In after years Mrs. Moulton smilingly replied to some questions regarding her initiation into authorship:

"I remember the huge posters with which they placarded the walls, headed, 'Read this book and see what a girl of eighteen can do.' I think I had the grace to be a little shocked at these posters, but the reviews were so kind, and said such lovely things that—Ah! shall I ever be so happy again as when I read them!"

Edmund Clarence Stedman, who had just left Yale College and who, at the beginning of his literary career, was editing a country paper in Connecticut, greeted Miss Chandler's book with the ardent praise of youth and friendship; but these warm phrases of approval were also the almost unanimous expression of all the reviewers of the day. The twentieth century reader may smile at Mr. Stedman's youthful distrust of the "strong-minded woman," but his remarks are interesting. Of "This, That, and the Other," he wrote:

"'This, That, and the Other,' is a collection of prose sketches and verse from the pen of a young lady fast rising into a literary reputation; a reputation which, though it is achieved in no 'Uncle Tom' or 'Fanny Fern' mode, is no less sure than that of Mrs. Stowe, or Sara Payson Willis, and will be more substantial, in that the works on which it is founded are more classic and in better taste.... Miss Chandler is a native of Pomfret in this state, and every denizen of Connecticut should be proud of her talents. She is beautiful and interesting; her manners are in marked distinction from the forwardness of the strong-minded woman of the day...."

Epes Sargent, in the Boston Transcript, said:

"... The ladies have invaded the field of fiction and carried off its most substantial triumphs. Mrs. Stowe, Fanny Fern, and now another name, if the portents do not deceive us, is about to be added—that of Miss Chandler, who although the youngest of the band (she is not yet nineteen), is overflowing with genius and promise. Such tales as those of 'Silence Adams,' 'A Husking Party at Ryefield,' 'Agnes Lee,' and 'Only an Old Maid,' reveal the pathos, the beauty, the power, the depth and earnestness of emotion that Ellen Louise has the art of transfusing into the humblest and most commonplace details.... But Ellen Louise must not be deceived by injudicious admiration. Her style, purified, chastened and subdued, would lose none of its attractiveness. She gives evidence of too noble a habit of thought to desire the success which comes of the hasty plaudits of the hour."

The book reviewing of 1853 was apparently not unlike the spelling of George Eliot's poor Mr. Tulliver,—"a matter of private judgment." For although the stories of Ellen Louise were singularly sweet and winsome in their tone, with an unusual grasp of sentiment and glow of fancy for so youthful and inexperienced a writer, they could yet hardly claim to rank with the work of Mrs. Stowe. The leading papers of that day united, however, in an absolute chorus of praise for the young author, who is pronounced "charming," and "overflowing with talent"; the "refinement and delicacy" of her work, her "rare maturity of thought and style," and a myriad other literary virtues were discerned and celebrated to the extent that the resources of the language of the country would allow. A sonnet was written to her, signed "B.P.S.," which signature is easily translated to us in these days as that of B.P. Shillaber, the author of "Mrs. Partington." The sonnet is entitled:

TO ELLEN LOUISE

Take this, and that, and t'other all together,
We like you better every day we're breathing;
And round our hearts this pleasant summer weather
Your fairy fingers deathless flowers are weaving:
We read delightedly your charming pages
Fraught in each line with truth and magic beauty;
Here starts a tear that some hid woe assuages,
And there is heard a voice that calls to duty.
And proudly may Connecticut, sweet Ellen,
Point to the genius bright that crowns her daughter,
And the rare graces that she doth excel in,
Confessed in floods of praise from every quarter.
The world forgives the wooden nutmeg suction
Because of you, the best Connecticut production.