A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Clarke, Sara Jane
CLARKE, SARA JANE,
Best known as "Grace Greenwood," was born in Onondaga, a Tillage in the interior of New York. Her parents were from New England, being connected with some of the most distinguished of the Pilgrim and Huguenot families. Mr. Clarke removed to New Brighton, whilst his gifted daughter was yet a child; her home is still there among the wild, bold, and picturesque scenery of western Pennsylvania.
In 1844, Miss Clarke commenced her career of authorship in a series of letters, under the signature of "Grace Greenwood," addressed to the Editors of the "New Mirror," published in the city of New York. These editors, Messrs. Morris and Willis, were struck with the vivacity of thought, energy of expression, and poetic fancy displayed by the writer; they kindly encouraged her, and soon her nomme de plume became celebrated among the readers of American periodicals. Previous to this, however. Miss Clarke had written several poems under her real name; the discovery that the earnest, impassioned poet, and the "witty, saucy, dashing, brilliant, letter-writer," were one and indivisibly the same person, increased the curiosity and admiration; "Grace Greenwood" was at once a favourite.
That she has not only sustained, but increased this wide popularity, seemingly so easily gained, is proof that her talents are of the genuine stamp. An inferior genius would have been satisfied with the honours won; a fearful mind would have hesitated to risk, by any effort to widen her sway, a failure. Grenius, however, makes no interested calculations, but pours out its musings and melodies as prayer gushes from a heart filled with the love of heaven. Miss Clarke has written much during the last four or five years; and though these "Greenwood leaves," both poetry and prose, have been scattered about in various periodicals, and prepared without that concentration of thought and purpose which a great work requires, yet she has made good progress, and is a writer of whom her country may be justly proud.
The characteristics of her prose are freshness, vigour, and earnestness of thought, combined with exquisite humour and sprightliness; and, although she is distinguished by great freedom and fearlessness of expression, she never transcends the bounds of strict feminine delicacy. A slight vein of playful satire is discernible here and there, which adds to the piquancy of her style, but which, like the heat lightning of a summer night, flashes and coruscates, while it does not blast.
A volume of Miss Clarke's prose writings was published in Boston, by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, under the title of "Greenwood Leaves," in 1850; and a small volume of "Poems," in 1861; also a book for children, entitled "My Pets." Her latest work, published in 1854, is entitled "Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe."