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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of John Greenleaf Whittier, by W. Sloane Kennedy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: John Greenleaf Whittier
+       His Life, Genius, and Writings
+
+Author: W. Sloane Kennedy
+
+Release Date: August 24, 2011 [EBook #37191]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tor Martin Kristiansen, Carol Brown, Mary
+Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                    JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
+
+                 His Life, Genius, and Writings
+
+                     BY W. SLOANE KENNEDY
+
+      Author of a "Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," Etc.
+
+                     REVISED AND ENLARGED
+
+
+    _INTRODUCTION BY REV. S. F. SMITH, D.D._
+    Author of Hymn "America"
+
+
+    Such music as the woods and streams
+    Sang in his ear, he sang aloud
+
+            _The Tent on the Beach_
+
+
+    For all his quiet life flowed on,
+      As meadow streamlets flow,
+    Where fresher green reveals alo
+      The noiseless ways they go
+
+            _The Friend's Burial_
+
+
+    CHICAGO NEW YORK
+    THE WERNER COMPANY
+
+    COPYRIGHT 1892
+    BY D. LOTHROP COMPANY
+
+    COPYRIGHT 1895
+    BY THE WERNER COMPANY
+
+    John Greenleaf Whittier
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+Who does not admire and love John Greenleaf Whittier? And who does not
+delight to do him honor? He was a man raised up by Providence to meet an
+exigency in human history, and an exigency in the experiences of the
+United States. And he met the exigency with distinguished success. He
+was a true exponent of New England life and the New England spirit. He
+drew his inspiration from the soil where he was born, from the
+necessities of the times, from the demands of human rights, from the
+love of God and of man. He was a unique man. We knew not his like before
+him. We shall see no other like him after him. He was the product of his
+age; and the age in which he lived belonged to him, and he to and in it.
+He was a unique literary man. He was so meek and retiring; he was so
+keenly sensitive to the wrongs done by man to man; he was so devoid of
+self-seeking; so pure and exalted in motive, and so sturdy a defender of
+the rights of the oppressed; he was so full of trust in God that we seem
+never to have seen his equal among men. His beautiful gentleness of
+character and his inflexible and fearless advocacy of the cause of
+righteousness--even when such advocacy involved persecution and
+personal harm and loss, a rare combination of qualities--remind us of
+the sentiment of Oliver Wendell Holmes,
+
+    "The gentle are the strong."
+
+If ever in modern days the character of the apostle John has been
+reproduced among men it was in John G. Whittier. See with what sweetness
+and meekness the shy and loving Quaker moved through the ranks of
+society in times of peace and prosperity, and with what an adamantine
+boldness and bravery he stood up before the mob in Philadelphia when his
+types and manuscripts were scattered, his printing office burned and
+himself threatened with personal violence by the foes of human equality
+and freedom. Did he quail before the storm? Not he. Did he abandon his
+principles and retire from the arena? Oh, no; no more than did the
+apostle John--the apostle of love--forsake his Christian faith when the
+persecutors immersed him in boiling oil and exiled him to a desert
+island in the Ægean Sea.
+
+The poetry of Mr. Whittier is a complete autobiography. It is a
+reflection, as in a polished mirror, of himself. We miss only the
+accidents of dates and places, which are of merely external importance;
+but we find in his works, amply displayed, the portraiture of the man;
+even as the architect records himself and his thoughts in his plans, and
+builds his own soul into his edifices. Read the poetry of Mr. Whittier,
+and you have no need to ask what kind of man produced it. Behold the
+portrait: a thorough New England man, a son of its soil and a legitimate
+product of its institutions; a fruit of the simple education which was
+open to the people in the times of his youth and manhood; a
+philanthropist, loving all righteousness and all men, and scorning all
+oppression, injustice and iniquity; a stern advocate of human freedom,
+prepared to fight for it even "to the bitter end;" a bachelor, but
+having always a sweet and tender side for women; petted by society, but
+never tempted to swerve from the straight line of his principles;
+holding the faith of his fathers as a birthright and the result of his
+honest convictions, but with sympathies as broad as the universe and an
+appreciation of the privilege of private judgment on religious matters
+as the right and duty of all men; animated by a patriotism which took in
+his whole country, but a yearning for his own New England, its people,
+its scenery, its institutions and its honor; warmly attached to the
+friends whom he met along the pilgrimage of this life, but preserving to
+the last the memory and the love of the survivors whom he knew in his
+school days in the Haverhill Academy; living very much apart from his
+fellow-men, as he did in his latter days, on account of the increasing
+infirmities of his age, and absorbed in the world of his own thoughts,
+yet ever most affable, and as accessible as a most warm-hearted and
+cordial associate; every inch a man, as in stature, so also in soul, but
+exhibiting also the simplicity and the loving and confiding spirit of a
+child ("of such is the kingdom of heaven"); conscious of his human
+weakness and dependence on a higher Power, as he approached the goal of
+life, but relying on that higher Power with a sublime courage and a firm
+faith. How the man stands forth, like an orator on the stage, in the
+presence of throngs of admiring and reverent spectators! Unconsciously
+he sets forth in his works, whether they be prose or poetry, an example
+of the beauty of righteousness, the charm of philanthropy, the power and
+attractiveness of the broadest charity, the fervor of patriotism and the
+controlling force of love. The century which is about to close has been
+honored and made better, as well as gladder, by his presence in it. He
+has enriched its literature. He has elevated its ethics. He has breathed
+a divine life into its inspirations. He has warmed its heart.
+
+Mr. Whittier, like another Wordsworth, glorifies the scenes of common
+life, and hallows the landscapes of his New England homes. His verses
+speak in the dialect of the people, and deal with themes with which they
+are familiar. He lifts toil above its drudgery, and sanctifies, as with
+a sacred glow, the things with which men in common spheres chiefly have
+to do. He admired nature as he saw in it the landscapes which surrounded
+his several homes, the rolling green hills of Haverhill and Bradford,
+the mighty trees of Oak Knoll, the flowing stream and graceful curves of
+the Merrimack; the sober and quiet graces of Amesbury; and with his pen
+he stamped upon them immortality.
+
+The sun has set, but no night follows. The singer is gone, but his songs
+remain, and will long be a power among men far beyond the places adorned
+and honored by his personal presence. We love his poems which on account
+of their helpfulness the grateful world will long continue to read. How
+little he wrote--did he ever write anything--"which, dying, he could
+wish to blot?" and his life was a poem. The seal of Death is on his
+virtues, and the seal of universal approval is on his works.
+
+
+S. F. SMITH.
+
+
+
+
+     CONTENTS.
+
+
+     Part I.--LIFE.
+
+     I. ANCESTRY                                                   9
+
+     The Poet's Titles. Heredity. Spelling of the Name Whittier.
+     Whittier Ancestors. Greenleaf Ancestors. The Husseys and
+     Batchelders. Portrait of Whittier's Mother.
+
+     II. THE MERRIMACK VALLEY                                     24
+
+     Description of Essex County, Haverhill, Amesbury, Newburyport,
+     Salisbury Beach, and the Isles of Shoals. Extracts from the
+     "Supernaturalism of New England." The Spirit of the Age.
+
+     III. BOYHOOD                                                 36
+
+     Birthplace. Kenoza Lake. Whitman and Whittier. The Old Homestead.
+     Members of the Household. Harriet Livermore and Lady Hester
+     Stanhope. The Poet's School Days. "My Playmate." Ellwood and Burns.
+     Old Stragglers. "Pilgrim's Progress." The Demon Fiddler. First
+     Poem. William Lloyd Garrison and the _Free Press_. Haverhill
+     Academy. Robert Dinsmore, the Quaint Farmer-Poet of Windham.
