BOYHOOD.
The birthplace and early home of Whittier is a lonely farm-house
situated at a distance of three miles northeast of the city of
Haverhill, Mass. The winding road leading to it is the one described in
"Snow-Bound." A drive or a walk of one mile brings you to sweet Kenoza
Lake, with the castellated stone residence of Dr. J. R. Nichols crowning
the summit of the high hill that overlooks it. From the hill the eye
sweeps the horizon in every direction to a distance of fifty or a
hundred miles. Far to the northwest rise bluely the three peaks of
Monadnock. Nearer at hand, in the same direction, the towns of Atkinson
and Strafford whiten the hillsides, while southward, through a clove in
the hills, one catches a glimpse of the smoky city of Lawrence.
[Illustration: WHITTIER'S BIRTHPLACE, NEAR HAVERHILL, MASS.]
Two other lakes besides Kenoza lie in the immediate vicinity: namely,
Round Lake and Lake Saltonstall. Kenoza is the lake in which Whittier
used to fish and boat. It was he who gave to it its present name
(meaning pickerel): he wrote a very pretty poem for the day of the
rechristening, in 1859. The lake lies in a bowl-shaped depression. The
country thereabouts seems entirely made up of huge earth-bowls, here
open to the sky, and there turned bottom-upwards to make hills.
No prettier, quieter, lovelier lake than Kenoza exists,--a pure and
spotless mirror, reflecting in its cool, translucent depths the rosy
clouds of morning and of evening, the silver-azure tent of day, the
gliding boat, the green meadow-grasses, and the massy foliage of the
terraced pines and cedars that sweep upward from its waters in stately
pomp, rank over rank, to meet the sky. Here, in one quarter of the lake,
the surface is only wrinkled by the tiniest wavelets or crinkles;
yonder, near another portion of its irregularly picturesque shore, a
thousand white sun-butterflies seem dancing on the surface, and the
loveliest wind-dapples curve and gleam. Along the shore are sweet wild
roses interpleached, and flower-de-luce, and yellow water-lilies. In
such a circular earth-bowl the faintest sounds are easily heard across
the water. Far off you hear the cheery cackle of a hen; in the meadows
the singing of insects, the chattering of blackbirds, and the cry of the
peewee; and the ring of the woodman's axe floats in rippling echoes over
the water.
In one of his earlier essays Mr. Whittier tells the following romantic
story: "Whoever has seen Great Pond, in the East Parish of Haverhill,
has seen one of the very loveliest of the thousand little lakes or ponds
of New England. With its soft slopes of greenest verdure--its white and
sparkling sand-rim--its southern hem of pine and maple, mirrored with
spray and leaf in the glassy water--its graceful hill-sentinels round
about, white with the orchard-bloom of spring, or tasselled with the
corn of autumn--its long sweep of blue waters, broken here and there by
picturesque headlands,--it would seem a spot, of all others, where
spirits of evil must shrink, rebuked and abashed, from the presence of
the beautiful. Yet here, too, has the shadow of the supernatural
fallen. A lady of my acquaintance, a staid, unimaginative church-member,
states that a few years ago she was standing in the angle formed by two
roads, one of which traverses the pond-shore, the other leading over the
hill which rises abruptly from the water. It was a warm summer evening,
just at sunset. She was startled by the appearance of a horse and cart
of the kind used a century ago in New England, driving rapidly down the
steep hillside, and crossing the wall a few yards before her, without
noise or displacing of a stone. The driver sat sternly erect, with a
fierce countenance; grasping the reins tightly, and looking neither to
the right nor the left. Behind the cart, and apparently lashed to it,
was a woman of gigantic size, her countenance convulsed with a blended
expression of rage and agony, writhing and struggling, like Laocoon in
the folds of the serpent." The mysterious cart moved across the street,
and disappeared at the margin of the pond.
The two miles of road that separate Kenoza from the old Whittier
homestead form a lonely stretch, passing between high hills rolled back
on either side in wolds that show against the sky. The homestead is
situated at the junction of the main road to Amesbury and a cross-road
to Plaistow. It is as wild and lonely a place as Craigen-puttock,--the
hills shutting down all around, so that there is absolutely no prospect
in any direction, and no other house visible. But so much the better for
meditation. "The Children of the Light" need only their own souls to
commune with. The expression that rose continually to the author's lips
on visiting this place was a line from "Snow-Bound,"--
"A universe of sky and snow."
Not that the time was winter, but that the locality explained the line
so vividly,--better than any commentary could do. Locality exercises a
great influence on a poet's genius. Whitman, for example, has always
lived by the sea, and he is the poet of the infinite. Whittier was born,
and passed his boyhood and youth, in a green, sunken pocket of the
inland hills, and he became the poet of the heart and the home. The one
poet wrestled with the waves of the sea and the waves of humanity in
great cities; the other lived the simple, quiet life of a farmer, loving
his mother, his sister, his Quaker sect, freedom, and his own hearth.
Both are as lowly in origin as Carlyle or Burns.
Between the front door of the old homestead and the road rises a grassy,
wooded bank, at the foot of which flows a little amber-colored brook.
The brook is mentioned in "Snow-Bound":--
"We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone."
Across the road is the barn. The house is very plain, and not very
large. Entering the front door you are in a small entry with a steep,
quaint, little staircase. On the right is the parlor where Whittier
wrote. In the tiny, low-studded room on the left, he was born, and in
the same room his father and "Uncle Moses" died. The room is about
fourteen by fourteen feet, is partly wainscoted, has a fireplace and
three windows.
All the windows in the house have small panes, nine in the upper and six
in the lower sash. The building is supposed to be two hundred and twelve
years old. The kitchen is, of course, the great attraction. Let us
suppose that it is winter, and that we are all cosily seated around the
blazing fireplace. Now, let us talk over together the old days and
scenes. The best picture of the inner life of the Quaker farmer's family
can of course be had in "Snow-Bound,"--a little idyl as delicate,
spontaneous, and true to nature in its limnings as a minute
frost-picture on a pane of glass, or the fairy landscape richly mirrored
in the film of a water-bubble. After such a picture, painted by the poet
himself, it only remains for the writer to give a few supplementary
touches here and there. The old kitchen, although diminished in size by
a dividing partition, is otherwise almost unchanged. It is a cosey old
room, with its fireplace, and huge breadth of chimney with inset
cupboards and oven and mantelpiece. Above the mantel is the nail where
hung the old bull's-eye watch. Set into one side of the kitchen is the
cupboard where the pewter plates and platters were ranged; and here upon
the wall is the circle worn by the "old brass warming-pan, which
formerly shone like a setting moon against the wall of the kitchen":--
"Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed,
The house-dog on his paws outspread,
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons' straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October's wood."
_Snow-Bound._
John Whittier, the father of the poet, is described by citizens of
Haverhill as being a rough but good, kind-hearted man. He went by the
soubriquet of "Quaker Whycher." In "Snow-Bound," we learn something of
his _Wanderjahre_,--how he ate moose and samp in trapper's hut and
Indian camp on Memphremagog's wooded side, and danced beneath St.
Francois' hemlock-trees, and ate chowder and hake-broil at the Isle of
Shoals. He was a sturdy, decisive man, and deeply religious. Although
there was no Friends' church in Haverhill, yet on "First-Days" Quaker
Whycher's "one-hoss shay" could be seen wending toward the old brown
meeting-house in Amesbury, six miles away.
* * * * *
[Illustration: KITCHEN IN THE WHITTIER HOMESTEAD, HAVERHILL.
"_Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free._"--SNOW-BOUND.]
The mother has been alluded to in Chapter I. p. 12. Hers was a deeply
emotional and religious nature, pure, chastened, and sweet, lovable, and
kind-hearted to a fault. In "Snow-Bound," she tells incidents of her
girlhood in Somersworth on the Piscataqua, and retells stories from
Quaker Sewell's "ancient tome," and old sea-saint Chalkley's Journal. An
incident in Mr. Whittier's "Yankee Gypsies" (Prose Works, II. p. 326,)
will afford an indication of her kind-heartedness:--
"On one occasion," says the poet, "a few years ago, on my return
from the field at evening, I was told that a foreigner had asked
for lodgings during the night, but that, influenced by his dark,
repulsive appearance, my mother had very reluctantly refused his
request. I found her by no means satisfied with her decision. 'What
if a son of mine was in a strange land?' she inquired,
self-reproachfully. Greatly to her relief, I volunteered to go in
pursuit of the wanderer, and, taking a cross-path over the fields,
soon overtook him. He had just been rejected at the house of our
nearest neighbor, and was standing in a state of dubious perplexity
in the street. His looks quite justified my mother's suspicions. He
was an olive-complexioned, black-bearded Italian, with an eye like
a live coal, such a face as perchance looks out on the traveller in
the passes of the Abruzzi,--one of those bandit-visages which
Salvator has painted. With some difficulty, I gave him to
understand my errand, when he overwhelmed me with thanks, and
joyfully followed me back. He took his seat with us at the
supper-table; and when we were all gathered around the hearth that
cold autumnal evening, he told us, partly by words, and partly by
gestures, the story of his life and misfortunes, amused us with
descriptions of the grape-gatherings and festivals of his sunny
clime, edified my mother with a recipe for making bread of
chestnuts; and in the morning when, after breakfast, his dark
sullen face lighted up and his fierce eye moistened with grateful
emotion as in his own silvery Tuscan accent he poured out his
thanks, we marvelled at the fears which had so nearly closed our
doors against him; and, as he departed, we all felt that he had
left with us the blessing of the poor.
"It was not often that, as in the above instance, my mother's
prudence got the better of her charity. The regular 'old
stragglers' regarded her as an unfailing friend; and the sight of
her plain cap was to them an assurance of forthcoming creature
comforts."
In "Snow-Bound," too, we learn that the good mother often stayed her
step to express a warm word of gratitude for their own comforts, and to
hope that the unfortunate might be cared for also. It is a facetious
saying in Philadelphia that beggars are shipped to that city from all
parts of the country that they may share the never-failing bounty of the
Quakers. However this may be, it is evident that benevolence was the
predominant trait in the character of our poet's mother.
* * * * *
Other members of the household in Whittier's boyhood were his elder
sister Mary, who died in 1861; Uncle Moses Whittier, who in 1824
received fatal injuries from the falling of a tree which he was cutting
down; the poet's younger brother Matthew, who was born in 1812, and has
been for many years a resident of Boston,--himself a versifier, and a
contributor to the newspapers of humorous dialect articles, signed
"Ethan Spike, from Hornby"; and finally the aunt, Mercy E. Hussey, the
younger sister Elizabeth, and occasionally the "half-welcome" eccentric
guest, Harriet Livermore.
Elizabeth Hussey Whittier--the younger sister and intimate literary
companion of her brother, the poet--was a person of rare and saintly
nature. In the little parlor of the Amesbury home there hangs a crayon
sketch of her. The face wears a smile of unfailing sweetness and
patience. That her literary and poetical accomplishments were of an
unusually high order is shown by the poems of hers appended to Mr.
Whittier's "Hazel Blossoms," published after her death. Her poem, "Dr.
Kane in Cuba," would do honor to any poet. In the piece entitled the
"Wedding Veil," we have a hint of an early love transformed by the death
of its object into a spiritual worship and hope, nourished in the still
fane of the heart. In the prefatory note to "Hazel Blossoms," Mr.
Whittier says: "I have ventured, in compliance with the desire of dear
friends of my beloved sister, Elizabeth H. Whittier, to add to this
little volume the few poetical pieces which she left behind her. As she
was very distrustful of her own powers, and altogether without ambition
for literary distinction, she shunned everything like publicity, and
found far greater happiness in generous appreciation of the gifts of her
friends than in the cultivation of her own. Yet it has always seemed to
me that, had her health, sense of duty and fitness, and her extreme
self-distrust permitted, she might have taken a high place among lyrical
singers. These poems, with perhaps two or three exceptions, afford but
slight indications of the inward life of the writer, who had an almost
morbid dread of spiritual and intellectual egotism, or of her tenderness
of sympathy, chastened mirthfulness, and pleasant play of thought and
fancy, when her shy, beautiful soul opened like a flower in the warmth
of social communion. In the lines on Dr. Kane, her friends will see
something of her fine individuality,--the rare mingling of delicacy and
intensity of feeling which made her dear to them. This little poem
reached Cuba while the great explorer lay on his death-bed, and we are
told that he listened with grateful tears while it was read to him by
his mother.
"I am tempted to say more, but I write as under the eye of her who,
while with us, shrank with painful deprecation from the praise or
mention of performances which seemed so far below her ideal of
excellence. To those who best knew her, the beloved circle of her
intimate friends, I dedicate this slight memorial."
Many readers of "Snow-Bound" have doubtless often wondered who the
beautiful and mysterious young woman is who is sketched in such vigorous
portraiture,--"the not unfeared, half-welcome guest," half saint and
half shrew. She is no other than the religious enthusiast and fanatical
"pilgrim preacher," Harriet Livermore,[7] the same who startled
"On her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own."
[Footnote 7: For many items of information concerning this strange woman
we are indebted to the sketch of her published by Miss Rebecca I. Davis,
of East Haverhill.]
By the "Queen of Lebanon" is meant Lady Hester Stanhope. Harriet
Livermore was the grand-daughter of Hon. Samuel Livermore, of
Portsmouth, N. H., and the daughter of Hon. Edward St. Loe Livermore, of
Lowell. She was born April 14, 1788, at Concord, N. H. Her misfortune
was her temper, inherited from her father. When Whittier was a little
boy, she taught needlework, embroidery, and the common school branches,
in the little old brown school-house in East Haverhill, and was a
frequent guest at Farmer Whittier's. The poet thus characterizes her:--
"A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense."
When a mere girl, she fell in love with a young gentleman of East
Haverhill, but the parents of both families opposed the match, and were
not to be moved by her honeyed words of persuasion or by her little
gifts. The poet says she often visited at his father's home, "and had at
one time an idea of becoming a member of the Society of Friends; but an
unlucky outburst of rage, resulting in a blow, at a Friend's house in
Amesbury, did not encourage us to seek her membership." She embraced the
Methodist Perfectionist doctrine, and one day strenuously maintained
that she was incapable of sinning. But a few minutes afterward she
burst out into a violent passion about something or other. Her opponent
could only say to her, "Christian, thou hast lost thy roll." She became
an itinerant preacher, and spoke in the meetings of various sects in
different parts of the country. She made three voyages to Jerusalem.
Says one: "At one time we find her in Egypt, giving our late consul, Mr.
Thayer, a world of trouble from her peculiar notions. At another we see
her amid the gray olive slopes of Jerusalem, demanding, not begging,
money for the Great King [God]. And once when an American, fresh from
home, during the late rebellion, offered her a handful of greenbacks,
she threw them away with disdain, saying, 'The Great King will only have
gold.' She once climbed the sides of Mt. Libanus, and visited Lady
Stanhope,--that eccentric sister of the younger Pitt, who married a
sheik of the mountains,--and thus had a fine opportunity of securing the
finest steeds of the Orient. Going to the stable one day, Lady Hester
pointed out to Harriet Livermore two very fine horses, with peculiar
marks, but differing in color. 'That one,' said Lady Hester, 'the Great
King when he comes will ride, and the other I will ride in company with
him.' Thereupon Miss Livermore gave a most emphatic 'no!' declaring with
foreknowledge and _aplomb_ that 'the Great King will ride this horse,
and it is I, as his bride, who will ride upon the other at his second
coming.' It is said she carried her point with Lady Hester, overpowering
her with her fluency and assertion."
* * * * *
To pass now to the boy-poet himself. An old friend and schoolmate of
his, in Haverhill, told the author that Whittier, instead of doing sums
on his slate at school, was always writing verses, even when a little
lad. His first schoolmaster was Joshua Coffin, afterward the historian
of Newbury. Another master of his was named Emerson. To Coffin, Whittier
has written a poetical epistle, in which he says:--
"I, the urchin unto whom,
In that smoked and dingy room,
Where the district gave thee rule
O'er its ragged winter school,
Thou didst teach the mysteries
Of those weary A, B, C's, Where,
to fill the every pause
Of thy wise and learned saws,
Through the cracked and crazy wall
Came the cradle-rock and squall,
And the goodman's voice, at strife
With his shrill and tipsy wife,--
Luring us by stories old,
With a comic unction told,
More than by the eloquence
Of terse birchen arguments
(Doubtful gain, I fear), to look
With complacence on a book!--
I,--the man of middle years,
In whose sable locks appears
Many a warning fleck of gray,--
Looking back to that far day,
And thy primal lessons, feel
Grateful smiles my lips unseal," etc.
[Illustration: THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE, HAVERHILL, MASS.]
In "School Days" he gives us another and a pleasanter picture:--
"Still sits the school-house by the road,[8]
A ragged beggar sunning;
Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry-vines are running.
Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats,
The jack-knife's carved initial;
The charcoal frescos on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school
Went storming out to playing!
Long years ago a winter sun
Shone over it at setting;
Lit up its western window-panes,
And low eaves' icy fretting.
It touched the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delayed
When all the school were leaving.
For near her stood the little boy
Her childish favor singled;
His cap pulled low upon a face
Where pride and shame were mingled.
Pushing with restless feet the snow
To right and left, he lingered;--
As restlessly her tiny hands
The blue-checked apron fingered.
He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
The soft hand's light caressing,
And heard the tremble of her voice,
As if a fault confessing.
'I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,
Because,'--the brown eyes lower fell,--
'Because, you see, I love you!'"
[Footnote 8: The old brown school-house is now no more, having been
removed to make room for a reservoir.]
It is probable that "My Playmate" is in memory of this same sweet little
lady:--
"O playmate in the golden time!
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.
The winds so sweet with birch and fern
A sweeter memory blow;
And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.
And still the pines of Ramoth Wood
Are moaning like the sea,--
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee!"
Elsewhere in the poem we are told that the little maiden went away
forever to the South:--
"She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.
There haply with her jewelled hands
She smooths her silken gown,--
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down."
We also learn from the poem that he was the boy "who fed her father's
kine." What a pretty little romance!--and, let us hope, not too sad a
one. Shall we have one more stanza about this lovely little school-idyl?
It is from "Memories":--
"I hear again thy low replies,
I feel thy aim within my own,
And timidly again uprise
The fringed lids of hazel eyes,
With soft brown tresses overblown.
Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,
Of moonlit wave and willowy way,
Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves,
And smiles and tones more dear than they!"
The reading material that found its way to Farmer Whittier's house
consisted of the almanac, the weekly village paper, and "scarce a score"
of books and pamphlets, among them Lindley Murray's "Reader":--
"One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had),
Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews."
Knowing, as we do, the great influence exerted upon our mental
development by the books we read as children, and knowing that a rural
life, such as Whittier's has been, is especially conducive to tenacity
of early customs, it becomes important to know what the books were that
first formed his style and colored his thought. It seems that Ellwood's
"Davideis; or the Life of David, King of Israel," was one of these. The
book was published in 1711, and had a sale of five or more editions.
Ellwood, born in 1639, early adopted the then new doctrines of George
Fox. He has written a quaint and pictorial autobiography, somewhat like
that of Bunyan or that of Fox. In 1662 he was for six weeks reader to
Milton, who was then blind, and living in London, in Jewin Street. It
was he who first suggested to Milton that he should write "Paradise
Regained."[9]
[Footnote 9: This was in 1665, when Milton was living at Giles-Chalfont.
Ellwood says: "After some common discourse had passed between us, he
called for a manuscript of his, which he delivered to me, bidding me
take it home with me and read it at my leisure; and, when I had done so,
return it to him with my judgment thereon." It was "Paradise Lost." When
Ellwood returned it, and was asked his opinion, he gave it, and added:
"'Thou hast said much here of "Paradise Lost," but what hast thou to say
of "Paradise Found"?' He made no answer, but sat some time in a muse."]
An idea of the execrable nature of his versification may be obtained
from a few specimens. Upon the passing of a severe law against Quakers,
he relieves his mind in this wise:--
"Awake, awake, O arm o' th' Lord, awake!
Thy sword up take;
Cast what would thine forgetful of thee make,
Into the lake.
Awake, I pray, O mighty Jah! awake,
Make all the world before thy presence quake,
Not only earth, but heaven also shake."
Another poem, entitled "A Song of the Mercies and Deliverances of the
Lord," begins thus:--
"Had not the Lord been on our side,
May Israel now say,
We were not able to abide
The trials of that day:
When men did up against us rise,
With fury, rage, and spite,
Hoping to catch us by surprise,
Or run us down by night."
An opponent's poetry is lashed by Ellwood in such beautiful stanzas as
the following:--
"So _flat_, so _dull_, so _rough_, so _void of grace_,
Where _symphony_ and _cadence_ have no place;
So full of _chasmes_ stuck with _prosie pegs_,
Whereon his _tired_ Muse might rest her legs,
(Not having wings) and take new breath, that then
She might with much adoe hop on again."
A striking peculiarity of Whittier's poetry is the exceedingly small
range of his rhymes and metres. He is especially fond of the four-foot
iambic line, and likes to rhyme successive or alternate lines in a
wofully monotonous and see-saw manner. These are the characteristics of
much of the lyric poetry of a hundred years ago, and especially
distinguish the verses of Burns and Ellwood,--the first poets the boy
Whittier read. Burns, especially, he learned by heart, and there can be
no doubt that the Ayrshire ploughman gave to the mind of his
brother-ploughman of Essex its life-direction and coloring,--as respects
the swing of rhythm and rhyme at least. Indeed, we shall presently find
him contributing to the _Haverhill Gazette_ verses in the Scotch
dialect. His introduction to the poetry of Burns was in this wise: He
was one afternoon gathering in hay on the farm, when by good hap a
wandering peddler stopped and took from his pack a copy of Burns, which
was eagerly purchased by the poetical Quaker boy. Alluding to the
circumstance afterward in his poem, "Burns," he says:--
"How oft that day, with fond delay,
I sought the maple's shadow,
And sang with Burns the hours away,
Forgetful of the meadow!
Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead
I heard the squirrels leaping,
The good dog listened while I read,
And wagged his tail in keeping."
By the reading of Burns his eyes were opened, he says, to the beauty in
homely things. In familiar and humble things he found the "tender idyls
of the heart." But the wanton and the ribald lines of the Scotch poet
found no entrance to his pure mind.[10]
[Footnote 10: See Appendix II.]
He had other relishing tastes of the rich dialect of heather poetry. In
"Yankee Gypsies" he says: "One day we had a call from a 'pawky auld
carle' of a wandering Scotchman. To him I owe my first introduction to
the songs of Burns. After eating his bread and cheese and drinking his
mug of cider, he gave us Bonny Doon, Highland Mary, and Auld Lang Syne.
He had a rich full voice, and entered heartily into the spirit of his
lyrics. I have since listened to the same melodies from the lips of
Dempster (than whom the Scottish bard has had no sweeter or truer
interpreter); but the skilful performance of the artist lacked the novel
charm of the gaberlunzie's singing in the old farm-house kitchen."
* * * * *
A page or two of these personal recollections of the poet will serve to
fill out the picture of his boyhood life; and, at the same time, give
the reader a taste of his often charming prose pieces:--
"The advent of wandering beggars, or 'old stragglers,' as we were
wont to call them, was an event of no ordinary interest in the
generally monotonous quietude of our farm life. Many of them were
well known; they had their periodical revolutions and transits; we
could calculate them like eclipses or new moons. Some were sturdy
knaves, fat and saucy; and whenever they ascertained that the
'men-folks' were absent would order provisions and cider like men
who expected to pay for them, seating themselves at the hearth or
table with the air of Falstaff,--'Shall I not take mine ease in mine
own inn?' Others poor, pale, patient, like Sterne's monk, came
creeping up to the door, hat in hand, standing there in their gray
wretchedness, with a look of heart-break and forlornness which was
never without its effect on our juvenile sensibilities. At times,
however, we experienced a slight revulsion of feeling when even
these humblest children of sorrow somewhat petulantly rejected our
proffered bread and cheese, and demanded instead a glass of cider.
* * * * *
"One--I think I see him now, grim, gaunt, and ghastly, working his
way up to our door--used to gather herbs by the wayside, and call
himself doctor. He was bearded like a he-goat, and used to
counterfeit lameness, yet when he supposed himself alone would
travel on lustily, as if walking for a wager. At length, as if in
punishment for his deceit, he met with an accident in his rambles,
and became lame in earnest, hobbling ever after with difficulty on
his gnarled crutches. Another used to go stooping, like Bunyan's
pilgrim, under a pack made of an old bed-sacking, stuffed out into
most plethoric dimensions, tottering on a pair of small, meagre
legs, and peering out with his wild, hairy face from under his
burden, like a big-bodied spider. That 'man with the pack' always
inspired me with awe and reverence. Huge, almost sublime in its
tense rotundity, the father of all packs, never laid aside and never
opened, what might there not be within it! With what flesh-creeping
curiosity I used to walk round about it at a safe distance, half
expecting to see its striped covering stirred by the motions of a
mysterious life, or that some evil monster would leap out of it,
like robbers from Ali Baba's jars, or armed men from the Trojan
horse!"
* * * * *
"Twice a year, usually in the spring and autumn, we were honored
with a call from Jonathan Plummer, maker of verses, peddler and
poet, physician and parson,--a Yankee Troubadour,--first and last
minstrel of the valley of the Merrimack, encircled to my wondering
eyes with the very nimbus of immortality. He brought with him pins,
needles, tape, and cotton thread for my mother; jack-knives, razors,
and soap for my father; and verses of his own composing, coarsely
printed and illustrated with rude woodcuts, for the delectation of
the younger branches of the family. No love-sick youth could drown
himself, no deserted maiden bewail the moon, no rogue mount the
gallows, without fitting memorial in Plummer's verses. Earthquakes,
fires, fevers and shipwrecks he regarded as personal favors from
Providence, furnishing the raw material of song and ballad. Welcome
to us in our country seclusion as Autolycus to the clown in Winter's
Tale, we listened with infinite satisfaction to his readings of his
own verses, or to his ready improvisation upon some domestic
incident or topic suggested by his auditors. When once fairly over
the difficulties at the outset of a new subject, his rhymes flowed
freely, 'as if he had eaten ballads, and all men's ears grew to his
tunes.' His productions answered, as nearly as I can remember, to
Shakespeare's description of a proper ballad,--'doleful matter
merrily set down, or a very pleasant theme sung lamentably.' He was
scrupulously conscientious, devout, inclined to theological
disquisitions, and withal mighty in Scripture. He was thoroughly
independent; flattered nobody, cared for nobody, trusted nobody.
When invited to sit down at our dinner-table, he invariably took the
precaution to place his basket of valuables between his legs for
safe-keeping. 'Never mind thy basket, Jonathan,' said my father, 'we
shan't steal thy verses.' 'I'm not sure of that,' returned the
suspicious guest. 'It is written, Trust ye not in any brother.'"
* * * * *
"Thou, too, O Parson B.,--with thy pale student's brow and thy
rubicund nose, with thy rusty and tattered black coat, overswept by
white flowing locks, with thy professional white neckcloth
scrupulously preserved, when even a shirt to thy back was
problematical,--art by no means to be overlooked in the muster-roll
of vagrant gentlemen possessing the _entree_ of our farm-house. Well
do we remember with what grave and dignified courtesy he used to
step over its threshold, saluting its inmates with the same air of
gracious condescension and patronage with which in better days he
had delighted the hearts of his parishioners. Poor old man! He had
once been the admired and almost worshipped minister of the largest
church in the town, where he afterwards found support in the winter
season as a pauper. He had early fallen into intemperate habits, and
at the age of threescore and ten, when I remember him, he was only
sober when he lacked the means of being otherwise."
* * * * *
Among the books read by Whittier when a boy we must number the
"Pilgrim's Progress" of Bunyan.
In his "Supernaturalism of New England" the poet says: "How hardly
effaced are the impressions of childhood! Even at this day, at the
mention of the Evil Angel, an image rises before me like that with which
I used especially to horrify myself in an old copy of 'Pilgrim's
Progress.' Horned, hoofed, scaly, and fire-breathing, his caudal
extremity twisted tight with rage, I remember him illustrating the
tremendous encounter of Christian in the valley where 'Apollyon
straddled over the whole breadth of the way.' There was another print of
the enemy which made no slight impression upon me; it was the
frontispiece of an old, smoked, snuff-stained pamphlet (the property of
an elderly lady, who had a fine collection of similar wonders, wherewith
she was kind enough to edify her young visitors), containing a solemn
account of the fate of a wicked dancing party in New Jersey, whose
irreverent declaration that they would have a fiddler, if they had to
send to the lower regions after him, called up the fiend himself, who
forthwith commenced playing, while the company danced to the music
incessantly, without the power to suspend their exercise until their
feet and legs were worn off to the knees! The rude woodcut represented
the Demon Fiddler and his agonized companions literally _stumping_ it up
and down in 'cotillions, jigs, strathspeys, and reels.'"
* * * * *
So grew up the Quaker farmer's son, drinking eagerly in such knowledge
as he could, and receiving those impressions of nature and home-life
which he was afterward to embody in his popular lyrics and idyls. Above
all, his home education saturated his mind with religious and moral
earnestness. In the second part of this volume will be given some
remarks on Quaker life in America, and an analysis of the blended
influence of Quakerism and Puritanism upon the development of Whittier's
genius. Enough has been said to show that the surroundings of his early
life were of the plainest and simplest character, and not different from
those of a thousand other secluded New England farms of the period.
We are now to follow the shy young poet out into the world. He is
nineteen years of age. The circle of his experiences begins to widen
outward; manhood is dawning; the village paper has taught him that there
are men beyond the mountains. He thirsts for individuality,--to know his
powers, to cast the horoscope of his future, and see if the
consciousness within him of unusual gifts be a trustworthy one. To begin
with, he will write a poem for "our weekly paper." Accordingly one day
in 1826 the following poem, written in blue ink on coarse paper, was
slipped by the postman under the door of the office of the _Free Press_,
in Newburyport,--a short-lived paper, then recently started by young
William Lloyd Garrison, and subscribed for by Farmer Whittier.
The poem is the first ever published by the poet, and is his earliest
known production.[11] The manuscript of it is now in the possession of
Whittier's kinsman, Mr. S. T. Pickard, associate editor of the _Portland
Transcript_, in which journal it was republished November 27, 1880:--
THE DEITY.
The Prophet stood
On the high mount and saw the tempest-cloud
Pour the fierce whirlwind from its reservoir
Of congregated gloom. The mountain oak
Torn from the earth heaved high its roots where once
Its branches waved. The fir-tree's shapely form
Smote by the tempest lashed the mountain side;
Yet, calm in conscious purity, the seer
Beheld the awful devastation, for
The Eternal Spirit moved not in the storm.
The tempest ceased. The caverned earthquake burst
Forth from its prison, and the mountain rocked
Even to its base: The topmost crags were thrown
With fearful crashing down its shuddering slopes.
Unawed the Prophet saw and heard: He felt
Not in the earthquake moved the God of Heaven.
The murmur died away, and from the height,
Torn by the storm and shattered by the shock,
Rose far and clear a pyramid of flame,
Mighty and vast! The startled mountain deer
Shrank from its glare and cowered beneath the shade:
The wild fowl shrieked; yet even then the seer
Untrembling stood and marked the fearful glow--
For Israel's God came not within the flame.
The fiery beacon sank. A still small voice
Now caught the Prophet's ear. Its awful tone,
Unlike to human sound, at once conveyed
Deep awe and reverence to his pious heart.
Then bowed the holy man; his face he veiled
Within his mantle, and in meekness owned
The presence of his God, discovered not in
The storm, the earthquake, or the mighty flame,
But in the still small whisper to his soul.
[Footnote 11: See note on p. 301.]
It is characteristic of the man that his first poem should be of a
religious nature. There is grandeur and majesty in the poem. The
rhetoric is juvenile, but the diction is strong, nervous, and intense,
and the general impression made upon the mind is one of harmony and
solemn stateliness, not unlike that of "Thanatopsis," composed by Bryant
when he was about the same age as was Whittier when he wrote "The
Deity." It was probably owing to its anonymity that the first impulse of
the editor was to throw it into the waste-basket. But as he glanced
over the sheet his attention was caught: he read it, and some weeks
afterward published it in the poet's corner. But in the interval of
waiting the boy's heart sank within him. Every writer knows what he
suffered. Did we not all expect that first precious production of ours
to fairly set the editor wild with enthusiasm, so that nothing short of
death or apoplexy could prevent him from assigning it the most
conspicuous position in the _very next issue_ of his paper?
