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156 CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH
her sister, and she did not complain, nor did it cause any bitterness.
For example, Alice's tireless energy and unswerving will at times
wearied Phcebe, though she found in both the staff and support of her
life, while Phoebe's inertia was a much more perpetual trial to Alice.
She recognized the fact that she could not make the active law of her
being that of Phoebe's, and acquiesced, but not always with inward resignation.
According to Phoebe's own testimony, Alice used mind and body
unsparingly whenever she could compel them to obey her will. With
all a woman's softness, she met the responsibilities of life as a man
meets them. She never stopped to inquire whether she felt like doing
a task, no matter how disagreeable it might be. If it was to be done
she did it, and without words and without delay.
It was Phoebe, the protected and sheltered one, who consulted her
moods. Perhaps this was scarcely a fault; she obeyed the law of her
being and the law of her life in this. Had she compelled her powers
to produce a given amount of work, as Alice did, without doubt it would
proportionately have depreciated in quality. Absolute necessity did
not force her to such toil, therefore she instinctively avoided it. Beside,
a most touching humility always held her back from testing her
powers to the utmost.
The same self-depreciation was strong in Alice; but her aspiration,
her will to do her best, with the impelling demands of life, were so
much stronger that neither brain nor hand were ever for a moment idle.
In an appreciation of Alice and Phoebe Cary, written for
Parton's volume of brief biographies entitled "Eminent Women
of the Age," which was published in 1868, Horace Greeley
says:
Their first decided literary venture—a joint volume of poems most
of which had already appeared in sundry journals—was published in
Philadelphia early in 1850, before they had abandoned "Clovernook,"
their rural Western home, for the brick-and-mortar whirl of the American
Babel [New York]. Probably the heartiness of its welcome fortified,
it did not stimulate, their resolve to migrate eastward; though it
is a safe guess that no direct pecuniary advantage accrued to them from
its publication. But the next year witnessed the "coming out" of
Alice's first series of "Clovernook Papers;" prose sketches of characters
and incidents drawn from observation and experience, which won immediate
and decided popularity. The press heartily recognized their
fresh simplicity and originality, while the public bought, read, and admired.
Several goodly editions were sold in this country, and at least
one in Great Britain, where their merits were generously appreciated
by the critics. A second series, published in 1853, was equally successful.
"The Clovernook Children"—issued in 1854 by Ticknor & Fields,
and addressed more especially to the tastes and wants of younger
readers—has been hardly less commended or less popular.