+
+     IV. EDITOR AND AUTHOR: FIRST VENTURES                        83
+
+     Whittier as Editor of the _Boston Manufacturer_, the _Essex
+     Gazette_, and the _New England Review_. First Volume, "Legends of
+     New England." The Poet, J. G. C. Brainard. Ballad of "The Black
+     Fox." Whittier's Views on the Poetical Resources of the New World.
+     "Moll Pitcher."
+
+     V. WHITTIER THE REFORMER                                     97
+
+     Identifies Himself with the Anti-Slavery Movement. Publication of
+     his _Brochure_, "Justice and Expediency." Social Martyrdom.
+     Prudence Crandall and her Battle with the Philistinism of
+     Canterbury, Conn. Tailor Woolman and Saddler Lundy. Account of the
+     Philadelphia Convention for the Formation of the American
+     Anti-Slavery Society. Whittier's Account of the Convention. William
+     Lloyd Garrison draws up the Famous Declaration of Principles.
+     Samuel J. May Mobbed at East Haverhill. Whittier and George
+     Thompson Mobbed at Concord, N. H. Story of the Landlord and the
+     Flight by Night. The Poet's Account of the Mobbing of William Lloyd
+     Garrison. Letters of John Quincy Adams. Harriet Martineau on
+     Slavery. Attitude of Whittier toward the Quakers on the Slavery
+     Question.
+
+     VI. AMESBURY                                                123
+
+     Removal to Amesbury. Description of the Town and of the Poet's
+     Residence. The Study. Whittier Corresponding Editor of the
+     _National Era_. Various Works Written, including "Stranger in
+     Lowell," "Supernaturalism of New England," "Songs of Labor,"
+     "Child-Life," "Child-Life in Prose," "Introduction" to Woolman's
+     Journal, and "Songs of Three Centuries" (Edited). Whittier College
+     Established.
+
+     VII. LATER DAYS                                             141
+
+     Danvers. Oak Knoll. Summerings of the Poet at the Isles of Shoals
+     and the Bearcamp House. _The Literary World_ Tribute, and the
+     Whittier Banquet at the Hotel Brunswick. The Whittier Club. Various
+     Volumes of Poetry Published.
+
+     VIII. PERSONAL                                              153
+
+     Whittier's Personal Appearance Described by Frederika Bremer, Geo.
+     W. Bungay, David A. Wasson, and others. Incident of his
+     Kind-heartedness to a Stranger. Dom Pedro II. and Whittier at Mrs.
+     John T. Sargent's Reception. Letter to Mrs. Sargent. Humor. Love of
+     Children. Offices of Dignity and Honor.
+
+
+     Part II.
+
+     ANALYSIS OF HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS.
+
+
+     I. THE MAN                                                  169
+
+     The Moral in Whittier Predominates over the Æsthetic. Love of
+     Freedom the Central Element of his Character. Freedom, Democracy,
+     and Quakerism, links in one Chain. Quakerism Described; Freedom and
+     the Inner Light; Quakerism is Pure Democracy or Christianity, and
+     Pure Individualism, or Philosophical Idealism; it Resembles
+     Transcendentalism; the Details of the Quaker Religion Considered;
+     Quotations from William Penn, Mary Brook, and A. M. Powell;
+     Objections to Quakerism; Beautiful Lives of the Quakers; Whittier's
+     Attitude Toward the Religion of his Fathers. His Religious
+     Development, Doubt, and Trust. Patriotism. Has Blood Militant in
+     his Veins. A Representative American Poet. Summing Up.
+
+     II. THE ARTIST                                              196
+
+     Little or no _Technique_. More Fancy than Imagination. The Artistic
+     Quality of his Mind a Fusion of that of Wordsworth and Byron. His
+     Bookish Lore. The Beauty and Melody of his Finest Ballads. His
+     Strength and Nervous Energy. Culmination of his Genius. His Three
+     Crazes. Letters to the _Nation_, and to the American Anti-Slavery
+     Society. Illustrations of the Predominance of the Moral in his
+     Nature. Taine Quoted. Pope-Night. His Over-religiousness. Love of
+     Consecutive Rhymes. Minor Mannerisms. Originality.
+
+     III. POEMS SERIATIM                                         217
+
+     Mr. David A. Wasson's Classification of Epochs in the Poet's
+     Development. The Author's Classification. Four Periods: 1st,
+     _Introductory_; 2d, _Storm and Stress_; 3d, _Transition_; 4th,
+     _Religious and Artistic Repose_. General Review of Earlier
+     Productions. The Indian Poems. "Songs of Labor." The Ballad Decade.
+     "Prophecy of Samuel Sewall." John Chadwick on "Skipper Ireson's
+     Ride." The "Barbara Frietchie" Controversy. The Romance of the
+     "Countess." Winter in Poetry. "Snow-Bound." "The Tent on the
+     Beach." Various Poems.
+
+     IV. THE KING'S MISSIVE                                      254
+
+     Joseph Besse Quoted. Story of the Quaker and the King of England.
+     The Debate of Whittier and Dr. Geo. E. Ellis of Boston. Humorous
+     Specimen of Quaker Rant from Mather's _Magnalia_. Terrible
+     Sufferings of the Quakers.
+
+     V. POEMS BY GROUPS                                          272
+
+     The Anti-Slavery Poems Reviewed. Poems Inspired by the Civil War.
+     Hymns. Children's Poems: "Red Riding-Hood," "The Robin," etc.
+     Oriental Poems and Paraphrases.
+
+     VI. PROSE WRITINGS                                          279
+
+     Much of his Prose of Historical or Sectarian Interest Only.
+     Charming Nature- and Folk-Studies and Sketches. "Margaret Smith's
+     Journal." "Old Portraits and Modern Sketches." "Literary
+     Recreations and Miscellanies." Specimens of Whittier's Prose.
+
+
+     Part III.
+
+     TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL.
+
+
+     I. TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL                                301
+
+     Whittier's death at Hampton Falls, N. H. Celebration of his
+     birthdays. Funeral and memorial services. Personal reminiscences.
+     Fac-simile of letter to Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+
+
+     APPENDIX.
+
+     BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                375
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ANCESTRY.
+
+
+The Hermit of Amesbury, the Wood-thrush of Essex, the Martial Quaker,
+the Poet of Freedom, the Poet of the Moral Sentiment,--such are some of
+the titles bestowed upon Whittier by his admirers. Let us call him the
+Preacher-Poet, for he has written scarcely a poem or an essay that does
+not breathe a moral sentiment or a religious aspiration. What effect
+this predetermination of character has had upon his artistic development
+shall be discussed in another place.
+
+The present chapter--which may be called the propylæum or vestibule of
+the biographical structure that follows--will deal with the poet's
+ancestry, and the information afforded by it, and the two chapters that
+succeed will afford unmistakable evidence of the truth that a poet, no
+less than a solar system or a loaf of bread, is the logical resultant of
+a line of antecedent forces and circumstances. The fine but infrangible
+threads of our destiny are spun and woven out of atom-fibres indelibly
+stamped with the previous owners' names. Their characters immingle in
+our own,--the affluence or the indigence of their intellects, the sugar
+or the nitre of their wit, the shifting sand or the unwedgeable iron of
+their moral natures.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The name Whittier is spelled in thirty-two different ways in the old
+records: a list of these different spellings is given in Daniel Bodwell
+Whittier's genealogy of the family. The common ancestor of the Whittiers
+is Thomas Whittier, who in the year 1638 came from Southampton, England,
+to New England, in the ship "Confidence," of London, John Dobson,
+master. It is recorded of Thomas Whittier, says his descendant, the
+poet, in a half facetious way, that the only noteworthy circumstance
+connected with his coming was that he brought with him a hive of bees.