But one day, as our boy-poet was mending a stone fence along the
highway, in company with Uncle Moses, along came the postman on
horseback, with his leathern bag of mail, like a magician with a
Fortunatus' purse; and, to save the trouble of calling at the house, he
tossed a paper to young Whittier. He opened it with eager fingers, and
behold! his poem in the place of honor. He says that he was so
dumfounded and dazed by the event that he could not read a word, but
stood there staring at the paper until his uncle chided him for
loitering, and so recalled him to his senses. Elated by his success, he
of course sent other poems to the _Free Press_. They attracted the
attention of Garrison so strongly that he inquired of the postman who it
was that was sending him contributions from East Haverhill. The postman
said that it was a "farmer's son named Whittier." Garrison decided to
ride over on horseback, a distance of fifteen miles, and see his
contributor. When he reached the farm, Whittier was at work in the
field, and when told that there was a gentleman at the house who wanted
to see him, he felt very much like "breaking for the brush," no one
having ever called on him in that way before. However, he slipped in at
the back door, made his toilet, and met his visitor, who told him that
he had power as a writer, and urged him to improve his talents. The
father came in during the conversation, and asked young Garrison not to
put such ideas into the mind of his son, as they would only unfit him
for his home duties. But, fortunately, it was too late: the spark of
ambition had been fanned into a flame. Years afterward, in an
introduction to Oliver Johnson's "William Lloyd Garrison and his Times,"
Mr. Whittier said: "My acquaintance with him [Garrison] commenced in
boyhood. My father was a subscriber to his first paper, the _Free
Press_, and the humanitarian tone of his editorials awakened a deep
interest in our little household, which was increased by a visit he made
us. When he afterwards edited the _Journal of the Times_, at Bennington,
Vt., I ventured to write him a letter of encouragement and sympathy,
urging him to continue his labors against slavery, and assuring him that
he could do great things." Indeed, the acquaintance thus begun ripened
into the most intimate friendship and mutual respect. Mr. Whittier told
the writer that when he went to Boston, in the winter of 1828-29, he and
Garrison roomed and boarded at the same house. Mr. Whittier frequently
contributed to the _Liberator_, and was for a quarter of a century
associated with Garrison in anti-slavery labors.
* * * * *
Before we pass with our young Quaker from the farm to the world at
large, let us correct an erroneous statement that has been made about
him. It has been said that he worked at the trade of shoemaking when a
boy. The truth is that almost every farmer in those days was accustomed
to do a little cobbling of his own, and what shoemaker's work Whittier
performed was done by him solely as an amateur in his father's house.
* * * * *
In the year of his _debut_ as a poet (1826), he being then nineteen
years of age, Whittier began attending the Haverhill Academy, or Latin
School. Whether his parents were influenced to take this step for his
advantage by the visit of the editor Garrison, and by his evident taste
for learning, is not positively known, but it is quite possible that
such was the case. In 1827 he read an original ode at the dedication of
the new Academy. The building is still standing on Winter Street. While
at the Academy he read history very thoroughly, and his writings show
that it has always been a favorite study with him. He also contributed
poems at this time to the _Haverhill Gazette_. Many of them were in the
Scotch dialect: it would be interesting to see a few of these; but
unfortunately no file of the _Gazette_ for those years can be found. A
friendly rival in the writing of Scotch poems was good Robert Dinsmore,
the "Farmer Poet of Windham," as Whittier calls him. A few specimens of
Farmer Dinsmore's verse have been preserved. Take this on "The
Sparrow":--
"Poor innocent and hapless Sparrow!
Why should my moul-board gie thee sorrow?
This day thou'll chirp, and mourn the morrow
Wi' anxious breast;
The plough has turned the mould'ring furrow
Deep o'er thy nest!
Just i' the middle o' the hill
Thy nest was placed wi' curious skill,
There I espied thy little bill
Beneath the shade.
In that sweet bower, secure frae ill,
Thine eggs were laid.
Five corns o' maize had there been drappit,
An' through the stalks thy head was pappit,
The drawing nowt could na be stappit
I quickly foun',
Syne frae thy cozie nest thou happit,
Wild fluttering roun'.
The sklentin stane beguiled the sheer,
In vain I tried the plough to steer,
A wee bit stumpie i' the rear
Cam 'tween my legs,
An' to the jee-side gart me veer
An' crush thine eggs."
The following elegiac stanza, written by honest Robert on the occasion
of the death of his wife, is irresistibly ludicrous:--
"No more may I the Spring Brook trace,
No more with sorrow view the place
Where Mary's wash-tub stood;
No more may wander there alone,
And lean upon the mossy stone,
Where once she piled her wood.
'T was there she bleached her linen cloth,
By yonder bass-wood tree;
From that sweet stream she made her broth,
Her pudding and her tea."
Mr. Whittier says that the last time he saw Robert, "Threescore years
and ten," to use his own words,
'Hung o'er his back,
And bent him like a muckle pack,'
yet he still stood stoutly and sturdily in his thick shoes of cowhide,
like one accustomed to tread independently the soil of his own
acres,--his broad, honest face seamed by care and darkened by exposure
to all the 'airts that blow,' and his white hair flowing in patriarchal
glory beneath his felt hat. A genial, jovial, large-hearted old man,
simple as a child, and betraying neither in look nor manner that he was
accustomed to
'Feed on thoughts which voluntary move
Harmonious numbers.'"