“Dream nobly and plan loftily” has been the guiding spirit of this volume. It is a book of religious verse in the true sense, not in the general acceptance of modern religious verse, which is generally dull twaddle, egotism, mawkishness, blind gropings and haunting fears. The gentle spirit of Christ breathes through it, making an atmosphere of peace and repose. There is no bigotry to jar, no narrowness to chafe us, but the broad upland of Christian charity and truth. Nor has our author forgotten that even truth if cast in awkward mould may be passed over. To her poems she has given a dainty setting without sacrificing a jot of their strength. After reading such a book a judicious bit of Miss Conway’s prose comes to my mind. “And as that Catholic light, the only true vision, brightens about us, we realize more and more that literary genius, take it all and all, has done more to attract men to good than to seduce men to evil; that the best literature is also the most fascinating, and even by its very abundance is more than a match for the bad; that time is its best ally; that it is hard, if not impossible, to corrupt the once formed pure literary taste; and, finally, that as makers of literature or critics or disseminators of it, it is our duty to believe in the best, hope in the best, and steadfastly appeal to the best in human nature; for we needs must love the highest when we see it.”
Katherine Eleanor Conway was born of Irish parents, in Rochester, on the 6th of Sept., 1853. Her early studies were made in the convent schools of her native city. From an early age she had whisperings of the muse. These whisperings at the age of fifteen convinced her that her true sphere of action was literature. In 1875 she commenced the publication of a modest little Catholic monthly, contributing poems and moral tales, under the nom-de-plume of “Mercedes,” to other Catholic journals, in the spare hours left from editing her little venture and teaching in the convent. In 1878 she became attached to the Buffalo Union and Times. To this journal she contributed the most of the poems to be found in her maiden volume,—“On the Sunrise Slope,”—a volume whose rich promise has been amply fulfilled in the “Dream of Lilies.” Her health failing, she sought a needful rest in Boston. Her fame had preceded her, and the gifted editor of the Pilot, ever on the lookout for a hopeful literary aspirant of his race, held out a willing hand to the shy stranger. “Come to us,” he said, in a voice that knew no guile, “and help us in the good fight.” That fight—the crowning glory of O’Reilly’s noble life—was to gain an adequate position for his race and religion from the puritanism of New England. How that race and religion were held before his coming, may be best told in the language of Miss Conway, taken from a heart-sketch of her dead master and minstrel:—
“Notwithstanding Matignon and Cheverus, and the Protestant Governor Sullivan, Catholic and Irish were, from the outset, simply interchangeable terms—and terms of odium both—in the popular New England mind; in vain the bond of a common language, in vain the Irishman’s prompt and affectionate acceptance of the duties of American citizenship. To but slight softening of prejudice even his sacrifice of blood and life on every battle-field in the Civil War, in proof of the sincerity of his political profession of faith. He and his were still hounded as a class inferior and apart. They were almost unknown in the social and literary life of New England. Their pathetic sacrifices for their kin beyond the sea, their interest in the political fortunes of the old land, were jests and by-words. Their religion was the superstition of the ignorant, vulgar and pusillanimous; or, at best, motive for jealous suspicion of divided political allegiance and threatened “foreign” domination. Their children suffered petty persecutions in the public schools. The stage and the press faithfully reflected the ruling popular sentiment in their caricatures of the Catholic Irishman.”
She accepted O’Reilly’s call and stood by his side with Roche, Guiney, Blake, until the hard fought battle against the prejudice to Irishism and Catholicism, planted in New England by the bigoted literature of Old England, was abated, if not destroyed; until its shadows, if cast now, are cast by the lower rather than the higher orders in the world of intellect and refinement. “And the shortening of the shadow is proof that the sun is rising,” proof that her work has been far from vain. And when from the grey dawn of prejudice will come forth the white morrow of charity and truth, the singer and her songs will not be forgotten.
[LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY.]
In speaking with the author of a “Dream of Lilies,” I casually mentioned the name of another Boston poetess, “one of the Pilot poets,” as the gifted Carpenter was wont to speak of those whose genius was nursed by Boyle O’Reilly. For a few years previous to my coming, little waif poems, suggestive of talent and refinement, had seen light in the columns of that brilliant journal. They had about them that something which makes the reader hazard a bet that the youngster when fully fledged would some day leave the lowlands of minor minstrelsy for a height on Parnassus. From this singer Miss Conway had that morning received a notelet. It was none of the ordinary kind, a little anarchistic, if one might judge from the awkward pen-sketch of a hideous grinning skeleton-skull held by cross-bones which served as an illustration to the bantering text that followed, in a rather cramped girlish hand. The notelet was signed Louise Imogen Guiney.
“Are you not afraid, Miss Conway,” said I, “to receive such warning notes?” “It is from the best girl in America,” was the frank reply; “read it.” A perusal of the few dashing lines was enough, and my generous host, reading my eyes, gave me the coveted notelet. That notelet begot an interest in the writer; an interest fully repaid by the strong, careful work put forth under her name. Louise Imogen Guiney, poet, essayist, dramatist, was born in Boston, that city of “sweetness and light,” in January, 1862. Her parents were Irish. Her father, Patrick Guiney, came from the hamlet of Parkstown, County Tipperary, at an early age. He was a man of the most blameless and noble character. During the civil war, as Col. Guiney of the Irish Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers, his heroism on behalf of his adopted country won him the grateful admiration of all lovers of freedom. This admiration at the close of the war was substantially shown by his election as Judge of Probate. Constant suffering from an old wound, received at the battle of the Wilderness, gave the old soldier but few years to enjoy honors from his fellow-citizens. His death was mourned by all who loved virtue and honor. Of him a Boston poet sang:
“Large heart and brave! Tried soul and true!
How thickly in thy life’s short span,