+He was born in 1620. His mother was probably a sister of John and Henry
+Rolfe, with the former of whom he came to America. His name at that time
+was spelled "Whittle." He married Ruth Green, and lived at first in
+Salisbury, Mass. He seems afterward to have lived in Newbury. In 1650 he
+removed to Haverhill, where he was admitted freeman, May 23, 1666.
+
+It was customary in those days, says the historian of Haverhill, for the
+nearest neighbors to sleep in the garrisons at night, but Thomas
+Whittier refused to take shelter there with his family. "Relying upon
+the weapons of his faith, he left his own house unguarded, and
+unprotected with palisades, and carried with him no weapons of war. The
+Indians frequently visited him, and the family often heard them, in the
+stillness of the evening, whispering beneath the windows, and sometimes
+saw them peep in upon the little group of practical 'non-resistants.'
+Friend Whittier always treated them civilly and hospitably, and they
+ever retired without molesting him."[1] Thomas Whittier died in
+Haverhill, November 28, 1696. His autograph appears in the probate
+records of Salem, Mass., as witness to a will of Samuel Gild. His widow
+died in July, 1710, and her eldest son John was appointed administrator
+of her estate. Thomas had ten children, of whom John became the ancestor
+of the most numerous branch of the Whittiers. Joseph, the brother of
+John, became the head of another branch of the family, and is the
+great-grandfather of our poet. Joseph married Mary, daughter of Joseph
+Peasley, of Haverhill, by whom he had nine children, among them Joseph,
+2d, the grandfather of the poet. Joseph, 2d, married Sarah Greenleaf of
+Newbury, by whom he had eleven children. The tenth child, John (the
+father of the poet), married Abigail Hussey, who was a daughter of
+Joseph Hussey, of Somersworth,--now Rollinsford,--N. H., a town on the
+Piscataqua River, which forms the southern part of the boundary line
+between New Hampshire and Maine. The mother of Abigail Hussey (the
+poet's mother) was Mercy Evans, of Berwick, Me. John Whittier, the
+father of the poet, died in Haverhill, June 30, 1830. His children were
+four in number: (1) Mary, born September 3, 1806, married Jacob
+Caldwell, of Haverhill, and died January 7, 1860; (2) John Greenleaf,
+the poet, born December 17, 1807, in Haverhill; (3) Matthew Franklin,
+born July 18, 1812, married Jane E. Vaughan; (4) Elizabeth Hussey, born
+December 7, 1815, died September 3, 1864. From this statement it will be
+seen that Matthew is the only surviving member of the family, besides
+the poet himself. Matthew resides in Boston, and has sons, daughters,
+and grandchildren.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: "The History of Haverhill, Mass.; from its first settlement
+in 1640 to the year 1860. By George Wingate Chase, Haverhill. Published
+by the author, 1861."]
+
+[Footnote 2: The foregoing statements are taken from the Whittier
+genealogy. But the author finds that there are a few slight
+discrepancies of date between this book and the inscriptions on the
+family tombstones in Amesbury. The tombstones say that John Whittier
+died "11th of 6 mo., 1831," and that Mary died "1st mo. 7, 1861."]
+
+The name Whittier constantly appears in important documents signed by
+the chief citizens of Haverhill. The family was evidently respected and
+honored by the community. In 1669 a Whittier was chosen town-constable.
+It is recorded that in 1711 Thomas Whittier--probably a son of Thomas
+(1st)--was one of a militia company provided with snow-shoes in order
+the better to repel an anticipated attack of the Indians. But, in spite
+of civil honors, it is well known that, down to comparatively recent
+times, the family suffered considerable social persecution and slight on
+account of their religious belief. For example, when the citizens built
+a new meeting-house, in 1699, they peremptorily refused to allow the
+Quakers to worship in it, although petitioned to do so by Joseph Peasley
+and others, and although they were taxed for its support. It was not
+until 1774 that an act was passed by the State exempting dissenters from
+taxation for the support of what we may call the State religion. It is
+important to bear this in mind, if we would know all the influences that
+went to form the character of the poet.
+
+The poet's paternal grandmother was Sarah Greenleaf, of Newbury. The
+genealogist of the Greenleafs says: "From all that can be gathered it is
+believed that the ancestors of the Greenleaf family were Huguenots, who
+left France on account of their religious principles some time in the
+course of the sixteenth century, and settled in England. The name was
+probably translated from the French _Feuillevert_.[3] Edmund Greenleaf,
+the ancestor of the American Greenleafs, was born in the parish of
+Brixham, and county of Devonshire, near Torbay, in England, about the
+year 1600." He came to Newbury, Mass., in 1635. He was by trade a
+silk-dyer. Respecting the family coat-of-arms the genealogist gives, on
+page 116, the following interesting statement:--
+
+    "The Hon. William Greenleaf, once of Boston, and then of New
+    Bedford, being in London about the year 1760, obtained from an
+    office of heraldry a device, said to be the arms of the family,
+    which he had painted, and the painting is now in the possession of
+    his grand-daughter, Mrs. Ritchie, of Roxbury, Mass. The field is
+    white (argent), bearing a chevron between three leaves (vert). The
+    crest is a dove standing on a wreath of green and white, holding in
+    its mouth three green leaves. The helmet is that of a warrior (visor
+    down); a garter below, but no motto."
+
+[Footnote 3: Whittier has thus alluded to this surmise:--
+
+    "The name the Gallic exile bore,
+      St. Malo! from thy ancient mart,
+    Became upon our Western shore
+      Greenleaf for Feuillevert."]
+
+What more appropriate emblazonment for the escutcheon of our Martial
+Quaker poet than a warrior's helmet, and a dove holding in its mouth the
+emblem of peace!
+
+Jonathan Greenleaf, born in Newbury, in 1723, is described as possessing
+a remarkably kind and conciliatory disposition. "Even the tones of his
+voice were gentle and persuasive, and he was very frequently resorted to
+as a peacemaker between contending parties. His dress was remarkably
+uniform, usually in his later years being deep blue or drab. He seldom
+walked fast, his gait being a measured and moderate step. His manners
+were plain, unassuming, but very polite. He was very religious, and a
+strict Calvinist. Nothing but absolute necessity kept him from public
+worship on the Sabbath, and he was scarce ever known to omit regular
+morning and evening worship."
+
+Of Professor Simon Greenleaf, the Harvard Law Professor (1833-1845), the
+family genealogist says: "For the last thirty years of his life he was
+one of the most spiritually-minded of men, evidently intent on walking
+humbly with God, and doing good to the bodies and souls of his
+fellow-men; scarce ever writing a letter of friendship even, without
+breathing in it a prayer, or delivering in it some good message."
+Professor Greenleaf published some dozen works, both legal and
+religious. It is a curious fact that his son James married Mary
+Longfellow, a sister of the Cambridge poet, thus making Whittier and
+Longfellow distant kinsmen.[4]
+
+[Footnote 4: It may be added that the ancestral home of the Longfellows
+is still standing in Byfield, about five miles distant from the Whittier
+homestead in Haverhill. (See the author's Life of Henry Wadsworth
+Longfellow, p. 15.)]
+
+Another English Greenleaf--contemporary with Edmund, being a silk-dyer
+as well as he, and in all probability a near kinsman--was a lieutenant
+under Oliver Cromwell, and served also under Richard Cromwell, and was
+in the army of the Protector under General Monk, at the time of the
+restoration of Charles II.
