Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Our American cousins have made ‘ a new departure ’ in the way of wonders. Not
content with rearing ‘ the most remarkable men in this country, sir,’ in every ‘ city ’
that can boast of twelve houses and a newspaper office, they have now produced
the two most remarkable children. Miss Elaine Goodale and Miss Dora Reade
Goodale, of the respective ages of eleven and thirteen, have published a volume of
poetry, now in its fifth edition, which is really noteworthy, even independently of
the extreme immaturity of the writers. They live at a farmhouse in Berkshire
county, among the trees and flowers ; and as yet, I am glad to think, have never
held a reception or appeared on a platform. They are literally children of nature,
and instead of dealing with melodrama and romance, as is the way of juvenile
poets, they sing of what they have seen. There is nothing of a hothouse character
about their muse; the fruit is wholesome and not forced. The dedication of the
little book to their mother is just as it should be, and for simplicity, and even
grace, may vie with almost any production of the same class ;—