The figure of the Quaker poet, as he stood before the world, was
unlike that of any other prominent figure which has walked across the
stage of life. This may be said, of course, of every individual; yet
the likenesses between men of a given era, or between modern men of
strong character and those of the ancient world, cause us sometimes to
exclaim with wonder at the evident repetitions in development. One can
hardly walk through the galleries of antique statues, nor read the
passages of Plutarch or Thucydides, without finding this idea thrust
upon the mind. But with regard to Whittier, such comparisons were
never made, even in fancy. His lithe, upright form, full of quick
movement, his burning eye, his keen wit, bore witness to a contrast in
himself with the staid, controlled manner and the habit of the sect
into which he was born. The love and devotion with which he adhered to
the Quaker Church and doctrines served to accentuate his unlikeness to
the men of his time, because he early became also one of the most
determined contestants in one of the sternest combats which the world
has witnessed.
Neither in the ranks of poets nor divines nor philosophers do we find
his counterpart. He felt a certain brotherhood with Robert Burns, and
early loved his genius; but where were two more unlike? A kind of
solitude of life and experience, greater than that which usually
throws its shadow on the human soul, invested him in his passage
through the world. The refinement of his education, the calm of nature
by which, in youth, he was surrounded, the few books which he made his
own, nearly all serious in their character, and the religious
atmosphere in which he was nurtured, all tended to form an environment
in which knowledge developed into wisdom, and the fiery soul formed a
power to restrain or to express its force for the good of humanity.
But as surely as he was a Quaker, so surely also did he feel himself a
part of the life of New England. He believed in the ideals of his
time; the simple ways of living; the eager nourishing of all good
things by the sacrifice of many private wishes; in short, he made one
cause with Garrison and Phillips, Emerson and Lowell, Longfellow and
Holmes. His standards were often different from those of his friends,
but their ideals were on the whole made in common.
His friends were to Whittier, more than to most men, an unfailing
source of daily happiness and gratitude. With the advance of years,
and the death of his unmarried sister, his friends became all in all
to him. They were his mother, his sister, and his brother; but in a
certain sense they were always friends of the imagination. He saw some
of them only at rare intervals, and sustained his relations with them
chiefly in his hurried correspondence. He never suffered himself to
complain of what they were not; but what they were, in loyalty to
chosen aims, and in their affection for him, was an unending source of
pleasure. With the shortcomings of others he dealt gently, having too
many shortcomings of his own, as he was accustomed to say, with true
humility. He did not, however, look upon the failings of his friends
with indifferent eyes. "How strange it is!" he once said. "We see
those whom we love going to the very verge of the precipice of
self-destruction, yet it is not in our power to hold them back!"
A life of invalidism made consecutive labor of any kind an
impossibility. For years he was only able to write for half an hour or
less, without stopping to rest, and these precious moments were
devoted to some poem or other work for the press, which was almost his
only source of income. His correspondence suffered, from a literary
point of view; but his letters were none the less delightful to his
friends. To the world of literature they are perhaps less important
than those of most men who have achieved a high place.
Whittier was between twenty and thirty years of age when his family
left the little farm near Haverhill, where he was born, and moved into
the town of Amesbury, eight miles distant. Long before that period he
had identified himself with the antislavery cause, and had visited, in
the course of his ceaseless labors for the slaves, New York,
Philadelphia, and Washington. These brief journeys bounded his travels
in this world.
In the year 1843 he wrote anxiously to his publisher, Mr. Fields, "I
send with this 'The Exiles,' a kind of John Gilpin legend. I am in
doubt about it. Read it, and decide for thyself whether it is worth
printing."
He began at this rather late period (he was then thirty-six years old)
to feel a touch of satisfaction in his comparatively new occupation of
writing poetry, and to speak of it without reserve to his chosen
friends. His poems were then beginning to bring him into personal
relation with the reading world. Many years later, when speaking of
the newspaper writing which absorbed his earlier life, he said that he
had written a vast amount for the press; he thought that his work
would fill nearly ten octavo volumes; but he had grown utterly weary
of throwing so much out into space from which no response ever came
back to him. At length he decided to put it all aside, discovering
that a power lay in him for more congenial labors.
From the moment of the publication of his second volume of poems,
Whittier felt himself fairly launched upon a new career, and seemed to
stand with a responsive audience before him. The poems "Toussaint
L'Ouverture," "The Slave-Ships," and others belonging to the same
period, followed in quick succession. Sometimes they took the form of
appeal, sometimes of sympathy, and again they are prophetic or
dramatic. He hears the slave mother weep:--
"Gone--gone--sold and gone
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters--
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!"
Such voices could not be silenced. Though men might turn away and
refuse to read or to listen, the music once uttered rang out into the
common air, and would not die.
A homely native wit pointed Whittier's familiar correspondence.
Writing in 1849, while revising his volume for publication, he speaks
of one of his poems as "that rascally old ballad 'Kathleen,'" and adds
that it "wants something, though it is already too long." He adds:
"The weather this morning is cold enough for an Esquimau purgatory--
terrible. What did the old Pilgrims mean by coming here?"
With the years his friendship with his publisher became more intimate.
In writing him he often indulged his humor for fun and banter:
"Bachelor as I am, I congratulate thee on thy escape from single
(misery!) blessedness. It is the very wisest thing thee ever did. Were
I autocrat, I would see to it that every young man over twenty-five
and every young woman over twenty was married without delay. Perhaps,
on second thought, it might be well to keep one old maid and one old
bachelor in each town, by way of warning, just as the Spartans did
their drunken helots."
Discussing the question of some of his "bad rhymes," and what to do
about them, he wrote once: "I heartily thank thee for thy suggestions.
Let me have more of them. I had a hearty laugh at thy hint of the
'carnal' bearing of one of my lines. It is now simply _rural._ I
might have made some other needful changes had I not been suffering
with headache all day."
Occasionally the fire which burned in him would flame out, as when he
writes in 1851: "So your Union-tinkers have really caught a 'nigger'
at last! A very pretty and refreshing sight it must have been to
Sabbath-going Christians yesterday--that _chained_ court-house of
yours. And Bunker Hill Monument looking down upon all! But the matter
is too sad for irony. God forgive the miserable politicians who gamble
for office with dice loaded with human hearts!"
From time to time, also, we find him expressing his literary opinions
eagerly and simply as friend may talk with friend, and without
aspiring to literary judgment. "Thoreau's 'Walden' is capital reading,
but very wicked and heathenish. The practical moral of it seems to be
that if a man is willing to sink himself into a woodchuck he can live
as cheaply as that quadruped; but after all, for me, I prefer walking
on two legs."
It would be unjust to Whittier to quote this talk on paper as his
final opinion upon Thoreau, for he afterwards read everything he
wrote, and was a warm appreciator of his work.
His enthusiasm for books and for the writers of books never faded.
"What do we not all owe you," he writes Mr. Fields, "for your edition
of De Tocqueville! It is one of the best books of the century. Thanks,
too, for Allingham's poems. After Tennyson, he is my favorite among
modern British poets."
And again: "I have just read Longfellow's introduction to his 'Tales
of the Inn'--a splendid piece of painting! Neither Boccaccio nor
Chaucer has done better. Who wrote 'A Loyal Woman's No?' Was it Lucy
Larcom? I thought it might be."
In 1866 he says: "I am glad to see 'Hosea Biglow' in book form. It is
a grand book--the best of its kind for the last half-century or more.
It has wit enough to make the reputation of a dozen English
satirists."
This appreciation of his contemporaries was a strong feature of his
character. His sympathy with the difficulties of a literary life,
particularly for women, was very keen. There seem to be few women
writers of his time who have failed to receive from his pen some token
of recognition. Of Edith Thomas he once said in one of his notelets,
"She has a divine gift, and her first book is more than a promise--an
assurance." Of Sarah Orne Jewett he was fond as of a daughter, and
from their earliest acquaintance his letters are filled with
appreciation of her stories. "I do not wonder," he wrote one day,
"that 'The Luck of the Bogans' is attractive to the Irish folks, and
to everybody else. It is a very successful departure from New England
life and scenery, and shows that Sarah is as much at home in Ireland
and on the Carolina Sea Islands as in Maine or Massachusetts. I am
very proud that I was one of the first to discover her." This
predisposition to think well of the work of others gave him the happy
opportunity in more than one instance of bringing authors of real
talent before the public who might otherwise have waited long for
general recognition.
This was especially the case with one of our best beloved New England
writers, Lucy Larcom. As early as 1853 he wrote a letter to his
publisher introducing her work to his notice. "I inclose," he says,
"what I regard as a very unique and beautiful little book in MS. I
don't wish thee to take my opinion, but the first leisure hour thee
have, read it, and I am sure thee will decide that it is exactly the
thing for publication.... The little prose poems are unlike anything
in our literature, and remind me of the German writer Lessing. They
are equally adapted to young and old.... The author, Lucy Larcom, of
Beverly, is a novice in writing and book-making, and with no ambition
to appear in print; and were I not perfectly certain that her little
collection is worthy of type, I would be the last to encourage her to
take even this small step to publicity. Read 'The Impression of
Rain-drops,' 'The Steamboat and Niagara,' 'The Laughing Water,' 'My
Father's House,' etc."
He thus early became the foster-father of Lucy Larcom's children of
the brain, and, what was far more to her, a life-long friend, adviser,
and supporter.
One of his most intimate personal friends for many years was Lydia
Maria Child. Beginning in the earliest days of the anti-slavery
struggle, their friendship lasted into the late and peaceful sunset of
their days. As Mrs. Child advanced in years, it was her custom in the
winter to leave her cottage at Wayland for a few months, and to take
lodgings in Boston. The dignity and independence of Mrs. Child's
character were so great that she knew her friends would find her
wherever she might live, and her desire to help on the good work of
the world led her to practice the most austere economies. Therefore,
instead of finding a comfortable boarding-place, which she might well
have excused herself for doing at her advanced age of eighty years,
she took rooms in a very plain little house in a remote quarter of the
city, and went by the street cars daily to the North End, to get her
dinner at a restaurant which she had discovered as being clean, and
having wholesome food at the very lowest prices. This enabled her to
give away sums which were surprisingly large to those who knew her
income. Wendell Phillips, who had always taken charge of her affairs,
said to me at the time of her death that when the negroes made their
flight into Kansas, Mrs. Child came in as soon as the news arrived and
asked him to forward fifty dollars for their assistance.
"I am afraid you cannot afford to send that sum just now," said Mr.
Phillips. "Perhaps you will do well to think it over."
"So I will," said Mrs. Child, and departed.
In the course of the day he received a note from her, saying she had
made a mistake. It was one hundred dollars that she wished to send.
Mrs. Child's chief pleasure in coming to town was the opportunity she
found of seeing her friends. Whittier always sought her out, and their
meetings at the houses of their mutual cronies were festivals indeed.
They would sit side by side, while memories crowded up and filled
their faces with a tenderness they could not express in words. As they
told their tales and made merry, they would sit with their hands on
each other's knees, and with glances in which tears and laughter were
closely intermingled.
"It was good to see Mrs. Child," some one remarked, after one of those
interviews.
"Yes," said Whittier, "Lyddy's bunnets aren't always in the fashion"
(with a quaint look, as much as to say, "I wonder what you think of
anything so bad"), "but we don't like her any the worse for that."
Shortly after Mrs. Child's death he wrote from Amesbury: "My heart has
been heavy ever since I heard of dear Maria Child's death. The true,
noble, loving soul! _Where_ is she? _What_ is she? _How_ is she?
The moral and spiritual economy of God will not suffer such light
and love to be lost in blank annihilation. She was herself an
evidence of immortality. In a letter written to me at seventy
years of age she said: 'The older I grow the more I am awe-struck
(not frightened, but awed) by the great mystery of an existence
here and hereafter. No thinking can solve the problem. Infinite
wisdom has purposely sealed it from our eyes.'"
There was never a moment of Whittier's life when, prostrated by
illness, or overwhelmed by private sorrows, or removed from the haunts
of men, he forgot to take a living interest in public affairs, and to
study closely the characteristics and works of the men who were our
governors. He understood the characters of our public officers as if
he had lived with them continually, and his quick apprehension with
regard to their movements was something most unusual. De Quincey, we
remember, surprised his American friends by taking their hands, as it
were, and showing them about Boston, so familiar was he with our
localities. Whittier could sit down with politicians and easily prove
himself the better man on contested questions. In 1861 he wrote:--
"Our government needs more wisdom than it has thus far had credit for
to sustain the national honor and avert a war with England. What a
pity that Welles _indorsed_ the act of Wilkes in his report! Why
couldn't we have been satisfied with the thing without making such a
cackling over it? Apologies are cheap, and we could afford to make a
very handsome one in this case. A war with England would ruin us. It
is too monstrous to think of. May God in His mercy save us from it!"
In 1862 and 1863 Whittier was in frequent correspondence with Mr.
Fields. Poems suggested by the stirring times were crowding thick upon
his mind. "It is a great thing to live in these days. I am thankful
for what I have lived to see and hear," he says. "There is nothing for
us but the old Methodist ejaculation, 'Glory to God!'"
The volume entitled "In War-time" appeared at this period, though, as
usual, he seems to have had little strength and spirit for the
revision of his poems. For this, however unwillingly, he would often
throw himself upon the kindness of his friend and publisher.
In writing to ask some consideration for the manuscript of an unknown
lady during this year, he adds: "I ought to have sent to you about
this lady's MS. long ago, but the fact is, I hate to bother you with
such matters. I am more and more impressed with the Christian
tolerance and patience of publishers, beset as you are with legions of
clamorous authors, male and female. I should think you would hate the
very sight of one of these importunates. After all, Fields, let us own
the truth: writing folks are bores. How few of us (let them say what
they will of our genius) have any common sense! I take it that it is
the providential business of authors and publishers to torment each
other."
These little friendly touches in his correspondence show us the man
far more distinctly than many pages of writing about him. Some one has
said that Whittier's epistolary style was perfect. Doubtless he could
write as good a letter on occasion as any man who ever lived, but he
sustained no such correspondence. His notes and letters were homely
and affectionate, with the delightful carelessness possible in the
talk of intimate friends. They present no ordinary picture of human
tenderness, devotion, and charity, and these qualities gain a
wonderful beauty when we remember that they come from the same spirit
which cried out with Ezekiel:--
"The burden of a prophet's power
Fell on me in that fearful hour;
From off unutterable woes
The curtain of the future rose;
I saw far down the coming time
The fiery chastisement of crime;
With noise of mingling hosts, and jar
Of falling towers and shouts of war,
I saw the nations rise and fall
Like fire-gleams on my tent's white wall."
"The fire and fury of the brain" were his indeed; a spirit was in him
to redeem the land; he was one of God's interpreters; but there was
also the tenderness of divine humanity, the love and patience of those
who dwell in the courts of the Lord.
Whittier's sister Elizabeth was a sensitive woman, whose delicate
health was a constant source of anxiety to her brother, especially
after the death of their mother, when they were left alone together in
the home at Amesbury. As one of their intimate friends said, no one
could tell which would die first, but they were each so anxious about
the other's health that it was a question which would wear away into
the grave first, for the other's sake.
It was Whittier's sad experience to be deprived of the companionship
of all those most dear to him, and for over twenty years to live
without that intimate household communion for the loss of which the
world holds no recompense. For several years, before and after his
sister Elizabeth's death, Whittier wore the look of one who was very
ill. His large dark eyes burned with peculiar fire, and contrasted
with his pale brow and attenuated figure. He had a sorrowful, stricken
look, and found it hard enough to reconstruct his life, missing the
companionship and care of his sister, and her great sympathy with his
own literary work. There was a likeness between the two; the same
speaking eyes marked the line from which they sprang, and their
kinship and inheritance. Old New England people were quick to
recognize "the Bachiler eyes," not only in the Whittiers, but in
Daniel Webster, Caleb Cushing, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William
Bachiler Greene, a man less widely known than these distinguished
compatriots. Mr. Greene was, however, a man of mark in his own time, a
daring thinker, and one who was possessed of much brave originality,
whose own deep thoughtfulness was always planting seeds of thought in
others, and who can certainly never be forgotten by those who were
fortunate enough to be his friends.
These men of the grand eyes were all descended from a gifted old
preacher of great fame in early colonial days, a man of true
distinction and devoted service, in spite of the dishonor with which
he let his name be shadowed in his latest years. It would be most
interesting to trace the line still further back into the past; but
when the Bachiler eyes were by any chance referred to in Whittier's
presence, he would look shyly askance, and sometimes speak, half with
pride, half with a sort of humorous compassion, of his Hampton
ancestor. The connection of the Whittiers of Haverhill with the
Greenes was somewhat closer than with other branches of the Bachiler
line. One of the poet's most entertaining reminiscences of his boyhood
was the story of his first visit to Boston. Mr. William Greene's
mother was an interesting woman of strong, independent character and
wide interests, wonted to the life of cities, and one of the first, in
spite of his boyish shyness, to appreciate her young relative. Her
kind eagerness, during one of her occasional visits to the Whittiers,
that Greenleaf should come to see her when he came to Boston, fell in
with his own dreams, and a high desire to see the sights of the great
town.
One can easily see how his imagination glorified the natural
expectations of a country boy, and when the time arrived how the whole
household lent itself to furthering so great an expedition. He was not
only to have a new suit of clothes, but they were, for the first time,
to be trimmed with "boughten buttons," to the lad's complete
satisfaction, his mind being fixed upon those as marking the
difference between town and country fashions. When the preparations
were made, his fresh homespun costume, cut after the best usage of the
Society of Friends, seemed to him all that heart could desire, and he
started away bravely by the coach to pass a week in Boston. His mother
had not forgotten to warn him of possible dangers and snares; it was
then that he made her a promise which, at first from principle and
later from sentiment, he always most sacredly kept--that he would not
enter a playhouse. As he told the story, it was easy for a listener to
comprehend how many good wishes flew after the adventurer, and how
much wild beating of the heart he himself experienced as the coach
rolled away; how bewildering the city streets appeared when he found
himself at the brief journey's end. After he had reported himself to
Mrs. Greene, and been received with most affectionate hospitality, and
had promised to reappear at tea-time, he sallied forth to the great
business of sight-seeing.
"I wandered up and down the streets," he used to say. "Somehow it
wasn't just what I expected, and the crowd was worse and worse after I
got into Washington Street; and when I got tired of being jostled, it
seemed to me as if the folks might get by if I waited a little while.
Some of them looked at me, and so I stepped into an alleyway and
waited and looked out. Sometimes there didn't seem to be so many
passing, and I thought of starting, and then they'd begin again. 'Twas
a terrible stream of people to me. I began to think my new clothes and
the buttons were all thrown away. I stayed there a good while." (This
was said with great amusement.) "I began to be homesick. I thought it
made no difference at all about my having those boughten buttons."
How long he waited, or what thoughts were stirred by this first
glimpse at the ceaseless procession of humanity, who can say? But
there was a sequel to the tale. He was invited to return to Mrs.
Greene's to drink tea and meet a company of her guests. Among them
were some ladies who were very gay and friendly; we can imagine that
they were attracted by the handsome eyes and quaint garb of the young
Friend, and by his quick wit and homely turns of speech, all the more
amusing for a rustic flavor. They tried to tease him a little, but
they must have quickly found their match in drollery, while the lad
was already a citizen of the commonwealth of books. No doubt the
stimulus of such a social occasion brought him, as well as the
strangers, into new acquaintance with his growing gifts. But presently
one of the ladies, evidently the favorite until this shocking moment,
began to speak of the theatre, and asked for the pleasure of his
presence at the play that very night, she herself being the leading
player. At this disclosure, and the frank talk of the rest of the
company, their evident interest in the stage, and regard for a young
person who had chosen such a profession, the young Quaker lad was
stricken with horror. In after years he could only remember it with
amusement, but that night his mother's anxious warnings rang in his
ears, and he hastened to escape from such a snare. Somehow this
pleasant young companion of the tea party hardly represented the
wickedness of playhouses as Puritan New England loved to picture them;
but between a sense of disappointment and homesickness and general
insecurity, he could not sleep, and next morning when the early
stage-coach started forth, it carried him as passenger. He said nothing
to his amazed family of the alarming episode of the playing-woman, nor
of his deep consciousness of the home-made clothes, but he no doubt
reflected much upon this Boston visit in the leisure of the silent
fields and hills.
It is impossible to convey to those who never saw Mr. Whittier the
charm of his gift of story telling; the exactness and simplicity of
his reminiscences were flavored by his poetical insight and dramatic
representation. It was a wonderful thing to hear him rehearse in the
twilight the scenes of his youth, and the figures that came and went
in that small world; the pathos and humor of his speech can never be
exceeded; and there can never be again so complete a linking of the
ancient provincial lore and the new life and thought of New England as
there was in him. While he was with us, his poems seemed hardly to
give sufficient witness of that rich store of thought and knowledge;
he was always making his horizon wider, at the same time that he came
into closer sympathy with things near at hand. For him the ancient
customs of a country neighborhood, the simple characters, the loves
and hates and losses of a rural household, stood for a type of human
life in every age, and were never trivial or narrow. As he grew older,
these became less and less personal. He sometimes appeared to think of
death rather than the person who had died, and of love and grief
rather than of those who felt their influence. His was the life of the
poet first of all, and yet the tale of his sympathetic friendliness,
and his generosities and care-taking for others will never be fully
told. The dark eyes had great powers of insight; they could flash
scorn as well as shine with the soft light of encouragement.
He accustomed himself, of course, to more frequent visits to Boston
after his sister's death, but he was seldom, if ever, persuaded to go
to the Saturday Club, to which so many of his friends belonged.
Sometimes he would bring a new poem for a private first reading, and
for that purpose would stay to breakfast or luncheon; but late dinners
were contrary to the habit of his life, and he seldom sat down to one.
"I take the liberty," he wrote one day, "of inclosing a little poem of
mine which has beguiled some weary hours. I hope thee will like it.
How strange it seems not to read it to my sister! If thee have read
Schoolcraft, thee will remember what he says of the 'Little
Vanishers.' The legend is very beautiful, and I hope I have done it
justice in some sort."
In the spring of 1865 he came to Campton, on the Pemigewasset River,
in New Hampshire, a delightful place for those who love green hills
and the mystery of rivers.
We were passing a few weeks there by ourselves, and it was a great
surprise and pleasure to see our friend. He drove up to the door one
afternoon just as the sun was slanting to the west, too late to drive
away again that day. In our desire to show him all the glories of the
spot, we carried him out at once, up the hillside, leaping across the
brook, gathering pennyroyal and Indian posy as we went, past the sheep
and on and up, until he, laughing, said: "Look here, I can't follow
thee; besides, I think I've seen more of this life than thee have, and
it isn't all so new to me! Come and sit down here; I'm tired." We sat
a while overlooking the wonderful panorama, the winding river, the
hills and fields all green and radiant, listening at times to a
mountain stream which came with wild and solitary roar from its solemn
home among the farther heights. Presently we returned to supper; and
afterwards, sitting in the little parlor which looked towards the
sunset on the high hills far away, his mind seemed to rise into a
higher atmosphere. He began by quoting the last verse of Emerson's
"Sphinx:"--
"Uprose the merry Sphinx,
And couched no more in stone;
She melted into purple cloud,
She silvered in the moon;
She spired into a yellow flame;
She flowered in blossoms red;
She flowed into a foaming wave;
She stood Monadnock's head."