+
+It is hardly necessary to call the reader's attention to the significant
+fact, elicited by the foregoing researches, that, in tracing down two
+hereditary lines of the poet's paternal ancestors, we discover that for
+many generations those ancestors suffered religious persecution for
+loyalty to their religious convictions, and that many of them were
+remarkable for their sensitive piety.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Turn we now to the maternal ancestry of Whittier.
+
+In 1873 the poet wrote to Mr. D. B. Whittier, of Boston, as follows:--
+
+    "My mother was a descendant of Christopher Hussey, of Hampton, N.
+    H., who married a daughter of Rev. Stephen Bachelor, the first
+    minister of that town.
+
+    "Daniel Webster traces his ancestry to the same pair, so Joshua
+    Coffin informed me. Colonel W. B. Greene, of Boston, is of the same
+    family."[5]
+
+[Footnote 5: The name of Daniel Webster's paternal grandmother was
+Susannah Bachelor, or Batchelder.]
+
+In the light of the preceding note, the following letter of Col. W. B.
+Greene explains itself:--
+
+     "JAMAICA PLAIN, MASS., Sept. 24, 1873.
+
+     "Mr. D. B. WHITTIER, Danville, Vt.
+
+     "DEAR SIR,--Yours of September 20 is just received, and I reply to
+     it at once. My grandfather, on my mother's side, was the Rev.
+     William Batchelder, of Haverhill, Mass. In the year 1838 I had a
+     conversation, on a matter of military business, with the Hon.
+     Daniel Webster; and, to my astonishment, Mr. Webster treated me as
+     a kinsman. My mother afterwards explained his conduct by telling me
+     that one of Mr. W.'s female ancestors was a Batchelder. In 1838 or
+     1839, or thereabouts, I met schoolmaster [Joshua] Coffin on a
+     Mississippi steamboat, near Baton Rouge. The captain of the boat
+     told me, confidentially, that Coffin was engaged in a dangerous
+     mission respecting some slaves, and inquired whether my aid and
+     countenance could be counted on in favor of Coffin, in case
+     violence should be offered him. This he did because I was on the
+     boat as a military man, and in uniform. When Coffin found he could
+     count on me, he came and talked with me, and finally told me he had
+     [once] been hired by Daniel Webster _to go to Ipswich_, and there
+     look up Mr. W.'s ancestry. He spoke of Rev. Stephen Batchelder, of
+     New Hampshire, and said that Daniel Webster, John G. Whittier, and
+     myself were related by Batchelder blood. I did not feel at all
+     ashamed of my relatives. In 1841 or 1842 Mrs. Crosby, of Hallowell,
+     Me., who had charge of my grandfather when he was a boy, and knew
+     all about the family, told me that Daniel Webster was a Batchelder,
+     that she had known his father intimately, and knew Daniel when he
+     was a boy. At the time of my conversation with her, Aunt Crosby
+     might have been anywhere from seventy-five to eighty-five years of
+     age. When I was a boy, at (say) about the year 1827 or 1828, I used
+     to go often to the house of J. G. Whittier's father, a little out
+     of the village (now city) of Haverhill, Mass. There was a Mrs.
+     Hussey in the family, who baked the best squash pies I ever ate,
+     and knew how to make the pine floors shine like a looking-glass.
+
+     "This is, I think, all the information, in answer to your request,
+     that I am competent to give you.
+
+     "Yours respectfully,
+     "WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE."
+
+In a note addressed to the New England Historical and Genealogical
+Society, the poet says: "On my mother's side my grandfather was Joseph
+Hussey, of Somersworth, N. H.; married Mercy Evans, of Berwick, Me."
+
+Some of the genealogical links connecting the Husseys of Somersworth
+with those of Hampton have not yet been recovered. But this much is
+known of the family,[6] that in 1630 Christopher Hussey came from
+Dorking, Surrey, England, to Lynn, Mass. He had married, in Holland,
+Theodate, the daughter of the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, a Puritan minister,
+who had fled to that country to avoid persecution in England. The author
+was told by a local antiquary in Hampton, N. H., that there is a
+tradition in the town that Stephen Bachiler would not let his daughter
+marry young Hussey unless he embraced the Puritan faith. His love was so
+great that he consented, and came with his bride to America, where two
+years later his father-in-law followed him. Stephen Bachiler came to
+Lynn in 1632, with six persons, his relatives and friends, who had
+belonged to his church in Holland, and with them he established a
+little independent church in Lynn. The progenitive faculty of this
+worthy divine must have been highly developed: he was married four
+times, and was dismissed from his church at Lynn on account of charges
+twice preferred against him by women of his congregation. The recorded
+dates show that both he and his son-in-law, Hussey, came to Hampton in
+the year 1639. The Hampton authorities had the previous year made Mr.
+Bachiler and Mr. Hussey each a grant of three hundred acres of land, to
+induce them to settle there. When and how the Husseys became Quakers is
+not known to the author. But in Savage's Genealogical Dictionary, II.
+507, it is recorded that as early as 1688 a certain John Hussey of
+Hampton was a preacher to the Quakers in Newcastle, Del. The mother of
+the poet was a devoted disciple of the Society of Friends. That she was
+a person of deep and tender religious nature is evident to one looking
+at the excellent oil-portrait of her which hangs in the little parlor at
+Amesbury. The head is inclined graciously to one side, and the face
+wears that expression of ineffable tranquillity which is always a
+witness to generations of Quaker ancestry. In the picture, her garments
+are of smooth and immaculate drab. The poet once remarked to the writer
+that one of the reasons why his mother removed to Amesbury, in 1840, was
+that she might be near the little Friends' "Meeting" in that town.
+
+[Footnote 6: See histories of Lynn and Newbury, _passim_.]
+
+Thus among the maternal as well as the paternal progenitors of our
+Quaker poet we find the religious nature predominant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE VALLEY OF THE MERRIMACK.
+
+
+In the valley of the Merrimack John Greenleaf Whittier was born
+(December 17, 1807), and in the same region he has passed nearly his
+entire life, first in the town of Haverhill, and then in Amesbury, some
+nine miles distant. To strangers, the hilly old county of Essex wears a
+somewhat bleak and Scotian look; but it is fertile in poetical
+resources, and the tillers of its glebe are passionately attached to its
+blue hills and sunken dales, its silver rivers and winding roads,
+umbrageous towns and thrifty homes. Like Burns and Cowper, Whittier is
+distinctively a rustic poet, and he and Whitman are the most indigenous
+and patriotic of our singers. His idyllic poetry savors of the soil and
+is full of local allusions. It is, therefore, essential to the full
+enjoyment of his writings that one should get, at the outset, as vivid
+an idea as possible both of the Essex landscape and the Essex farmer.
+
+Whittier was born some three miles northeast of what is now the thriving
+little city of Haverhill. It was settled in 1640 by twelve men from
+Newbury and Ipswich. Its Indian name was Pentucket,--the appellation of
+a tribe once dwelling on its site, a tribe under the jurisdiction of
+Passaconaway, chief of the Pennacooks. The city is built partly on the
+river-terrace of the northern shore, and partly on the adjoining hills.
+It is celebrated in colonial history for the heroic exploit of Hannah
+Duston, who, when taken captive by a party of twenty savages at the time
+of the Haverhill massacre, killed and scalped them all, with the aid of
+her companion (also a woman), and returned in safety to the settlement.
+A handsome monument has recently been erected to her memory in the city
+square; it is a granite structure, with bronze bas-reliefs, and
+surmounted by a bronze statue of the heroine. In the public library of
+the city (founded in 1873) may be seen a fine bust of Whittier, by
+Powers. On February 17 and 18, 1882, almost the entire business portion
+of the city was destroyed by fire; eight acres were burned over, and
+$2,000,000 worth of property destroyed. Haverhill is eighteen miles east
+of Lowell, thirty-two miles northwest of Boston, and six miles northeast
+of Lawrence. The manufacture of boots and shoes gives employment to
+6,000 men. The population in 1870 was 13,092.
