"And the smile that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through tears." -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850–October 30, 1919) was an American author and poet. Her best-known work was Poems of Passion. Her most enduring work was "Solitude", which contains the lines: "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone". Her autobiography, The Worlds and I, was published in 1918, a year before her death.
"A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.""A weed is but an unloved flower.""All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon the sand.""Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.""For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a Macaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.""Give us that grand word "woman" once again, and let's have done with "lady"; one's a term full of fine force, strong, beautiful, and firm, fit for the noblest use of tongue or pen; and one's a word for lackeys.""It has ever been since time began, and ever will be, till time lose breath, that love is a mood - no more - to man, and love to a woman is life or death.""Let there be many windows to your soul, that all the glory of the world may beautify it.""One ship drives east and other drives west by the same winds that blow. It's the set of the sails and not the gales that determines the way they go.""So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind while just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs.""The man who radiates good cheer, who makes life happier wherever he meets it, is always a man of vision and faith.""The spark divine dwells in thee: let it grow.""The splendid discontent of God With chaos made the world. And from the discontent of man The worlds best progress springs.""The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind.""There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.""'Tis easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows along like a song; But the man worth while is the one who will smile when everything goes dead wrong.""'Tis the set of the sail that decides the goal, and not the storm of life.""When we tire of well-worn ways, we seek for new. This restless craving in the souls of men spurs them to climb, and to seek the mountain view.""With care, and skill, and cunning art, She parried Time's malicious dart, And kept the years at bay, Till passion entered in her heart and aged her in a day!""With every deed you are sowing a seed, though the harvest you may not see.""You may choose your words like a connoisseur, And polish it up with art, But the word that sways, and stirs, and stays, Is the word that comes from the heart."
Ella Wheeler was born in 1850 on a farm in Johnstown, Wisconsin, east of Janesville, the youngest of four children. The family soon moved north of Madison. She started writing poetry at a very early age, and was well known as a poet in her own state by the time she graduated from high school. When about 28 years of age, she married Robert Wilcox. They had one child, a son, who died shortly after birth. Not long after their marriage, they both became interested in theosophy, new thought, and spiritualism.
Early in their married life, they promised each other that whoever went first through death would return and communicate with the other. Robert Wilcox died in 1916, after over thirty years of marriage. She was overcome with grief, which became ever more intense as week after week went without any message from him. It was at this time that she went to California to see the Rosicrucian astrologer, Max Heindel, still seeking help in her sorrow, still unable to understand why she had no word from her Robert. This is how she tells of this meeting:
"In talking with Max Heindel, the leader of the Rosicrucian Philosophy in California, he made very clear to me the effect of intense grief. Mr. Heindel assured me that I would come in touch with the spirit of my husband when I learned to control my sorrow. I replied that it seemed strange to me that an omnipotent God could not send a flash of his light into a suffering soul to bring its conviction when most needed. Did you ever stand beside a clear pool of water, asked Mr. Heindel, and see the trees and skies repeated therein? And did you ever cast a stone into that pool and see it clouded and turmoiled, so it gave no reflection? Yet the skies and trees were waiting above to be reflected when the waters grew calm. So God and your husband's spirit wait to show themselves to you when the turbulence of sorrow is quieted".
Several months later, she composed a little mantra or affirmative prayer which she said over and over "I am the living witness: The dead live: And they speak through us and to us: And I am the voice that gives this glorious truth to the suffering world: I am ready, God: I am ready, Christ: I am ready, Robert.".
Wilcox made efforts to teach occult things to the world. Her works, filled with positivism, were popular in the New Thought Movement and by 1915 her booklet, What I Know About New Thought had a distribution of 50,000 copies, according to its publisher, Elizabeth Towne.
The following statement expresses Wilcox's unique blending of New Thought, Spiritualism, and a Theosophical belief in reincarnation: "As we think, act, and live here today, we built the structures of our homes in spirit realms after we leave earth, and we build karma for future lives, thousands of years to come, on this earth or other planets. Life will assume new dignity, and labor new interest for us, when we come to the knowledge that death is but a continuation of life and labor, in higher planes".
A popular poet rather than a literary poet, in her poems she expresses sentiments of cheer and optimism in plainly written, rhyming verse. Her world view is expressed in the title of her poem "Whatever Is—Is Best", suggesting an echo of Alexander Pope's "Whatever is, is right."
None of Wilcox's works were included by F. O. Matthiessen in The Oxford Book of American Verse, but Hazel Felleman chose no fewer than fourteen of her poems for Best Loved Poems of the American People, while Martin Gardner selected "Solitude" and "The Winds of Fate" for Best Remembered Poems.
She is frequently cited in anthologies of bad poetry, such as The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse and Very Bad Poetry. Sinclair Lewis indicates Babbitt's lack of literary sophistication by having him refer to a piece of verse as "one of the classic poems, like 'If' by Kipling, or Ella Wheeler Wilcox's 'The Man Worth While.'"The latter opens:
It is easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is one who will smile,
When everything goes dead wrong.
Her most famous lines open her poem "Solitude":
Laugh and the world laughs with you,
Weep, and you weep alone;
The good old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
"The Winds of Fate" is a marvel of economy, far too short to summarize. In full:
Her quote "Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes" is inscribed on a paving slab in Jack Kerouac Alley in San Francisco (next to the City Lights Bookstore).
"Solitude" was first published in the February 25, 1883 issue of The New York Sun. The inspiration for the poem came as she was travelling to attend the Governor's inaugural ball in Madison, Wisconsin. On her way to the celebration, there was a young woman dressed in black sitting across the aisle from her. The woman was crying. Miss Wheeler sat next to her and sought to comfort her for the rest of the journey. When they arrived, the poet was so depressed that she could barely attend the scheduled festivities. As she looked at her own radiant face in the mirror, she suddenly recalled the sorrowful widow. It was at that moment that she wrote the opening lines of "Solitude":
:"Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
:"Weep, and you weep alone."
She sent the poem to the Sun and received $5 for her effort. In May 1883, "Solitude" appeared in Wheeler's book, Poems of Passion.
Her final words in her autobiography The Worlds and I: "From this mighty storehouse (of God, and the hierarchies of Spiritual Beings ) we may gather wisdom and knowledge, and receive light and power, as we pass through this preparatory room of earth, which is only one of the innumerable mansions in our Father's house. Think on these things".
Ella Wheeler Wilcox's name provided the unlikely inspiration for doggerel by the English humorist Richard Murdoch, which he set to the opening bars of Alexandre Luigini's Ballet egyptien.
