Jane Campbell

“ Sympathy with the sorrows of the lowly and the suffering of the oppressed, indignant hatred of wrong and scorn of injustice are often voiced in her lyrics, while the theme of all themes, the supreme subject of verse through all ages, love, finds in her, if not passionate utterance, yet a thrilling tone in consonance with her earnest nature. ”

“ Coates is before all a poet, and it is chiefly as a poet that she touches the public and the world at large. Of her work a literary critic thus writes: "In her poetry she is still the artist, making her material serve her turn in the most effective way. Her verse changes with her mood and theme, as in the 'Sonnet to Columbus' where it is calm and dignified with something of power called forth by the subject. ”

“ Her exquisite sense of the fitness of things is displayed in perfection in the management of her household affairs, every detail of which speaks to the observant stranger or friend who may chance to be within her gates, of the rare charm of harmonious repose, a charm which is usually entirely overlooked in the modern house, with its rooms filled to overflowing with an endless and incongruous variety of senseless bric-a-brac. ”

“ When the world was young, when men were untrammeled by the conventionalities that come of age, knowledge and experience, speech became instinctively poetic in its endeavor to express feelings, hopes, desires and passions, and necessarily borrowed its imagery from the varying phenomena of nature. ”

“ There remain, however, poetic springs deep in human consciousness; and though thought and sentiment may be intelligently expressed in prose, it is the welding of thought to rhythm, the union of the pleasures of intellect and of sense which appeal most strongly to our perception of the beautiful. ”

“ Coates gave much attention to that art, studying under the best masters both here and in Europe.
As part of her musical endowment, she had a deep and richly modulated voice and a power of dramatic expression which would have ensured her unusual triumphs had she been attracted toward a dramatic career. To quote the words of a close observer who knew her well: "Her essentially artistic nature first found expression in dramatic representation and in music. ”

“ In the development of time, ideas more exact took the place of the old, half-understood impressions which men struggled to make intelligible to one another, and language became less poetic, losing the abundance of metaphor and simile which were its primitive characteristics. ”

“ Coates, on whose appreciative and discriminating sympathy she can always count.
Her life is a very full one, for she has her home duties, paramount in her estimation, her literary work, her charities, her social ties, and all the other pursuits and occupations that go to fill the lives of nineteenth century women, and as in these days of clubs it would be almost impossible, even if a woman so desired, to refrain from being allied to one or more such societies, so Mrs. ”