+
+Down to the sea, some seventeen miles away, winds the beautiful
+Merrimack, with the deep-shaded old town of Newburyport seated at its
+mouth. A little more than half way down lies Amesbury, just where the
+winding Powwow joins the Merrimack, but not before its nixies and
+river-horses have been compelled to put their shoulders to the wheels of
+several huge cotton mills that lift their forbidding bulk out of the
+very centre of the village. A horse-railroad connects Amesbury with
+Newburyport, six miles distant. At about half that distance the road
+crosses the Merrimack by way of Deer Island and connecting bridges. The
+sole house on this wild, rough island is the home of the Spoffords.
+
+As you near Newburyport, coming down from Amesbury, you see the river
+widened into an estuary, and bordered by wide and intensely green
+salt-meadows. Numerous large vessels lie at the wharves, a "gundelow,"
+with lateen sail, creeps slowly down the current; the draw of the
+railroad bridge is perhaps opening for the passage of a tug, and out at
+sea athwart the river's mouth--
+
+    "Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned,
+    Plum Island lies, like a whale aground,
+    A stone's toss over the narrow sound."
+
+    _Prophecy of Samuel Sewall._
+
+Far off to the left lie Salisbury and Hampton beaches, celebrated by
+Whittier in his poems "Hampton Beach," "Snow-Bound," and "The Tent on
+the Beach":--
+
+    "Where Salisbury's level marshes spread
+      Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
+    Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
+    Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
+      The low green prairies of the sea."
+
+    _Snow-Bound._
+
+Standing on the sand-ridge by the beach, you have before you the washing
+surf, and miles on miles of level sand, rimmed with creeping, silver
+water-lace, overhung here and there by thinnest powdery mist. Out at
+sea the waves are tossing their salt-threaded manes, or flinging the
+sunlight from their supple coats--(æonian roar; white-haired, demoniac
+shapes)--while at evening you see far away to the northeast the
+revolving light of the Isles of Shoals.
+
+    "Quail and sandpiper and swallow and sparrow are here;
+    Sweet sound their manifold notes, high and low, far and near;
+    Chorus of musical waters, the rush of the breeze,
+    Steady and strong from the south,--what glad voices are these!"
+
+So sings the poet of the Isles of Shoals, Celia Thaxter, who, it is
+said, was discovered and introduced to the world by Whittier,--her rocky
+home being still one of his favorite summer resorts.
+
+Landward, your gaze sweeps the beautiful salt-meadows and rests on the
+woods beyond, or reaches still farther to the steeples of Newburyport
+rising sculpturesquely in the pellucid atmosphere, and often at evening
+filling the air with faint silver hymns that chime with the liquid
+undertone of the pouring surf.
+
+The valley of the Merrimack with the surrounding region, is, or was
+until recently, full of legends of the marvellous and the supernatural,
+which, in this remote and isolated corner of the State, have come down
+in unbroken tradition from earlier times. One of the distinguishing
+peculiarities of Whittier's genius is his story-telling power, and since
+he has not only written many poems about the legends of his native
+province, but also published in his youth two small collections of those
+legends in prose form, it will be proper to give the reader a taste of
+them, both here and elsewhere in the volume, and thus assist him to an
+understanding of our poet's early environment.
+
+The following extracts from his "Supernaturalism of New England,"
+published in the year 1847, are germane to the subject in hand:--
+
+     "One of my earliest recollections," he says, "is that of an old
+     woman residing at Rocks Village, in Haverhill, about two miles from
+     the place of my nativity, who for many years had borne the
+     unenviable reputation of a witch. She certainly had the look of
+     one,--a combination of form, voice, and features, which would have
+     made the fortune of an English witch-finder in the days of Matthew
+     Paris or the Sir John Podgers of Dickens, and insured her speedy
+     conviction in King James' High Court of Justiciary. She was accused
+     of divers ill-doings, such as preventing the cream in her
+     neighbor's churn from becoming butter, and snuffing out candles at
+     huskings and quilting parties. The poor old woman was at length so
+     sadly annoyed by her unfortunate reputation, that she took the
+     trouble to go before a Justice of the Peace, and made a solemn oath
+     that she was a Christian woman and no witch."
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Some forty years ago, on the banks of the pleasant little creek
+     separating Berwick, in Maine, from Somersworth, in New Hampshire,
+     within sight of my mother's home, dwelt a plain, sedate member of
+     the Society of Friends, named Bantum. He passed, throughout a
+     circle of several miles, as a conjurer and skilful adept in the art
+     of magic. To him resorted farmers who had lost their cattle,
+     matrons whose household gear, silver spoons, and table-linen had
+     been stolen, and young maidens whose lovers were absent; and the
+     quiet, meek-spirited old man received them all kindly, put on his
+     huge, iron-rimmed spectacles, opened his 'conjuring book,' which my
+     mother describes as a large clasped volume, in strange language and
+     black-letter type, and after due reflection and consideration gave
+     the required answers without money and without price. The curious
+     old volume is still in possession of the conjurer's family.
+     Apparently inconsistent as was this practice of the Black Art with
+     the simplicity and truthfulness of his religious profession, I have
+     not been able to learn that he was ever subjected to censure on
+     account of it."
+
+This incident reminds one of some verses in a poem of Whittier's
+entitled "Flowers in Winter":--
+
+    "A wizard of the Merrimack--
+      So old ancestral legends say--
+    Could call green leaf and blossom back
+      To frosted stem and spray.
+
+    The dry logs of the cottage wall,
+      Beneath his touch, put out their leaves;
+    The clay-bound swallow, at his call,
+      Played round the icy eaves.
+
+    The settler saw his oaken flail
+      Take bud, and bloom before his eyes;
+    From frozen pools he saw the pale,
+      Sweet summer lilies rise.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The beechen platter sprouted wild,
+      The pipkin wore its old-time green;
+    The cradle o'er the sleeping child
+      Became a leafy screen."
+
+In chapter second of the "Supernaturalism" we have a whimsical story
+about a certain "Aunt Morse," who lived in a town adjoining Amesbury:--
+
+     "After the death of Aunt Morse no will was found, though it was
+     understood before her decease that such a document was in the hands
+     of Squire S., one of her neighbors. One cold winter evening, some
+     weeks after her departure, Squire S. sat in his parlor, looking
+     over his papers, when, hearing some one cough in a familiar way, he
+     looked up, and saw before him a little crooked old woman, in an
+     oil-nut colored woollen frock, blue and white tow and linen apron,
+     and striped blanket, leaning her sharp, pinched face on one hand,
+     while the other supported a short black tobacco pipe, at which she
+     was puffing in the most vehement and spiteful manner conceivable.
+
+     "The squire was a man of some nerve; but his first thought was to
+     attempt an escape, from which he was deterred only by the
+     consideration that any effort to that effect would necessarily
+     bring him nearer to his unwelcome visitor.
+
+     "'Aunt Morse,' he said at length, 'for the Lord's sake, get right
+     back to the burying-ground! What on earth are you here for?'
+
+     "The apparition took her pipe deliberately from her mouth, and
+     informed him that she came to see justice done with her will; and
+     that nobody need think of cheating her, dead or alive. Concluding
+     her remark with a shrill emphasis, she replaced her pipe, and
+     puffed away with renewed vigor. Upon the squire's promising to obey
+     her request, she refilled her pipe, which she asked him to light,
+     and then took her departure."
+
+     "Elderly people in this region," says our author, "yet tell
+     marvellous stories of General M., of Hampton, N. H., especially of
+     his league with the devil, who used to visit him occasionally in
+     the shape of a small man in a leathern dress. The general's house
+     was once burned, in revenge, as it is said, by the fiend, whom the
+     former had outwitted. He had agreed, it seems, to furnish the
+     general with a boot full of gold and silver poured annually down
+     the chimney. The shrewd Yankee cut off, on one occasion, the foot
+     of the boot, and the devil kept pouring down the coin from the
+     chimney's top, in a vain attempt to fill it, until the room was
+     literally packed with the precious metal. When the general died, he
+     was laid out, and put in a coffin, as usual; but, on the day of the
+     funeral, it was whispered about that his body was missing; and the
+     neighbors came to the charitable conclusion that the enemy had got
+     his own at last."
+
+It should be understood that the state of society which produced such
+superstitions and legends as the foregoing lingers now only in secluded
+corners of New England. The railroad, the newspaper, and the influx of
+foreign population, have combined to frighten away ghost, conjurer, and
+witch, or to drive them up into the mountainous districts. There are
+still plenty of quaint and picturesque old Puritan farmers; and their
+mythology is antique and rusty enough, to be sure. But the folk-lore of
+the early days,--where is it? Let the shriek of the steam-demon answer,
+or that powerful magician, the "Spirit of the Age," who, ten thousand
+times divided, and slyly hidden in plethoric leathern mail bags, daily
+rushes into the remotest nooks and corners of the land, there to enter
+into the nooks and corners of the mind of man. The "Spirit of the Age"
+has exorcised the spirits of the ingle and the forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+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 Laocoön 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.
+François' 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 _entrée_ 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 _début_ 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.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+EDITOR AND AUTHOR: FIRST VENTURES.
+
+
+The winter of 1828-29 was passed by Whittier in Boston. He once with
+characteristic modesty told the writer that he drifted into journalism
+that winter, as editor of the _American Manufacturer_, in the following
+way: He had gone to Boston to study and read. He undertook the writing
+for the _Manufacturer_ not because he had much liking for questions of
+tariff and finance, but because his own finances would thereby be
+improved. Mr. Whittier's chief personal trait is extreme shyness and
+distrust of himself, and he deprecated the idea that he had any special
+power as a writer at the time of which we are speaking, saying that he
+had to study up his subjects before writing. But undoubtedly he must
+have wielded a vigorous pen, and been known to possess a cool and
+careful head, or he would not have been invited to assume the
+editorship of such a paper. He himself admitted, in the course of the
+conversation, that at that time he had political ambitions, and made a
+study of political economy and civil politics.
+
+In 1830 we find Whittier at Haverhill again. In March of that year he
+was occupying the position of editor of the _Essex Gazette_, and "issued
+proposals to publish a 'History of Haverhill,' in one volume of two
+hundred pages, duodecimo, price eighty-seven and one-half cents per
+copy. 'If the material swelled the volume above two hundred pages, the
+price was to be one dollar per copy.'" But the limited encouragement
+offered, and the amount of work required to compile the volume, led the
+young editor to abandon the project. Whittier was editor of this
+_Gazette_ for six months,--from January 1 to July 10, 1830. On May 4,
+1836, after he had returned from Philadelphia, he resumed the editorship
+of the journal, retaining the position until December 17 of the same
+year.
+
+He left the _Gazette_ at the time of his first connection with it, to go
+to Hartford for the purpose of editing the _New England Weekly Review_
+of that city. His first acquaintance with this Connecticut periodical
+had been made while attending the Academy at Haverhill. While there he
+happened to see a copy of the _Review_, then edited by George D.
+Prentice. He was pleased with its sprightly and breezy tone, and sent it
+several articles. Great was his astonishment on finding that they were
+accepted and published with editorial commendation. He sent numerous
+other contributions during the same year.
+
+One day in 1830, he was at work in the field, when a letter was brought
+to him from the publishers of the Hartford paper, in which they said
+that they had been asked by Mr. Prentice to request him to edit the
+paper during the absence of Mr. Prentice in Kentucky, whither he had
+gone to write a campaign life of Henry Clay. "I could not have been more
+utterly astonished," said Mr. Whittier once, "if I had been told that I
+was appointed prime minister to the great Khan of Tartary."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Whittier was at this time a member of the National Republican
+party. He afterward belonged to the anti-slavery Liberty party, a
+faction of the Abolitionists which had separated from the Garrison band.
+In 1855 Mr. Whittier acted with the Free Democratic party. In the
+conversation alluded to a moment ago, the poet laughingly remarked that
+the proprietors of the paper had never seen him when he went to Hartford
+in 1830 to take charge of their periodical. They were much surprised at
+his youth. But at the first meeting he discreetly kept silence, letting
+them do most of the talking. Here most assuredly, if never again, his
+Quaker doctrine of silence stood him in good stead; since, if we may
+believe him, he was most wofully deficient in a knowledge of the
+intricacies of the political situation of the time.
+
+Whittier was twenty-four years old when he published his first volume.
+It is a thin little book entitled "Legends of New England" (Hartford:
+Hanmer and Phelps, 1831), and is a medley of prose and verse. The style
+is juvenile and extravagantly rhetorical, and the subject-matter is far
+from being massive with thought. The libretto has been suppressed by
+its author, and it would be ungracious as well as unjust to criticise it
+at any length, or quote more than a single morsel of its verses, which
+are inferior to the prose. But one may be pardoned for giving two or
+three specimens of the prose stories, for they are intrinsically
+interesting. In the preface we have a striking passage, which may be
+commended to those who accuse Whittier of hatred of the Puritan fathers,
+and undue partiality toward the Quakers. He says: "I have in many
+instances alluded to the superstition and bigotry of our ancestors, the
+rare and bold race who laid the foundation of this republic; but no one
+can accuse me of having done injustice to their memories. A son of New
+England, and proud of my birthplace, I would not willingly cast dishonor
+upon its founders. My feelings in this respect have already been
+expressed in language which I shall be pardoned, I trust, for
+introducing in this place:--
+
+    Oh!--never may a son of thine,
+    Where'er his wandering steps incline,
+    Forget the sky which bent above
+    His childhood like a dream of love,
+    The stream beneath the green hill flowing,
+    The broad-armed tree above it growing,
+    The clear breeze through the foliage blowing;
+    Or hear unmoved the taunt of scorn,
+    Breathed o'er the brave New England born;
+    Or mark the stranger's jaguar hand
+      Disturb the ashes of thy dead--
+    The buried glory of a land
+      Whose soil with noble blood is red,
+      And sanctified in every part,
+    Nor feel resentment, like a brand,
+      Unsheathing from his fiery heart!"
+
+The flow of language in these prose pieces is smooth and easy, and the
+narratives are in the same vein and style as the "Twice Told Tales," or
+Irving's stories, only they are very much weaker than these, and more
+extravagant and melodramatic in tone. "The Midnight Attack" describes
+the adventure of Captain Harmon and thirty Eastern rangers on the banks
+of the Kennebec River in June, 1722. A party of sleeping Indians are
+surprised by them and all shot dead by one volley of balls. An idea of
+the style of the piece will be obtained from the following paragraphs.
+The men are waiting for the signal of Harmon:--
+
+     "'Fire!' he at length exclaimed, as the sight of his piece
+     interposed full and distinct between his eye and the wild
+     scalp-lock of the Indian. 'Fire, and rush on!'
+
+     "The sharp voice of thirty rifles thrilled through the heart of the
+     forest. There was a groan--a smothered cry--a wild and convulsive
+     movement among the sleeping Indians; and all again was silent.