He talked long and earnestly upon the subject of our spiritual
existence independent of the body. I have often heard him dwell upon
this subject since; but the awful glory of the hills, the dark and
silence of our little parlor, the assured speech touching the unseen,
of one who had thought much and suffered much, and found a refuge in
the tabernacle not made with hands, were very impressive. We felt that
"it was good for us to be there."
Speaking of his faith in the visions of others--though he did not have
these visions himself, and believed they were not vouchsafed to all--
he told us of a prophecy that was written down twenty-five years
before by an old man in Sandwich (a village among the hills, about
fifteen miles from Campton), predicting the terrible civil war which
had just been raging between the North and the South. This man was in
the fields at noonday, when a darkness fell upon his sight and covered
the earth. He beheld the divided nation and the freed people and the
final deliverance from the terrors of war. The whole series of events
were clearly detailed, and Whittier had stored them away in his
memory. He said that only one thing was wrong. He foretold foreign
intervention, from which we were happily spared. The daughter of this
prophet was living; he knew her well,--an excellent woman and a Friend
who was often impressed to speak in meeting. "She is good," said
Whittier, "and speaks from her experience, and for that reason I like
to hear her."
Spiritualism, as it is called in our day, was a subject which
earnestly and steadily held his attention. Having lived very near to
the Salem witchcraft experience in early times, the topic was one that
came more closely home to his mind than to almost any one else in our
century. There are many passages in his letters on this question which
state his own mental position very clearly.
"I have had as good a chance to see a ghost," he once said, "as
anybody ever had, but not the slightest sign ever came to me. I do not
doubt what others tell me, but I sometimes wonder over my own
incapacity. I should like to see some dear ghost walk in and sit down
by me when I am here alone. The doings of the old witch days have
never been explained; and as we are so soon to be transferred to
another state, how natural it appears that some of us should have
glimpses of it here! We all feel the help we receive from the Divine
Spirit. Why deny, then, that some men have it more directly and more
visibly than others?"
In his memories of New England country life when he was a child, this
subject was closely interwoven with every association. He had an
uncle, who made one of the family, a man by no means devoid of the
old-fashioned faith in witches, and who was always ready to give his
testimony. He remembered an old woman in the neighborhood who was
accused of being a witch, and that when his uncle's opinion was asked
about her, he replied that he _knew she was a witch._
"How do you know?" they said.
"Oh," he replied, "I've seen her!"
Whittier recalled this uncle's returning one night from a long drive
through the woods; and when he came in and sat down by the fire after
supper, he told them that he had seen three old women in a clearing
around a kettle, "a-stirrin'of it." When they saw him, they moved off
behind the trees, but he distinctly saw the smoke from the kettle, and
he recognized the old woman in question as one of the three beyond the
shadow of a doubt. No doubt some curious rustic remedy or charm was
being brewed in the dark of the moon. Nothing escaped his observation
that was printed or circulated upon this topic. In the summer of 1882
he discovered that Old Orchard Beach had been made a theatre of new
wonders. Dr. ---- had been there, "working Protestant miracles, and
the lame walk and the deaf hear under his manipulation and holy oil.
There seems no doubt that cures of nervous diseases are really
sometimes effected, and I believe in the efficacy of prayer. The
nearer we are drawn to Him who is the source of all life, the better
it must be for soul and body."
In Robert Dale Owen he always took a strong and friendly interest; and
when, late in life, reverses fell upon Mr. Owen in the shape of
humiliating revelations of his own credulity, Whittier's relations to
him were unchanged. "I have read with renewed interest," he wrote,
"the paper of R. D. Owen. I had a long talk with him years ago on the
subject. He was a very noble and good man, and I was terribly
indignant when he was so deceived by the pretended materialized 'Katie
King.' I could never quite believe in 'materialization,' as I had
reason to know that much of it was fraudulent. It surely argues a
fathomless depth of depravity to trifle with the yearning love of
those who have lost dear ones, and 'long for the touch of a vanished
hand.'"
In the year 1866 a very fine portrait of Abraham Lincoln was engraved
by Marshall. A copy of it was presented to Whittier, who wrote
concerning it: "It was never my privilege to know Abraham Lincoln
personally, and the various pictures have more or less failed to
satisfy my conception of him. They might be, and probably were, what
are called 'good likenesses,' so far as outline and detail were
concerned; but to me they always seemed to lack one great essential of
a true portrait,--the informing spirit of the man within. This I find
in Marshall's portrait. The old harsh lines and unmistakable mouth are
there, without flattery or compromise; but over all and through all
the pathetic sadness, the wise simplicity and tender humanity of the
man are visible. It is the face of the speaker at Gettysburg, and the
writer of the second inaugural."
It was during this year, also, that the "Tent on the Beach" was
written. He had said again and again in his notes that he had this
work in hand, but always declared he was far too ill to finish it
during the year. Nevertheless, in the last days of December the
package was forwarded to his publisher. "Tell me," he wrote, "if thee
object to the personal character of it. I have represented thee and
Bayard Taylor and myself living a wild tent life for a few summer days
on the beach, where, for lack of something better, I read my stories
to the others. My original plan was the old 'Decameron' one, each
personage to read his own poems; but the thing has been so hackneyed
by repetition that I abandoned it in disgust, and began anew. The
result is before thee. Put it in type or the fire. I am content--like
Eugene Aram, 'prepared for either fortune.'"
He had intended also to accomplish some work in prose at this period,
but the painful condition of his health forbade it. "I am forbidden to
use my poor head," he said, "so I have to get along as I can without
it. The Catholic St. Leon, thee knows, walked alert as usual after his
head was cut off."
I am tempted to quote still further from a letter of this period: "I
inclose a poem of mine which has never seen the light, although it was
partly in print from my first draft to spare me the trouble of
copying. It presents my view of Christ as the special manifestation of
the love of God to humanity.... Let me thank the publisher of Milton's
prose for the compliment of the dedication. Milton's prose has long
been my favorite reading. My whole life has felt the influence of his
writings."
There is a delightful note on the subject of the popularity of the
"Tent on the Beach," which shows his natural pleasure in success.
"Think," he says, "of bagging in this tent of ours an unsuspecting
public at the rate of a thousand a day! This will never do. The
swindle is awful. Barnum is a saint to us. I am bowed with a sense of
guilt, ashamed to look an honest man in the face. But Nemesis is on
our track; somebody will puncture our tent yet, and it will collapse
like a torn balloon. I know I shall have to catch it; my back tingles
in anticipation."
It was perhaps in this same year, 1866, that we made an autumn visit
to Whittier which is still a well-remembered pleasure. The weather was
warm and the fruit was ripening in the little Amesbury garden. We
loitered about for a while, I remember, in the afternoon, among the
falling pear leaves and in the sweet air, but he soon led the way into
his garden-room, and fell into talk. He was an adept in the art of
conversation, having trained himself in the difficult school of a New
England farmhouse, fit ground for such athletics, being typically bare
of suggestion and of relief from outside resources. The unbroken
afternoons and the long evenings, when the only hope of entertainment
is in such fire as one brain can strike from another, produce a
situation as difficult to the unskilled as that of an untaught swimmer
when first cast into the sea. Persons long habituated to these
contests could face the position calmly, and see the early "tea-things"
disappear and the contestants draw their chairs around the
fire with a kind of zeal; but to one new to such experience there was
room for heart-sinkings when preparations were made, by putting fresh
sticks on the fire, for sitting from gloaming to vespers, and
sometimes on again unwearied till midnight.
Mrs. Stowe and Whittier were the invincible Lancelots of these
tourneys, and any one who has had the privilege of sitting by the New
England hearthstone with either of them will be ready to confess that
no playhouse, or game, or any of the distractions the city may afford,
can compare with the satisfaction of such an experience. Upon the
visit in question Whittier talked of the days of his anti-slavery life
in 1835 or 1836, when the English agitator, George Thompson, first
came to this country. The latter was suffering from the attack of many
a mob, and was fatigued by frequent speaking and as frequent abuse.
Whittier invited him to his home in the neighborhood of Haverhill,
where he could find quiet and rest during the warm weather. Thompson
accepted the invitation, and remained with him a fortnight. They used
to rake hay together, and go about the farm unmolested. At length,
however, a pressing invitation came for Thompson to go to Concord, New
Hampshire, to speak in the cause of freedom, and afterwards to
continue on to the village of Plymouth and visit a friend in that
place. Whittier was included in the invitation, and it was settled
that they should accept the call. They traveled peaceably enough in
their own chaise as far as Concord, where the speech was delivered
without interruption; but when they attempted to leave the hall after
the address was ended, they found it almost impossible. A crowd
followed them with the apparent intention of stoning and killing them.
"I understood how St. Paul felt when he was thrice stoned," said
Whittier. The missiles fell around them and upon them like hail, not
touching their heads, providentially, although he could still remember
the sound of the stones when they missed their aim and struck the
wooden fence behind them. They were made very lame by the blows, but
they managed to reach their friend's house, where they sprang up the
steps three at a time, before the crowd knew where they were going.
Their host was certainly a brave man, for he took them in at the door,
and then throwing it open, exclaimed, "Whoever comes in here must come
over my dead body." The door was then barricaded, and the crowd rushed
round to the back of the house, thinking that their victims intended
to go out that way; but the travelers waited until it was dark, when
Whittier exchanged his Friend's hat for that of his host, and,
everything else peculiar about his dress being well disguised, the two
managed to pass out unperceived by the crowd, and go on their way to
Plymouth. They stopped one night on their journey at a small inn,
where the landlord asked if they had heard anything of the riot in
Concord. Two men had been there, he said, one an Englishman by the
name of Thompson, who had been making abominable and seditious
speeches, stirring up people about "the niggers;" the other was a
young Quaker by the name of Whittier, who was always making speeches.
He heard him lecture once himself, he said (a base lie, Whittier told
us, because he had never "lectured" in his life), and it was well that
active measures had been taken against them. "We heard him all
through," said Whittier; "and then, just as I had my foot on the step
of the chaise, ready to drive away from the door, I remarked to him,
'Wouldn't you like to see that Thompson of whom you have been
speaking?' I took good care not to use 'plain' language (that is, the
Quaker form). 'I rather think I should,' said the man. 'Well, this is
Mr. Thompson,' I said, as I jumped into the chaise. And this is the
Quaker, Whittier,' said Thompson, driving away as fast as he could. I
looked back, and saw him standing, mouth wide open, gazing after us in
the greatest astonishment."
The two kept on to Plymouth, where they were nearly mobbed a second
time. Years after, Whittier said that once when he was passing through
Portland, a man, seeing him go by, stepped out of his shop and asked
if his name were Whittier, and if he were not the man who was stoned,
years before, by a mob at Concord. The answer being in the
affirmative, he said he believed a devil possessed him that night; for
he had no reason to wish evil either to Whittier or Thompson, yet he
was filled with a desire to kill them, and he thought he should have
done so if they had not escaped. He added that the mob was like a
crowd of demons, and he knew one man who had mixed a black dye to dip
them in, which would be almost impossible to get off. He could not
explain to himself or to another the state of mind he was in.
The next morning we walked with Whittier again in his little garden,
and saw his grapes, which were a source of pride and pleasure. One
vine, he told us, came up from a tiny rootlet sent to him by Charles
Sumner, in a letter from Washington.
Later we strolled forth into the village street as far as the Friends'
meeting-house, and sat down upon the steps while he told us something
of his neighbors. He himself, he said, had planted the trees about the
church: they were then good-sized trees. He spoke very earnestly about
the worship of the Friends. All the associations of his youth and all
the canons of his education and development were grounded on the
Friends' faith and doctrine, and he was anxious that they should show
a growth commensurate with the age. He disliked many of the
innovations, but his affectionate spirit clung to his people, and he
longed to see them drawing to themselves a larger measure of spiritual
life, day by day. He loved the old custom of sitting in silence, and
hoped they would not stray away into habits of much speaking. The old
habits of the meeting-house were very dear to him.
One cold, clear morning in January I heard his early ring at the door.
He had been ill, but was so much better that he was absolutely gay. He
insisted upon blowing the fire, which, as sometimes happens, will
struggle to do its worst on the coldest days; and as the flames at
last began to roar, his spirits rose with them. He was rejoicing over
Garibaldi's victory. The sufferings of Italy had been so terrible that
even one small victory in their behalf seemed a great gain. He said
that he had been trying to arouse the interest of the Friends, but it
usually took about two years to awaken them thoroughly on any great
topic!
He remained several hours that morning talking over his hopes for the
country,--of politics, of Charles Sumner, of whom he said, "Sumner is
always fundamentally right;" and of John Bright, for whose great gifts
he had sincere admiration. Soon afterwards, at the time of this great
man's death, Whittier wrote to us: "Spring is here to-day, warm,
birdfull.... It seems strange that I am alive to welcome her when so
many have passed away with the winter, and among them that stalwartest
of Englishmen, John Bright, sleeping now in the daisied grounds of
Rochdale, never more to move the world with his surpassing eloquence.
How I regret that I have never seen him! We had much in common in our
religious faith, our hatred of war and oppression. His great genius
seemed to me to be always held firmly in hand by a sense of duty, and
by the practical common sense of a shrewd man of business. He fought
through life like an old knight-errant, but without enthusiasm. He had
no personal ideals. I remember once how he remonstrated with me for my
admiration for General Gordon. He looked upon that wonderful
personality as a wild fighter, a rash adventurer, doing evil that good
might come. He could not see him as I saw him, giving his life for
humanity, alone and unfriended, in that dreadful Soudan. He did not
like the idea of fighting Satan with Satan's weapons. Lord Salisbury
said truly that John Bright was the greatest orator England had
produced, and his eloquence was only called out by what he regarded as
the voice of God in his soul."
When at length Whittier rose to go that winter morning, with the
feeling that he had already taken too large a piece out of the day, we
pressed him to stay longer, since it was already late. "Why can't you
stay?" urged his host. "Because, I tell you, I don't want to," which
set us all laughing, and settled the question.
Our first knowledge of his arrival in town was usually that early and
punctual ring at the door to which I have referred. He would come in
looking pale and thin, but full of fire, and, as we would soon find,
of a certain vigor. He became interested one morning in a plan
proposed to him for making a collection of poems for young people, one
which he finally completed with the aid of Miss Lucy Larcom. We got
down from the shelf Longfellow's "Poets and Poetry of Europe," and
looked it over together. "Annie of Tharaw" was a great favorite of
his, and the poem by Dirk Smit, on "The Death of an Infant," found his
ready appreciation. Whittier easily fell from these into talk of
Burns, who was his master and ideal. "He lives, next to Shakespeare,"
he said, "in the heart of humanity."
In speaking of Rossetti and of his ballad of "Sister Helen," he
confessed to being strangely attracted to this poem because he could
remember seeing his mother, "who was as good a woman as ever lived,"
and his aunt performing the same strange act of melting a waxen figure
of a clergyman of their time.
The solemnity of the affair made a deep impression on his mind, as a
child, for the death of the clergyman in question was confidently
expected. His "heresies" had led him to experience this cabalistic
treatment.
There was some talk, also, that morning of the advantages, in these
restless days, accruing to those who "stay put" in this world, instead
of to those who are forever beating about, searching for greater
opportunities from position or circumstance. He laughed heartily over
the tale, which had just then reached us, of Carlyle going to hunt up
a new residence in London with a map of the world in his pocket.
We asked Whittier if he never felt tempted to go to Quebec from his
well-beloved haunts in the White Mountains. "Oh no," he replied. "I
know it all by books and pictures just as well as if I had seen it."
