ALICE AND PHOEBE CARY.
“THE SISTER SPIRITS OF POESY.”
T would be difficult to treat the two poetic Cary sisters separately. Their work began, progressed through life and practically ended together. Few persons have written under the circumstances which at first appeared so disadvantageous. They had neither education nor literary friends, nor was their early lot cast in a region of literary culture—for they were reared in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the formative period of that Western country. But surely in the wild hills and valleys of their native West, they found
“Tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
Alice Cary was born in Mount Healthy, near Cincinnati, April 20, 1820, and her sister Phoebe at the same place four years later. The two sisters studied at home together and, when eighteen years old, Alice began to write poems and sketches of rural life under the nom de plume of Patty Lee, which attracted considerable attention and displayed an ability which elicited encouragement from the editors of the periodicals to which she contributed. In the mean time, Phoebe Cary, following her sister’s example, began to contribute, and, in 1850, the two sisters published their first volume of poems in Philadelphia. A volume of prose sketches entitled “Clover Nook, or Recollections of our Neighborhood in the West,” by Alice Cary followed in 1851. In 1852, the Cary sisters removed to New York city where they chiefly resided during the remainder of their lives, returning occasionally to their early farm home. For some years they held weekly receptions in New York, which were attended by leading artistic and literary people. They earned by their pens—pure and womanly pens—sufficient to provide a competence for all their wants. They gathered a library, rich in standard works, to gratify their refined tastes and did much to relieve the needy with their charity. In 1853, Alice Cary issued a second series of her “Clover Nook Papers” and a third gleaning from the same field appeared in 1855, entitled “Clover Nook Children,” for the benefit of her more youthful readers. During the prolific years, from 1852 to 1855, she also published “Lyra and other Poems,” followed by “Hagar, a Story of To-day,” “Married, Not Mated,” and “Hollywood,” a collection of poems. In 1854, Phoebe Cary, also, published “Poems and Parodies.” In 1859 appeared her “Pictures of Country Life,” a series of tales, and “The Bishop’s Son,” a novel. In 1867, appeared her “Snowberries,” a book for young folks. In 1866, Alice also published a volume entitled “Ballads, Lyrics and Hymns,” which is a standard selection of her poetry and contains some of the sweetest minor poems in the language. Alice’s “The Lover’s Diary” appeared in 1868. It begins with the poem “Dreamland” and ranges with a series of exquisite lyrics of love through all the phases of courtship to married life. This was the last of her works published during her lifetime. During the same year (1868), Phoebe published the “Poems of Faith, Hope and Love,” a worthy companion volume to her sister’s works, and in 1869 she aided her pastor, Chas. F. Deems, in editing “Hymns for All Christians.”
In comparing the two sisters, it is noticeable that the poems of Alice are more thoughtful and more melodiously expressed. They are also marked with a stronger originality and a more vivid imagination. In disposition, Alice was pensive and tender, while Phoebe was witty and gay. Alice was strong in energy and patience and bore the chief responsibility of their household, allowing her sister, who was less passive and feminine in temperament, to consult her moods in writing. The disparity in the actual intellectual productions of the two sisters in the same number of years is the result, not so much of the mental equality as of the superior energy, industry, and patience of the elder.
The considerate love and delicacy with which Alice and Phoebe Cary treated each other plainly indicated that they were one in spirit through life, and in death they were not long separated. Alice died at her home in New York City, February 12, 1871, in her fifty-first year. Phoebe, in sorrow over this bereavement, wrote the touching verses entitled “Light,” and in confidence said to a friend: “Alice, when she was here, always absorbed me, and she absorbs me still. I feel her constantly drawing me.” And so it seemed in reality, for, on the thirty-first day of July, six months after Alice Cary was laid to rest in Greenwood Cemetery, New York, Phoebe died at Newport, Rhode Island, whence her remains were removed and laid by her sister’s side.