies in the
story of her heart. Alice Cary was born a
| singer. Whittier S words of her are tenderly
| true:
'Foredoomed to song she seemed to me:
| Iquerried not with destiny;
| | knew the trial and the need,
Yet all the more | said God speed =
Had she been happy wife and mother
her song would not have been less, but glad
| der But it was not the faculty divine, it
was the inexorable facts of fate that made her
writer by profession. Had she married
the man whom she loved, she would never
have come to New York at all, to coin the
rare gifts Of her brain and soul into money for
shelter and bread Phoebe Cary, in her touching
sketch OF her sister, Alice, written last spring,
says of her: 'If in her mortal lite she ever
felt any deeper or hOlier affection than that for
her kindred, except in dreams of poeSy, she
rolled the stone over the youth of it's dead
sepulchre, and sealed it with everlasting
silence. Among the things hallOwed by her
use there was not left a single relic which
could reveal such secret. And 50, knowing
there was one chamber in her heart kept by
, her always as a safe and sacred sanctuary mine
, is surely not the hand to lift from it now the
! solemn and eternal curtain OF the past
Yet; no less because of these words,
sacriligious hands have rudely attempted to
lift it. The sanctuary of that pure heart is
ruthlessly invaded even in the grave. story
under the title of the Unknown Love of Alice
S Cary in the newspapers, is still travelling
t through the length of the land. 1t asserts
1 that in her youth she was athanced to Rufus
3 W. Griswold that he was false to her-tOrsak-
! ing her for a woman Of the world that, long
e after, when he returned to New York, friend
| less, poor, and sick, she fOrgavc him the great
wrong that he had done, and nursed him til
: he died. This story. in many conflicting
t phases was often, to her great annoyance
f told of her during her life. The fact thai
e Rufus W. Griswold did in his last will bequeatl
s to her his personal effects was made much o.
in print and in private circles, and used as al
n unanswerable proof that at one time he haC
7, been her lover. Within a week | have rcat
d in letter in the New York EUentng Post tina
n the will proved the love and Relationship
d between the two persons beyond doubt. 1e
e no less, in its foundations, the story is false
e Referring to it once, while we two sat alOn
n together Alice said to me: L will tell yo
IL just the truth. If you ever think it necessary
is you can tell it,: believe it to be but justlc
x to her sacred life, with which idle gossip is ye
Is too busy, to tell it now.
ID bereavement in death and in life had mad
Of her Western home too desolate to be borne
ar These, with the impulse Of the brave will tha
served her to the last, brought her to Ne
ly York to make not the life that she would hay
rit chosen for herself, yet life worthy to be veC
ry Ignorance stood me in the stead of courage
as she said Had known the great world as
as have learned it since, should not have dare'
Ig, but | didn't. Thus l came The leadiT
mt literateur at that time was Dr. Rufus v
ut Griswold. He had compiled the books call,
he rrhe Female Prose Writers and The Fema
far Poets of America. He was sharply on Il
lookout for every new genius in liter
CO. ture that appeared. He had visited {
as sisters in their Ohio home, and IN Is
be obtained publisher for their first volume, al
ter had added both their names with selectlO
in from their poems to his own Poets of Amerlc
'ou He knew everything necessary to their succt
ze1 in the sphere of labor which they had chose
but while they practically knew next to nothln
and He encouraged and helped them in many wa
t is and thus commanded their gratitude.
lter For Alice to incur debt of gratitude v
the TO pay it, if at the cost of her life. Yet ev
the good will of one type OF man to won
gun is often a misfortune. Her soul may be VIII
n is as snow, yet he cannot take her innocent ma
s is upon his lips without smirching it with son
as a what of his own vieness. His vanity
any been fattered by idle women, till conquest
con- become not only the habit, but the necess1
ews Of his morbid and miserable soul; till. VIII
ght, he knows he has not won it, he yet Is b
lied enough to boast of it. Such a man Judging
lied every record left of him. was Rufus
kelly Griswold.
y of He was man of poetic temperament,
ords fine scholarship, of generous impulses, and
tism certain directions, of rare gifts, yet no less
had was a man of tickle fancies, of violent t
had per which often fell upon his dearest frier
e Of of mOnstrous vanity, and of ungOverned |
ser sions. L was never engaged to him in marrl;
rticle | neuer loved him, said Alice Cary to me-
vir- could not have loved such man, thoua
learned him in his best phases / came
scru- pity him, because he was his own worst enc
m is As friend | owed him much, and before
ping death | found it in my power to pay back
bap. part my large debt OF gratitude. When
of a returned to New York, poor and sick,
,iples certain death before him, |, with Miss
ut on hired room and nurse for him. From
ltion. they have made the romantic story of my r.
ences ing him for unTequited love. 1t was
Nor Betsey who nursed him. You know how
tn of and strong she is; yet even she became '
quar- out, for his sickness was long and very pal
olical Many unkind, even cruel things have been
because he wied to me his personal eft
). 1t Besides the books and pictures which
estion bequeathed to the Historical Society,
disci- were all that he possessed, and he left
move to me, not more out Of personal regard
seeing from desire TO repay as far as ne was
hood, the money which had expended for his
,rd or fort during his last long sickness.
les, or 'In the profoundest sense Alice Gary
loved but once. The man whom she loV
still alive; yet gossip, with its keenest S
lately has never found or named him. With a
liz in fulness OF affection, hers was an electric
where solitary. SOUL lie who by the very
with of his being, was more to her tnan ns any