[Out of Sweet Solitude.] By Eleanor C. Donnelly. Philadelphia: Lippincott & Co. 1873.
This modest little volume, a “first book,” gives us confidence that the authoress will fill a useful place in the Catholic literature of America. We say a useful place, for poetry like hers is much in demand in our Catholic homes.
The three divisions of the volume—“Sacred Legends,” “Poems of the Civil War,” and “Miscellaneous Poems”—present a pleasing variety, both of matter and of style. Some of her lyrics are more accurate than others; and some of her descriptions would be stronger with fewer epithets. But her verse is, for the most part, as smooth as simple. And while no one can charge her with affectation, she is certainly not lacking in originality.
There is but a single line on which we shall make a stricture. It occurs in a poem called “The Skeleton at the Feast”: the sixth line of the fifth stanza, p. 77. She speaks of
“The flame
Lit for the damned from all eternity.”
Now, God did not create “from eternity”; still less are any of his creatures damned “from eternity.” We therefore pronounce this line a slip of the pen, and beg that it may be altered in the next edition.
In conclusion, we thankfully welcome the authoress into the number of our Catholic poetesses, and hope that ere long she will be again tempted to come to us “out of sweet solitude.”
[Old New England Traits.] Edited by George Lunt. New York: Published by Hurd & Houghton. Cambridge: The Riverside Press. 1873.
Any one acquainted with the ancient city of Newburyport will have a special interest in the reminiscences which this very readable book contains. To those who are not, it will give a very perfect idea of the New England of the past, which is even now pretty well preserved in these old seaport towns of Massachusetts. There is not a dry or tedious page in it from beginning to end, and, both in matter and style, it is just the kind of a book for any time of year, but particularly for the summer. At the end, there are a number of ghost stories. Ghosts seem to thrive well in Newburyport, judging from recent developments as well as these more ancient ones, and there can be no doubt that the reputation of Essex County for the preternatural is really very well founded.