This talk of traveling reminded him of a circus which came one season
to Amesbury. "I was in my garden," he said, "when I saw an Arab wander
down the street, and by and by stop and lean against my gate. He held
a small book in his hand, which he was reading from time to time when
he was not occupied with gazing about him. Presently I went to talk
with him, and found he had lived all his life on the edge of the
Desert until he had started for America. He was very homesick, and
longed for the time of his return. He had hired himself for a term of
years to the master of the circus. He held the Koran in his hand, and
was delighted to find a friend who had also read his sacred book. He
opened his heart still further then, and said how he longed for his
old, wild life in the Desert, for a sight of the palms and the sands,
but, above all, for its freedom." This interview made a deep
impression, naturally, upon Whittier's mind, he, who was no traveler
himself, having thus sung:--
"He who wanders widest, lifts
No more of beauty's jealous veil
Than he who from his doorway sees
The miracle of flowers and trees."
The memory of a visit to Amesbury, made once in September, vividly
remains with me. It was early in the month, when the lingering heat of
summer seems sometimes to gather fresh intensity from the fact that we
are so soon to hear the winds of autumn. Amesbury had greatly altered
of late years; large enough to be a city," our friend declared; "but I
am not fat enough to be an alderman." To us it was still a small
village, though somewhat dustier and less attractive than when we
first knew it.
As we approached the house, we saw him from a distance
characteristically gazing down the road for us, from his front yard,
and then at the first glimpse suddenly disappearing, to come forth
again to meet us, quite fresh and quiet, from his front door. It had
been a very hot, dry summer, and everything about that place, as about
every other, was parched and covered with dust. There had been no rain
for weeks, and the village street was then quite innocent of watering
carts. The fruit hung heavily from the nearly leafless trees, and the
soft thud of the pears and apples as they fell to the ground could be
heard on every side in the quiet house-yards. The sun struggled feebly
through the mists during the noontide hours, when a still heat
pervaded rather than struck the earth; and then in the early
afternoon, and late into the next morning, a stirless cloud seemed to
cover the face of the world. These mists were much increased by the
burning of peat and brush, and, alas! of the very woods themselves in
every direction. Altogether, as Whittier said, quaintly, "it was very
encouraging weather for the Millerites."
His niece, who bears the name of his beloved sister, was then the
mistress of his house, and we were soon made heartily welcome.
Everything was plain and neat as became a Friend's household; but as
the village had grown to be a stirring place, and the house stood
close upon the dusty road, such charming neatness must sometimes have
been a difficult achievement. The noonday meal was soon served and
soon ended, and then we sat down behind the half-closed blinds,
looking out upon the garden, the faded vines, and almost leafless
trees. It was a cosy room, with its Franklin stove, at this season
surmounted by a bouquet, and a table between the windows, where was a
larger bouquet, which Whittier himself had gathered that morning in
anticipation of our arrival. He seemed brighter and better than we had
dared to hope, and was in excellent mood for talking. Referring again
to the Millerites, who had been so reanimated by the forest fires, he
said he had been deeply impressed lately with their deplorable
doctrines. "Continually disappointed because we don't all burn up on a
sudden, they forget to be thankful for their preservation from the
dire fate they predict with so much complacency."
He had just received a proof of his poem "Miriam," with the
introduction, and he could not be content until they had both been
read aloud to him. After the reading they were duly commented upon,
and revised until he thought he could do no more; yet twice before our
departure the proofs were taken out of the hand-bag where they were
safely stowed away, and again more or less altered.
Whittier's ever-growing fame was not taken by him as a matter of
course. "I cannot think very well of my own things," he used to say;
"and what is mere fame worth when thee is at home, alone, and sick
with headaches, unable either to read or to write?" Nevertheless, he
derived very great pleasure and consolation from the letters and
tributes which poured in upon him from hearts he had touched or lives
he had quickened. "That I like," he would say sometimes; "that is
worth having." But he must often have known the deeps of sadness in
winter evenings when he was too ill to touch book or pen, and when he
could do nothing during the long hours but sit and think over the
fire.
We slept in Elizabeth's chamber. The portrait of their mother, framed
in autumn leaves gathered in the last autumn of her life, hung upon
the wall. Here, too, as in our bedroom at Dickens's, the Diary of
Pepys lay on the table. Dickens had read his copy faithfully, and
written notes therein. Of this copy the leaves had not been cut; but
with it lay the "Prayers of the Ages," and volumes of poems, which had
all been well read, and "Pickwick" upon the top.
In the year 1867 Charles Dickens came to America to give his famous
Readings. Whittier, as we have seen, was seldom tempted out of his
country home and habitual ways, but Dickens was for one moment too
much for him. To our surprise, he wrote to ask if he could possibly
get a seat to hear him. "I see there is a crazy rush for tickets." A
favorable answer was dispatched to him as soon as practicable, but he
had already repented of the indiscretion. "My dear Fields," he wrote,
"up to the last moment I have hoped to occupy the seat so kindly
promised me for this evening. But I find I must give it up. Gladden
with it the heart of some poor wretch who dangled and shivered all in
vain in your long _queue_ the other morning. I must read my
'Pickwick' alone, as the Marchioness played cribbage. I should so
like, nevertheless, to see Dickens and shake that creative hand of
his! It is as well, doubtless, so far as he is concerned, that I
cannot do it; he will have enough and too much of that, I fear. I
dreamed last night I saw him surrounded by a mob of ladies, each with
her scissors snipping at his hair, and he seemed in a fair way to be
'shaven and shorn,' like the Priest in 'The House that Jack Built.'"
The large events of humanity were to Whittier a portion of his own
experience, his personal life being, in the ordinary sense, devoid of
incident. The death of Charles Dickens, in 1871, was a personal loss,
just as his life had been a living gain to this remote and invalid
man. One long quiet summer afternoon shortly after, Whittier joined us
for the sake of talking about Dickens. He told us what sunshine came
from him into his own solemn and silent country life, and what
grateful love he must ever bear to him. He wished to hear all that
could be told of him as a man. Tea came, and the sun went down, and
still he talked and questioned, and then, after a long silence, he
said suddenly: "What's he doing now? Sometimes I say, in Shakespeare's
phrase, O for some 'courteous ghost,' but nothing ever comes to me. He
was so human I should think thee must see him sometimes. It seems as
if he were the very person to manifest himself and give us a glimpse
beyond. I believe I have faith; I sometimes think I have; but this
desire to see just a little way is terribly strong in me. I have
expressed something of it in my verses to Mrs. Child about Loring."
He spoke also of the significance of our prayers; of their deep value
to our spirit in constantly renewing the sense of dependence; and
further, since we "surely find that our prayers are answered, what
blindness and fatuity there is in neglect or abuse of our privilege!"
He was thinking of editing a new edition of John Woolman. He hoped to
induce certain people who would read his own books to read that, by
writing a preface for it.
The death of Henry Ward Beecher was also a loss and a sadness to him
in his solitary life. "I am saddened by the death of Beecher," he
wrote; "he was so strong, so generous, so warm hearted, and so brave
and stalwart in so many good causes. It is a mighty loss. He had
faults, like all of us, and needed forgiveness; but I think he could
say, with David of old, that he would rather fall into the Lord's
hands than into the hands of man."
It is anticipating the years and interrupting the narrative to mention
here a few of the men who gladdened his later life by their
friendship, but the subject demands a brief space before we return to
the current story of his days.
Matthew Arnold went to see him upon his arrival in this country, and
it is needless to say that Whittier derived sincere pleasure from the
visit; but Arnold's delightful recognition of Whittier's "In School
Days" as one of the perfect poems which must live, gave him fresh
assurance of fulfilled purpose in existence. He had followed Arnold
with appreciation from his earliest appearance in the world of
letters, and knew him, as it were, "by heart" long before a personal
interview was possible. In a letter written after Arnold's return to
England, he says: "I share thy indignation at the way our people have
spoken of him--one of the foremost men of our time, a true poet, a
wise critic, and a brave, upright man, to whom all the English-speaking
people owe a debt of gratitude. I am sorry I could not see
him again."
When the end came, a few years later, he was among the first to say,
"What a loss English literature has sustained in the death of Matthew
Arnold!"