+
+     "The rangers sprang forward with their clubbed muskets and hunting
+     knives; but their work was done. The red men had gone to their
+     audit before the Great Spirit; and no sound was heard among them
+     save the gurgling of the hot blood from their lifeless bosoms."
+
+It was one of the superstitions of the New England colonists that the
+rattlesnake had the power of charming or fascinating human beings.
+Whittier's story, "The Rattlesnake Hunter," is based upon this fact. An
+old man with meagre and wasted form is represented as devoting his life
+to the extermination of the reptiles among the hills and mountains of
+Vermont, the inspiring motive of his action being the death of his
+young and beautiful wife, many years previously, from the bite of a
+rattlesnake.
+
+"The Human Sacrifice" relates the escape of a young white girl from the
+hands of the Matchit-Moodus, an Indian tribe formerly dwelling where
+East Haddam now stands. The Indians are frightened from their purpose of
+sacrificing the girl by a rumbling noise proceeding from a high hill
+near by. In his note on the story Mr. Whittier says: "There is a story
+prevalent in the neighborhood, that a man from England, a kind of
+astrologer or necromancer, undertook to rid the place of the troublesome
+noises. He told them that the sound proceeded from a carbuncle--a
+precious gem, _growing in the bowels of the rock_. He hired an old
+blacksmith shop, and worked for some time with closed doors, and at
+night. All at once the necromancer departed, and the strange noises
+ceased. It was supposed he had found the precious gem, and had fled with
+it to his native land." This story of the carbuncle reminds us of
+Hawthorne's story on the same subject.
+
+The following remarks are prefixed to the poem, "The Unquiet Sleeper":
+"Some fifty or sixty years since an inhabitant of ----, N. H., was found
+dead at a little distance from his dwelling, which he left in the
+morning in perfect health. There is a story prevalent among the people
+of the neighborhood that, on the evening of the day on which he was
+found dead, strange cries are annually heard to issue from his grave! I
+have conversed with some who really supposed they had heard them in the
+dead of the night, rising fearfully on the autumn wind. They represented
+the sounds to be of a most appalling and unearthly nature."
+
+"The Spectre Ship" is the versification of a legend related in Mather's
+"Magnalia Christi." A ship sailed from Salem, having on board "a young
+man of strange and wild appearance, and a girl still younger, and of
+surpassing beauty. She was deadly pale, and trembled even while she
+leaned on the arm of her companion." They were supposed by some to be
+demons. The vessel was lost, and of course soon reappeared as a
+spectre-ship.
+
+Mr. Whittier's next work was the editing, in 1832, of the "Remains" of
+his gifted friend, J. G. C. Brainard. Students of Whittier's poems know
+that for many years the genius and writings of Brainard exercised a
+potent influence on his mind. Brainard undoubtedly possessed genius. He
+was at one time editor of the _Connecticut Mirror_. He died young, and
+his work can be considered as hardly more than a promise of future
+excellence. Whittier, in his Introduction to the "Remains," shows a nice
+sense of justice, and a delicate reserve in his eulogistic estimate of
+his dead brother-poet and friend. That he did not falsely attribute to
+him a rare genius will be evident to those who read the following
+portion of Brainard's spirited ballad of "The Black Fox":--
+
+    "'How cold, how beautiful, how bright
+      The cloudless heaven above us shines;
+    But 'tis a howling winter's night,--
+      'Twould freeze the very forest pines.
+
+    'The winds are up while mortals sleep;
+      The stars look forth while eyes are shut;
+    The bolted snow lies drifted deep
+      Around our poor and lonely hut.
+
+    'With silent step and listening ear,
+      With bow and arrow, dog and gun,
+    We'll mark his track, for his prowl we hear,
+      Now is our time--come on, come on.'
+
+    O'er many a fence, through many a wood,
+      Following the dog's bewildered scent,
+    In anxious haste and earnest mood,
+      The Indian and the white man went.
+
+    The gun is cock'd, the bow is bent,
+      The dog stands with uplifted paw;
+    And ball and arrow swift are sent,
+      Aim'd at the prowler's very jaw.
+
+    --The ball, to kill that fox, is run
+      Not in a mould by mortals made!
+    The arrow which that fox should shun
+      Was never shap'd from earthly reed!
+
+    The Indian Druids of the wood
+      Know where the fatal arrows grow--
+    They spring not by the summer flood,
+      They pierce not through the winter snow!"[12]
+
+[Footnote 12: Mr. Whittier quotes this fine ballad in Vol. II. p. 243 of
+his prose works, but with numerous changes of punctuation and phrase.
+The differences between the poem as it there appears and as it is given
+in his own edition of Brainard, published in 1832, seem to show that he
+has amended the ballad and punctuated it to suit himself, or else has
+quoted it from memory, or at third or fourth remove. It must be admitted
+that the changes are all improvements, however they were made. The
+ballad is quoted above, however, as it appears in Brainard's Poems.]
+
+Whittier's Introduction to Brainard's poems reveals a mind matured by
+much reading and thought. We hardly recognize in the author and editor
+of Hartford the shy girlish boy we so recently left on the farm at
+Haverhill. There has evidently been a good deal of midnight oil burned
+since then.
+
+The following sentiments respecting the resources and the proper field
+of the American poet show that thus early had Whittier taken the manly
+and patriotic resolution to find in his native land the chief sources of
+poetic inspiration: "It has been often said that the New World is
+deficient in the elements of poetry and romance; that its bards must of
+necessity linger over the classic ruins of other lands; and draw their
+sketches of character from foreign sources, and paint Nature under the
+soft beauty of an Eastern sky. On the contrary, New England is full of
+romance; and her writers would do well to follow the example of
+Brainard. The great forest which our fathers penetrated, the red men,
+their struggle and their disappearance, the powwow and the war-dance,
+the savage inroad and the English sally, the tale of superstition and
+the scenes of witchcraft,--all these are rich materials of poetry. We
+have, indeed, no classic vale of Tempe, no haunted Parnassus, no temple
+gray with years, and hallowed by the gorgeous pageantry of idol worship,
+no towers and castles over whose moonlight ruins gathers the green pall
+of the ivy; but we have mountains pillaring a sky as blue as that which
+bends over classic Olympus, streams as bright and beautiful as those of
+Greece and Italy, and forests richer and nobler than those which of old
+were haunted by sylph and dryad."
+
+It is easy to see here a foreshadowing of "Mogg Megone," "The Bridal of
+Pennacook," the "Supernaturalism of New England," and a hundred poems
+and ballads of Whittier's founded on native themes. The sentiments in
+the quotation just made remind one of Emerson's "Nature," the preface of
+Whitman to his first portentous quarto, "Leaves of Grass," and
+Wordsworth's essay on the nature of the poetic art. But however laudable
+was the Quaker poet's resolve to choose indigenous subjects, it cannot
+be said that either he or Bryant attained to more than an indigeneity of
+theme. In form and style they are imitative. Emerson and Whitman are
+our only purely original poets.
+
+Whittier was editor of the _New England Weekly Review_ for about
+eighteen months, at the end of which time he returned to the farm at
+Haverhill, and engaged in agricultural pursuits for the next five or six
+years. In 1831 or 1832 he published "Moll Pitcher," a tale of the Witch
+of Nahant. This youthful poem seems to have completely disappeared, and
+Mr. Whittier will no doubt be devoutly thankful that the writer has been
+unable to procure a copy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+WHITTIER THE REFORMER.
+
+    _"God said: 'Break thou these yokes; undo
+      These heavy burdens. I ordain
+    A work to last thy whole life through,
+      A ministry of strife and pain._
+
+    _'Forego thy dreams of lettered ease,
+      Put thou the scholar's promise by,
+    The rights of man are more than these.'
