The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1892-09-16

doubtful SuDJeCtS Is SURE w |"'
she closes the volume with the charac
~teristic challenge Never Mind"
Whatever your work and whatever YOU
worth,
No matter how strong or how clever,
Some one will sheer if you pause 10 hear.
And scof at your best endeayor.
| For the target art has a broad eXpanse,
And wherever you chance to hit it.
| Though close be your aim TO the bulls eye
fame,
There are those who will never admit it.
And this thought is suggested;
After awaking from the nightmare OF
La Debacle, ZoLA's last novel, and wad-
ing through the labored pages of the
numerous heavy works-historical, So
cial and political-which have appeared
during the past two months, the reviewer
turns with a sense of relief to this work
of his old friend and ~favorite, ELLA
WHEELER WILCOX.
The poem is characterized throughout
by the intense realism which formerly
evoked adverse criticism from reviewers
of the old school, before it became an
established fact hat a writer in this cui-
tured age, no matter what his gifts, must
be erotic in order to gain an audience.
ELLA WHEELER was simply ahead of
her drowsy contemporaries and discov-
eyed by intuition what it has taken later
rivals years TO reason out. 1t is a sad COM
mentary on the literary taste and morals
of the day, yet a truth which the
initiated will not attempt to deny. With
captivating freedom, with an abiding
faith in first impulses and a divine conf
dence in the guardian spirits which, as a
professed T~heosophist, she claims, die
tate and inspire her actions, she scorns
the laborious methods of more polished
versiiers, giving to the world her
thoughts as they come, in all the naked
ness of conception and all the strength
of unbranded birth, When condemned
by the critics and accused of indelicacy
she simply replies:
Let the wild red rose bloom, though not to
thee,
As delicately perfect as the white
And unwed lily dropping in the light,
Though she has known the kisses of the bee,
And tells her amorous tale to passers by
In perfumed whispers and with %untaught
grace,
Still let the red rose bloom in her own place ;
She could not be the lily should She try.
-
All airs of sorrow to one theme belong.
And passion is not copyrighted yet"
The hitherto accepted theory that poe
try was alone the language of sorrow
and could only come from a heart torn
by the anguish of a great despair, is dis
etess. With a disposition naturally gay
and a heart every bouyant ELLA
WHEELER, while penning the burning
lines which have made her name a house
hold word in both continents, has also
solved the problem of how to live long
and be happy, which she is demonstra-
ting in a way most satisfactory to her.
self and gratifying to her friends. The
well rounded cheeks and plump shout
ders that smile back at you from the
fronts piece of the volume before US tell
that time has dealt gently with this child
of genius, retaining as she does all the
freshness and vigor of blooming youth.
When asked how she has kept the mon
ster at hey, she will laughingly tell you
that she has done it by being cOntented
and by not allowing trifies to come be
tween her and her happiness. She ar
CUES that life is too short for regrets or
tears over the might nave been her back
is on the past, her eyes always turned to-
ward tie future. To this peculiarly
happy temperament she owes much of
her success as an author, for had she
been of the mimosa type and suffered
herself to be crushed by the harsh crit
cisms that have from the beginning of her
career been hurled at her, she would
never have published her first volume.
AS it is she casts { the winds all dis
turbing currents in her professional
knows no standard but her
own heart, and continues to sail on sum.
mer seas, basking in the sunlight OF pop
ular appreciation.