As I have already suggested, he kept the run of all the noteworthy
persons who came to Boston quite as surely as they kept in pursuit of
him.
"I hope thee will see the wonderful prophet of the Bramo Somaj,
Mozoomdar, before he leaves the country. I should have seen him in
Boston but for illness last week. That movement in India is the
greatest event in the history of Christianity since the days of Paul.
"So the author of 'Christie Johnstone' is dead. I have read and
re-read that charming little story with ever-increasing admiration.
I am sorry for the coarseness of some of his later writings; but he
was, after all, a great novelist, second only in our times to George
Eliot, Dickens, and Thackeray.... I shall be glad to hear more about
Mr. Wood's and Mrs. ----'s talks. Any hint or sign or token from the
unseen and spiritual world is full of solemn interest, standing as I
do on the shore of 'that vast ocean I must sail so soon.'...
"You will soon have Amelia Edwards again with you. I am sorry that I
have not been able to call on her. Pray assure her of my sincere
respect and admiration."
And again: "Have thee seen and heard the Hindoo Mohini? He seems to
have really converted some people. I hear that one of them has got a
Bible!"
The phrase that he is "beset by pilgrims" occurs frequently in his
letters, contrasted with pleased expressions, and descriptions of
visits from Phillips Brooks, Canon Farrar, Governor and Mrs. Claflin,
and other friends whose faces were always a joy to him.
I have turned aside from the narrative of every-day life to mention
these friends; but it is interesting to return and recall the earlier
years, when he came one day to dine in Charles Street with Mr.
Emerson. As usual, his coming had been very uncertain. He was never to
be counted upon as a visitor, but at length the moment came when he
was in better health than ordinary, and the stars were in conjunction.
I can recall his saying to Emerson: "I had to choose between hearing
thee at thy lecture and coming here to see thee. I chose to see thee.
I could not do both." Emerson was heard to say to him solicitously: "I
hope you are pretty well, sir! I believe you formerly bragged of bad
health."
It was Whittier's custom, however, to make quite sure that all "lions"
and other disturbing elements were well out of the way before he
turned his steps to the library in Charles Street. I recall his coming
one Sunday morning when we were at church, and waiting until our
return. He thought that would be a safe moment! He was full, as Madame
de Sévigné says, "_de conversations infinies_" being especially
interested just then in the question of schools for the freedmen, and
eagerly discussed ways and means for starting and supporting them.
We were much amused by his ingenuity in getting contributions from his
own town. It appears he had taken into consideration the many
carriage-makers in Amesbury. He suggested that each one of these men
should give some part of a carriage--one the wheels, one the body, one
the furnishings, thus dividing it in all among twenty workmen. When it
was put together, there stood a carriage which was sold for two
hundred dollars, exactly the sum requisite for Amesbury to give.
He had just parted from his niece, who had gone to teach the freed
people in a small Southern village. He could not help feeling anxious
for her welfare. She and her young co-workers would be the only
Northerners in the place. Of course, such new comers would be regarded
with no friendly eye by the "mean whites," and their long distance
from home and from any protection would make their position a very
forlorn one indeed if the natives should turn against them. He was
fearful lest they should be half starved. However, they had departed
in excellent spirits, which went a long way to cheer everybody
concerned.
He was also full of sympathy and anxiety regarding the well being of a
young colored girl here at the North, whose sad situation he had been
called upon to relieve; and after discussing ways and laying plans for
her comfort (which he afterwards adhered to, until in later years she
was placed in a happy home of her own), he went on to discuss the
needs of yet a third young person, another victim of the war, who was
then teaching in Amesbury. He was almost as remarkable as Mrs. Child
in his power of making his own small provision into a broad mantle to
cover many shoulders. He was undaunted, too, in his efforts, where his
own resources failed, to get what was needed by the help of others.
His common sense was so great and his own habits so frugal, that no
one could imagine a dollar wasted or misapplied that was confided to
his stewardship. His benefactions were ceaseless, and they were one of
the chief joys of his later life. The subject of what may be done for
this or that person or cause is continually recurring in his letters.
Once I find this plea in verse after the manner of Burns:--
"O well-paid author, fat-fed scholar,
Whose pockets jingle with the dollar,
No sheriff's hand upon your collar,
No duns to bother,
Think on 't, a tithe of what ye swallow
Would save your brother!"
And again and again there are passages in his letters like the
following: "I hope the Industrial Home may be saved, and wish I was a
rich man just long enough to help save it. As it is, if the
subscription needs $30 to fill it up, I shall be glad to give the
mite." "I have long followed Maurice," he says again, "in his work as
a religious and social reformer--a true apostle of the gospel of
humanity. He saw clearly, and in advance of his clerical brethren, the
necessity of wise and righteous dealing with the momentous and
appalling questions of labor and poverty."
He wrote one day: "If you go to Richmond, why don't you visit Hampton
and Old Point Comfort, where that Christian knight and latter-day
Galahad, General Armstrong, is making his holy experiment? I think it
would be worth your while."
General Armstrong and his brave work in founding and maintaining the
Hampton School for the education, at first, of the colored people
alone, and finally for the Indians also, was one of the near and
living interests of Whittier's life. Often and often in his letters do
we find references to the subject; either he regrets having to miss
seeing the general, upon one of his Northern trips, or he rejoices in
falling in with some of the teachers at Asquam Lake or elsewhere, or
his note is jubilant over some new gift which will make the general's
work for the year less difficult.
Once he writes: "I am grieved to hear of General Armstrong's illness.
I am not surprised at it. He has been working in his noble cause
beyond any mortal man's strength. He must have a rest if it is
possible for him, and his friends must now keep up the school by
redoubled efforts. Ah me! There is so much to be done in this world! I
wish I were younger, or a millionaire."
And yet again: "I had the pleasure of sending General Armstrong at
Christmas, with my annual subscription, one thousand dollars which a
friend placed in my hand. I wish our friend could be relieved from the
task of raising money by a hundred such donations."
The choice of the early breakfast hour for his visits was his own
idea. He was glad to hit upon a moment which was not subject to
interruptions, one when he could talk at his ease of books and men.
These visits were always a surprise. He liked to be abroad in good
season, and had rarely missed seeing the sun rise in forty years. He
knew, too, that we were not late people, and that his visits could
never be untimely. Occasionally, with the various evening engagements
of a city, we were not altogether fit to receive him, but it was a
pleasure to hear his footstep in the morning, and to know that we
should find him in the library by the fire. He was himself a bad
sleeper, seldom, as he said, putting a solid bar of sleep between day
and day, and therefore often early abroad to question the secrets of
the dawn. We owe much of the intimate friendship of our life to these
morning hours spent in private, uninterrupted talk.
"I have lately felt great sympathy with ----," he said one morning,
"for I have been kept awake one hundred and twenty hours--an
experience I should not care to try again."
One of Whittier's summer pleasures, in which he occasionally indulged
himself, was a visit to the Isles of Shoals. He loved to see his
friend Celia Thaxter in her island home, and he loved the freedom of a
large hotel. He liked to make arrangements with a group of his more
particular friends to meet him there; and when he was well enough to
leave his room, he might be seen in some carefully chosen corner of
the great piazzas, shady or sunny, as the day invited him, enjoying
the keenest happiness in the voluntary society and conversation of
those dear to him. Occasionally he would pass whole days in Celia
Thaxter's parlor, watching her at her painting in the window, and
listening to the talk around him. He wished to hear and know what
interested others. He liked nothing better, he once said, than going
into the "store" in the old days at Amesbury, when it was a common
centre, almost serving the purpose of what a club may be in these
later days, and sitting upon a barrel to hear "folks talk." The men
there did not know much about his poetry, but they understood his
politics, and he was able to put in many a word to turn the vote of
the town. In Celia Thaxter's parlor he found a different company, but
his relations to the people who frequented that delightful place were
practically the same. He wished to understand their point of view, if
possible, and then, if he could find opportunity, he would help them
to a higher standpoint.
