"If you haven't what you like, try to like what you have."
In this quotation is found the philosophy of life during many
severe trials of one whose girlhood and early career as a
writer were spent entirely within the confines of Wisconsin.
Ella Wheeler was born at Johnstown Center, Wisconsin,
sometime in the '50's, and the family moved to a farm near
Madison when she was a year old. The discussion of her life
given here is derived quite largely from her own statements
in an article, "My Autobiography," published in the
Cosmopolitan magazine for August, 1901.
Mrs. Wheeler, Ella's mother, was a woman of some literary
inclinations and was very fond of reading. She loved not only
the good society of books, but she longed also for the
pleasures of the social life of a cultured community such as
she had known in her Vermont home. Pioneer life was
especially irksome to her, and she found herself unable to
meet patiently the many hardships that the change of fortune
had brought her, and her attitude in the home was not always
buoyant.
Some time after the home was established in Wisconsin, there
was born to these parents their fourth child, Ella, the
future poetess. It may not be too much to say, since Mrs.
Wilcox seems to think it herself, that from the struggles of
the father to meet the hardships that his new life brought
him, may have sprung that bit of wholesome philosophy which
stands at the head of this discussion. It is evident that she
found many opportunities to test it to the utmost. From the
suppressed literary desires of the mother may have come the
intense longing of the daughter to achieve helpfulness
through writing.
From the standpoint of language training this home was far
from limited, and Ella had opportunities here accorded to the
minority of children even at the present time. She says: "My
mother was a great reader of whatever came in her way, and
was possessed of a wonderful memory. The elder children were
excellent scholars, and a grammatical error was treated as a
cardinal sin in the household." That Ella profited from this
inheritance and training may be seen from the following
statements. At school she found the composition exercises the
most delightful of all her school duties. As early as eight
she was excelling in the expression of her thoughts in essay
form. By the age of fourteen she had become the neighborhood
celebrity because of her stories and her poetry. Naturally
these pioneer people would criticise the mother for allowing
Ella to scribble so much when she might have been doing
household or farm tasks; but their criticism was silenced,
and they learned to praise her efforts when they found that
there was a market with the magazines and papers for Ella's
"scribblings."
At the age of fourteen Ella Wheeler's education, "excellent
in grammar, spelling and reading, but wretched in
mathematics," was completed so far as the rural school was
concerned. Sometime later, through great sacrifice on the
part of her people, she was placed for one term in the
University of Wisconsin. Of this experience she says: "I was
not at all happy there; first, because I knew the strain it
put upon the home purse; second, because I felt the gulf
between myself and the town girls, whose gowns and privileges
revealed to me for the first time, the different classes in
American social life; and third, because I wanted to write
and did not want to study." Thus her school work ended and
her acquisition of knowledge necessary to furnish details for
her emotional poems has been made through her individual
study since the University experience.
Ella Wheeler's struggle to become a writer is one of the most
inspiring stories among Wisconsin writers. A weekly paper
came to the home and besides this there was an old red chest
in their upstairs wherein there was kept the often-read
copies of Arabian Nights, Gulliver's Travels, John Gilpin's
Ride, and a few of Shakespeare's plays. In addition to these,
friends had sent the family the New York Ledger and the New
York Mercury. The serial stories of these papers furnished
not only pleasing reading, but models of plots and of forms
of expression which became the guide to her in the art of
story writing.
When Ella was thirteen years old the Mercury ceased to come
to her home, and she regretted the loss of the stories so
much that she determined to write something for the paper
with the hope that the publisher would pay for her article
through subscription. After some delay this brought the much
coveted subscription and she says: "Perhaps the most
triumphant and dramatic hour of my life was when I set forth
and announced to the family that my literary work had
procured the coveted Mercury for our united enjoyment."
This experience led her to write extensively for the
magazines and papers, a list of which a University friend had
sent her. The articles which they accepted soon enabled her
to supply the home with many periodicals and books and other
articles of home use. She was not content with writing essays
very long, but soon undertook the production of verse. Her
first poem was rejected by the Mercury with some degree of
scorn, but she soon offered it to other papers and so
continued until she found a publisher. Very frequently some
of her articles would be returned as many as nine times
before she found a publisher.
The Wheeler family were enthusiastic advocates of total
abstinence, and Ella used her pen to advance this cause. Her
first collection of poems into book form was entitled "Drops
of Water." A poem with temperance as its theme is given as
the first illustration of her efforts in the collection
published here.
Ella Wheeler's training tended to make her the lyric rather
than the narrative poetess. She wrote largely of the emotion
that played through her passing experiences. "Everything in
life," she says, "was material for my own emotions, the
remarks or experiences of my comrades and associates,
sentences from books I read, and some phases of Nature." In
general three things may be said to characterize these short
poems and her own life as revealed by them, for her life
itself is a poem. First, she is convinced that the supreme
thing in life is love. In one poem she asserts that love is
the need of the world. In another, "The Kingdom of Love,"
which is given later, she truthfully proclaims that love is
the very essence of the home.
The second characteristic is her spirit of buoyancy which has
enabled her to surmount the many crushing deprivations and
disappointments in her life. She was born with an
unquenchable hope and an unfaltering trust in God and
guardian spirits. "I often wept myself to sleep after a day
of disappointment and worries," she says, "but woke in the
morning singing aloud with the joy of life." It was such
experiences as these that enabled her to say:
"Laugh and the world laughs with you;
Weep and you weep alone."
Her faith in the better things to be is well expressed in the
little poem, "The Tendril's Fate." Trials to her are
frequently the means by which the soul's true worth is
tested. This thought is expressed in the poem, "Three
Friends." She bears trials not merely for her own sake, but
for the sake of those about her. We are illustrating this
quality with the poem "Ambition's Trail." Her faith that life
has still much that is better than the present may be
illustrated by her Morning Prayer.
The third characteristic manifest in her poetry is that of
the spirit of helpfulness that manifests itself in every new
phase of life that she assumes. This attitude is illustrated
with respect to mankind in general and also with respect to
her own sex. The poems used are "I Am" and "Which Are You?"
With love and helpfulness as the bond which unite mankind,
Mrs. Wilcox feels there is no place for strife and warfare.
She assails war and expresses her conviction that womankind
shall have much to do with the final disarmament of nations.
She believes implicitly in the mutual helpfulness of man and
woman in solving the great problems of the world. Her own
home life is one of constant happiness and of constant useful
activity. When asked to express what life means to her she
wrote an article for the Cosmopolitan which began thus:
"Exhilaration, anticipation, realization, usefulness,
growth--these things life has always meant and is meaning to
me. I expected much of life; it has given, in all ways, more
than I expected. Love has been more loyal and lasting,
friendship sweeter and more comprehensive, work more
enjoyable, and fame, because of its aid to usefulness, more
satisfying than early imagination pictured." Of one whose
ideals of life are so high the state should be justly proud
and its people should delight to hear her sing:
"I know we are building our heaven
As we journey along by the way;
Each thought is a nail that is driven
In structures that cannot decay,
And the mansion at last shall be given
To us as we build it today."
It was not until after her return from the University that
Ella Wheeler discovered that her poems had a money value. She
sent Frank Leslie's Publishing House three little poems
written in one day. These were accepted and a check sent her
for ten dollars. She now bent every effort towards making her
literary efforts return substantial aid to herself and her
family. It was all her own effort and the worth of her
productions that brought her success, for she had no one to
aid her in securing publication. She sent her poems to
various magazines,--a practise she still continues. During
the years 1912 and 1913, she had poems and prose productions
listed in the following periodicals: Current Literature,
Everybody's, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal,
Collier's Magazine, New England Magazine, The Bookman,
Lippincott's, Forum, Cosmopolitan, Musician, Current Opinion,
and Hearst's magazine.
Mrs. Wilcox has attempted only one long narrative poem,
"Maurine." In this she endeavors to set forth the doctrine of
what she regards as the highest type of friendship. Her
collections of poems bear the following titles: Drops of
Water, Shells, Poems of Passion, Three Women, An Ambitious
Man, Everyday, Thought in Prose and Verse, Poems of Pleasure,
Kingdom of Love and Other Poems, An Erring Woman's Love, Men,
Women and Emotions, The Beautiful Land of Nod, Poems of
Power, The Heart of the New Thought, Sonnets of Abelard and
Heloise, Poems of Experience, Yesterday, Poems of Progress,
Maurine, and Poems of Problems.
Some time after a brief venture in editorial work, she was
married, 1884, to Robert M. Wilcox, a business man of New
York City. Their home life in the city and by the seashore at
Granite Bay, Short Beach, Connecticut, has been most
delightful to them. They have been able to travel extensively
and in this manner to realize many of Mrs. Wilcox's early
dreams. The following poems are from "The Kingdom of Love"
and "Poems of Power."
[Illustration: ELLA WHEELER WILCOX]