This little volume might be called 'Echoes from the land of youthful
imaginings'; or 'Ghosts of old dreams.' It has been compiled at the
request of Messrs. Gay and Hancock (my only authorised publishers in
Great Britain), and contains verses written in my early youth, and which
never before (with the exception, perhaps, of three or four) have been
placed in book form.
Given the poetical temperament, and a lonely environment, with few
distractions, youthful imagination is sure to express itself in mournful
wails and despairing moans. Such wails and moans will be found to excess
in this little book, and will serve to show better than any amount of
common-sense reasoning, how fleeting are the sorrows of youth, and how
slight the foundation on which the young build towers of despair.
In the days when these verses were written, each little song represented
a few dollars (to my emaciated purse), and so the slightest experience of
my own, or of any friend, with every passing mood, every trivial
happening, was utilised by my imaginative and thrifty muse.
That the writer has always possessed robust health, and has lived to a
good age, is proof positive that the verses are not all expressions of
personal experiences, since no human being could have borne such
continual agonies and retained life and reason.
All the verses in the book were written while I bore the name of Ella
Wheeler, and are quite inconsistent with the ideas and philosophy of