I remember one season in particular, when the idle talk of idle
persons had been drifting in and out during the day, while he sat
patiently on in the corner of the pretty room. Mrs. Thaxter was
steadily at work at her table, yet always hospitable, losing sight of
no cloud or shadow or sudden gleam of glory in the landscape, and
pointing the talk often with keen wit. Nevertheless, the idleness of
it all palled upon him. It was Sunday, too, and he longed for
something which would move us to "higher levels." Suddenly, as if the
idea struck him like an inspiration, he rose, and taking a volume of
Emerson from the little library he opened to one of the discourses,
and handing it to Celia Thaxter said:
"Read that aloud, will thee? I think we should all like to hear it."
She read it through at his bidding; then he took up the thread of the
discourse, and talked long and earnestly upon the beauty and necessity
of worship--a necessity consequent upon the nature of man, upon his
own weakness, and his consciousness of the Divine Spirit within him.
His whole heart was stirred, and he poured himself out towards us as
if he longed, like the prophet of old, to breathe a new life into us.
I could see that he reproached himself for not having spoken out in
this way before, but his enfranchised spirit took only a stronger
flight for the delay.
I have never heard of Whittier's speaking in the meeting-house,
although he was doubtless often "moved" to do so; but to us who heard
him on that day he became more than ever a light unto our feet. It was
not an easy thing to do to stem the accustomed current of life in this
way, and it is a deed only possible to those who, in the Bible phrase,
"walk with God."
Such an unusual effort was not without its consequences. It was
followed by a severe headache, and he was hardly seen abroad again
during his stay.
We heard from him again, shortly after, under the shadow of the great
hills where he always passed a part of every year. He loved them, and
wrote eloquently of the loveliness of nature at Ossipee: "the Bearcamp
winding down," the long green valley close by the door, the long
Sandwich and Waterville ranges, and Chocorua filling up the horizon
from west to northeast.
The frequent loneliness of his life often found expression. Once he
says:--
"I wish I could feel that I deserved a tithe even of the kind things
said of me by my personal friends. If one could but _be_ as
easily as preach! The confession of poor Burns might, I fear, be made
of the best of us:--
"'God knows I'm no the thing I would be,
Nor am I even the thing I could be.'
And yet I am thankful every day of my life that God has put it into
the hearts of so many whom I love and honor and reverence to send me
so many messages of good will and kindness. It is an unspeakable
comfort in the lonely and darkening afternoon of life. Indeed, I can
never feel quite alone so long as I know that all about me are those
who turn to me with friendly interest, and, strange to say, with
gratitude. A sense of lack of desert on my part is a drawback, of
course; but then, I say to myself, if my friends judge me by my aim
and desire, and not by my poor performance, it may be all right and
just."
The painful solitude of his life after his dear niece's marriage was
softened when he went to live with his cousins at Oak Knoll, in
Danvers, a pleasant country seat, sheltered and suited to his needs.
Of this place Mrs. Spofford says, in a delightful biographical paper:
"The estate of Oak Knoll is one of some historical associations, as
here once lived the Rev. George Burroughs, the only clergyman in the
annals of Salem witchcraft who was hung for dark dealings, Danvers
having originally been a part of the town of Salem, where witchcraft
came to a blaze, and was stamped out of existence.... The only relic
on the place of its tragedy is the well of the Burroughs' house, which
is still in the hay-field, and over which is the resting-place of the
sounding-board of the pulpit in the church where the witches were
tried."
At Danvers he was able to enjoy the free open air. He loved to sit
under the fine trees which distinguished the lawn, to play with the
dogs, and wander about unmolested until he was tired. The ladies of
the house exerted themselves to give him perfect freedom and the
tenderest care. The daughter became his playmate, and she never quite
grew up, in his estimation. She was his lively and loving companion.
Writing from Danvers, one December, he says, "What with the child, and
the dogs, and Rip Van Winkle the cat, and a tame gray squirrel who
hunts our pockets for nuts, we contrive to get through the short dark
days."
Again: "I am thankful that February has come, and that the sun is
getting high on his northern journey. The past month has been trying
to flesh and spirit.... I am afraid my letter has a complaining tone,
and I am rather ashamed of it, and shall be more so when my head is
less out of order.... There are two gray squirrels playing in my room.
Phoebe calls them Deacon Josiah and his wife Philury, after Rose Terry
Cooke's story of the minister's 'week of works' in the place of a
'week of prayer.'"
He showed more physical vitality after he went to Danvers, and his
notes evince a wide interest in matters private and public outside his
own library life. He still went to Portland to see his niece and her
husband whenever he was able, and now and then to Boston also. But
Philadelphia at the time of the Centennial was not to be thought of.
"I sent my hymn," he wrote from Amesbury in 1876, "with many
misgivings, and am glad it was so well received. I think I should like
to have heard the music, but probably I should not have understood.
The gods have made me most unmusical.
"I have just got J. T. F.'s charming little book of 'Barry Cornwall
and His Friends.' It is a most companionable volume, and will give
rare pleasure to thousands.... I write in the midst of our Quaker
quarterly meeting, and our house has been overrun for three days. We
had twelve to dine to-day; they have now gone to meeting, but I am too
tired for preaching.
"I don't expect to visit Philadelphia. The very thought of that
Ezekiel's vision of machinery and the nightmare confusion of the
world's curiosity shop appalls me. I shall not venture."
He was full of excellent resolutions about going often to Boston, but
he never could make a home there. "I see a great many more things in
the city than thee does," he would say, "because I go to town so
seldom. The shop windows are a delight to me, and everything and
everybody is novel and interesting. I don't need to go to the theatre.
I have more theatre than I can take in every time I walk out."
No sketch of Whittier, however slight, should omit to mention his
friendship for Bayard Taylor. Their Quaker parentage helped to bring
the two poets into communion; and although Taylor was so much the
younger and more vigorous man, Whittier was also to see him pass, and
to mourn his loss. He took a deep interest in his literary
advancement, and considered "Lars" his finest poem. Certainly no one
knew Taylor's work better, or brought a deeper sympathy into his
reading of it. "I love him too well to be a critic of his verse," he
says in one of his letters. "But what a brave worker he was!"
The reading of good books was, very late in life, as it had been very
early, his chief pleasure. His travels, his romance, his friendships,
were indulged in chiefly by proxy of the printed page. "I felt very
near Dr. Mulford through his writings," he said. "He was the strongest
thinker of our time, and he thought in the right direction. 'The
Republic of God' is intellectually greater than St. Augustine's 'City
of God,' and infinitely nearer the Christian ideal."
"That must be a shrewd zephyr," Charles Lamb used to say, speaking of
his Gentle Giantess, "that can escape her." And so we may say of
Whittier and a book. "Has thee seen the new book by the author of 'Mr.
Isaacs'?" he asked (having sent me "Mr. Isaacs" as soon as it
appeared, lest I should miss reading so novel and good a story). In
the same breath he adds: "I have been reading 'The Freedom of Faith,'
by the author of 'On the Threshold,' just published by Houghton & Co.
It is refreshing and tonic as the northwest wind. The writer is one of
the leaders of the new departure from the ultra-Calvinism. Thank thee
just here for the pleasure of reading Annie Keary's biography. What a
white, beautiful soul! Her views of the mission of spiritualism seem
very much like ----'s. I do not know when I have read a more restful,
helpful book.
"How good Longfellow's poem is! A little sad, but full of 'sweetness
and light.' Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, and myself are all getting to
be old fellows, and that swan-song might serve for us all. 'We who are
about to die.' God help us all! I don't care for fame, and have no
solicitude about the verdicts of posterity.
"'When the grass is green above us
And they who know us and who love us
Are sleeping by our side,
Will it avail us aught that men
Tell the world with lip and pen
That we have lived and died?'
"What we _are_ will then be more important than what we have done
or said in prose or rhyme, or what folks that we never saw or heard of
think of us."
The following hitherto unpublished poem was written about this period
upon the marriage of the daughter of his friend Mrs. Leonowens:--