Whittier would never take part in an “Authors Reading,” or in anything
that had the least publicity. It was only in the garden room at
Amesbury that he would read aloud a poem of his own. Or it may have
been under the pines at Intervale towering like the forest primeval,
or in some other quiet nook among the hills, with a little group of
listeners about him--or perhaps with only one eager listener. Then his
voice would rise and fall in notes and cadences which gave a wonderful
power to the rendering of his own poems and a new perception of beauty
in what had already seemed beautiful, a new awe and sublimity in what
had before seemed grand.
When in the garden room he read “The Palatine” to an entranced
listener, his voice made the scene live before her eyes; and in the
inevitable retribution following sin prepared the way for that thought
which pierces to the depth of life. Never again can that poem give
forth its weirdness, its tragic, and awful pathos as it did in the
tones of its author. There was nothing of “elocution.” His reading was
word painting; one shivered when he said:
“Is there, then, no death for a word once spoken?
Was never a deed but left its token
Written on tables never broken?”
His housekeeper, the Scotswoman before referred to, told how one day
she had read Mr. Whittier an account in the paper of a weird light
mysteriously seen at sea; and she added, “He wrote a poem about it.”
This was “The Palatine.”
One day after reading “The Pennsylvania Pilgrim” to the writer, he told
her that he had written the poem to please himself in the story of what
was dear to him, and that he did not so much care if people did not
like it.
Indeed, the greatness of his fame never kept him from a certain
depreciation of his own work, which declared itself in speech and often
in his letters. The world sang his praises; but he held to his own
verdicts.
“I love the old melodious lays
Which softly melt the ages through,”
he writes in the “Proem” of his published poems. He loved best the
songs for which he could find no words--like all true poets. Who can
say that he may not now be singing these in the music of a new tongue?
No less than he loved Milton’s poetry did Whittier love the great
poet’s sonorous prose. As has been said before, Whittier’s rendering of
his own poems brought forth their swing and rhythm and their innermost
meaning with a vividness that no one else could give them. To watch
the poet as he thus rendered one of his own poems, to listen to the
intonations which deepened the melody of the verse was an experience
not to be forgotten.
* * * * *
One day Whittier told the writer of his having begun a poem--his
biographer also tells this--upon the banishing of the Arcadians from
their country. But he added that he had abandoned it on learning that
Longfellow was writing “Evangeline.” His listener realized the fervor
of Huguenot indignation (for Whittier had Huguenot blood in his veins)
which would have inspired his muse at the wrongs of those innocent
people and the pathos with which he would have told their story, and
expressed her regret that he had not written the poem.
But he answered with decision: “No; it was better so. Longfellow has
done the work as it should have been done.”
* * * * *
One day the doctor said to the poet: “You have written so much, Mr.
Whittier, that I suppose you write now without labor--that writing is
easy to you?”
“No,” returned Whittier emphatically. “Everything is labor to me. I
don’t know any easy writing.”
* * * * *
In addition to this careful work--rather, as a part of it--no one
realized better than the poet the difference between a poem in
manuscript and the same poet in print. So, he would often say to one of
his young neighbors--a printer--“Fred, I want to see thee a minute.”
And he would hand the young man the poem--or a portion of it--to
put into type, so that the poet before sending it to the publishers
might judge for himself how it would look printed. He used to say,
appreciative of the glamour of acceptance, that print improved things.
* * * * *
There was once at least, however, when he waited for no such
self-criticism, when the spirit moved him so strongly that it swept
away all but the emotion it kindled in his heart--there was once, at
least, that it was “easy writing” for him so far as the flowing of his
pen was concerned, which could not go fast enough to keep pace with the
rush of his thoughts--although, no doubt, he paid by days of headache
for the all but involuntary toil of his spirit. It was when he wrote
his paean for the passage through Congress of the Constitutional
Amendment abolishing slavery.
That morning the poet came home from the Fifth Day (Thursday) meeting
of the Friends, his eyes large with excitement--as one who saw him told
the writer--and, as if the thought in his heart and the words on his
lips were too overwhelming to be true, he cried:
“What are the bells ringing for? The flags are up--and away up!”
Then when there was no longer question as to the meaning of the flags
and the bells, he sat down at his desk and wrote like one inspired--as,
indeed, he was. I think his biographer tells, as did also one in the
house, that there was no walking back and forth in the room, as was
often the case when he was writing, but the words flowed upon the paper
as fast as his pen could move.
When the poem was written, it was sent to the publisher with scarcely a
revision.
Meanwhile, in his own town, as people with moist eyes and glad hearts
listened to the bells of freedom, they said one to another:
Whittier is writing a poem!
Thus was “Laus Deo!” born.