+      He heard, and answered: 'Here am I!'"_
+
+    WHITTIER, _Sumner_.
+
+
+On New Year's day of 1831 William Lloyd Garrison issued the first number
+of the _Liberator_ from his little attic room, No. 6 Merchants' Hall,
+Boston. Its clear bugle-notes sounded the onset of reform and the
+death-knell of slavery. It called for the buckling on of moral armor.
+Its words were the touchstone of wills, the shibboleth of souls. Cowards
+and time-servers quickly ranged themselves on one side, and heroes on
+the other. Before young Whittier,--editor, _littérateur_, and poet,--a
+career full of brilliant promise had opened up at Hartford. But through
+the high chambers of his soul the voice of duty rang in solemn and
+imperative tones. He heard and obeyed. The cost was counted, and his
+resolution taken. Upon his brow he placed the lustrous fire-wreath of
+the martyr, well assured of his power to endure unflinchingly to the end
+its sharpest pains. It was the most momentous act of his life; it formed
+the keystone in the arch of his destinies.
+
+The first decided anti-slavery step taken by him was the publication of
+his fiery philippic, "Justice and Expediency." About this time also he
+began the writing of his stirring anti-slavery poems, many of them full
+of pathos, fierce invective, cutting irony and satire,--stirring the
+blood like a trumpet-call, giving impulse and enthusiasm to the despised
+and half-despairing Abolitionists of that day, and becoming a part of
+the very religion of thousands of households throughout the land.
+
+It is almost impossible for those who were not participants in the
+anti-slavery conflict, or who have not read histories and memoirs of
+the struggle, to realize the deep opprobrium that attached to the word
+"Abolitionist." To avow one's self such meant in many cases suspicion,
+ostracism, hunger, blows, and sometimes death. It meant, in short,
+self-renunciation and social martyrdom. All this Whittier gladly took
+upon himself; and he knew that it was a long struggle upon which he was
+entering. As he says in one of his poems, he was
+
+                "Called from dream and song,
+    Thank God! so early to a strife so long,
+    That, ere it closed, the black, abundant hair
+    Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare
+    On manhood's temples."
+
+That the martyrdom was a severe one to all who took up the cross goes
+without saying. Mr. Whittier remarked to the writer that it was at some
+sacrifice of his ambition and plans for the future that he decided to
+throw in his lot with the opponents of slavery. He knew that it meant
+the annihilation of his hopes of literary preferment, and the exclusion
+of his articles from the pages of magazines and newspapers. "For twenty
+years," said he, "my name would have injured the circulation of any of
+the literary or political journals of the country."
+
+When Whittier joined the ranks of the despised faction, Garrison had
+been imprisoned and fined in Baltimore for his arraignment of the slave
+traffic; Benjamin Lundy had been driven from the same city by threats of
+imprisonment and personal outrage; Prudence Crandall was waging her
+battle with the Philistinism of Canterbury, Conn.; and the Legislature
+of Georgia had offered a reward of five thousand dollars for "the
+arrest, prosecution, and trial to conviction under the laws of the
+State, of the editor or publisher of a certain paper called _The
+Liberator_, published in the town of Boston, and State of
+Massachusetts."
+
+But it is not within the province of this biography to give an
+exhaustive _résumé_ of the anti-slavery conflict, but only to speak of
+such of its episodes as were especially participated in by Mr. Whittier.
+How tailor John Woolman became a life-long itinerant preacher of his
+mild Quaker gospel of freedom; how honest saddler Lundy left his leather
+hammering, and walked his ten thousand miles, carrying his types and
+column-rules with him, and printing his "Genius of Universal
+Emancipation" as he went; in what way and to what extent the labors and
+writings of Lucretia Mott, Samuel J. May, Lydia Maria Child, George
+Thompson, James G. Birney, and Gerrit Smith helped on the noble
+cause,--to all these things only allusion can be made. For a full
+account of those perilous times one must go to the pages of Henry
+Wilson's "History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," and to the
+fascinating "Recollections" of Samuel J. May. Let us now return to
+Whittier and consider his own writings, labors, and adventures in the
+service of the cause.
+
+It was in the spring of 1833 that he published at his own expense
+"Justice and Expediency; or, Slavery Considered with a view to its
+Rightful and Effectual Remedy, Abolition." [Haverhill: C. P. Thayer and
+Co.] It is a polemical paper, full of exclamation points and italicized
+and capitalized sentences. The hyperbole speaks well for the author's
+heart, but betrays his juvenility. He shrieks like a temperance lecturer
+or a stump politician. The pamphlet, however, shows diligent and
+systematic study of the entire literature of the subject. Every
+statement is fortified by quotation or reference. He enumerates six
+reasons why the African Colonization Society's schemes were unworthy of
+good men's support, and buttresses up his theses by citations from the
+official literature of his opponents. A thorough familiarity with
+slavery in other lands and times is also manifested. As a specimen of
+the style of the book the following will serve:--
+
+     "But, it may be said that the miserable victims of the System have
+     our sympathies.
+
+     "Sympathy!--the sympathy of the Priest and the Levite, looking on,
+     and acknowledging, but holding itself aloof from mortal suffering.
+     Can such hollow sympathy reach the broken of heart, and does the
+     blessing of those who are ready to perish answer it? Does it hold
+     back the lash from the slave, or sweeten his bitter bread?
+
+     "Oh, my heart is sick--my very soul is weary of this sympathy--this
+     heartless mockery of feeling....
+
+     "No--let the TRUTH on this subject--undisguised, naked, terrible as
+     it is, stand out before us. Let us no longer seek to cover it--let
+     us no longer strive to forget it--let us no more dare to palliate
+     it."
+
+In his sketch of Nathaniel P. Rogers, the anti-slavery editor, Whittier
+remarks incidentally that the voice of Rogers was one of the few which
+greeted him with words of encouragement and sympathy at the time of the
+publication of his "Justice and Expediency."[13]
+
+[Footnote 13: "He gave us a kind word of approval," says Whittier, "and
+invited us to his mountain home, on the banks of the Pemigewasset, an
+invitation which, two years afterwards, we accepted."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the fourth day of December, 1833, the Philadelphia Convention for the
+formation of the American Anti-slavery Society held its first sitting;
+Beriah Green, President, Lewis Tappan and John G. Whittier, Secretaries.
+This assembly, if not so famous as that which framed the Declaration of
+Independence in the same city some two generations previously, was at
+any rate as worthy of fame and respect as its illustrious predecessor.
+A deep solemnity and high consecration filled the heart of every man and
+woman in that little band. Heart answered unto heart in glowing
+sympathy. They did their work like men inspired. Perfect unanimity
+prevailed. They were too eagerly engaged to adjourn for dinner, and
+"baskets of crackers and pitchers of cold water supplied all the bodily
+refreshment." Among those who were present and spoke was Lucretia Mott,
+"a beautiful and graceful woman," says Whittier, "in the prime of life,
+with a face beneath her plain cap as finely intellectual as that of
+Madame Roland." She "offered some wise and valuable suggestions, in a
+clear sweet voice, the charm of which I have never forgotten."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A committee, of which Whittier was a member, with William Lloyd Garrison
+as chairman, was appointed to draw up a Declaration of Principles.
+Garrison sat up all night, in the small attic of a colored man, to draft
+this Declaration. The two other members of the committee, calling in the
+gray dawn of a December day, found him putting the last touches to this
+famous paper, while his lamp burned on unheeded into the daylight. His
+draft was accepted almost without amendment by the Convention, and,
+after it had been engrossed on parchment, was signed by the sixty-two
+members present.[14]
+
+[Footnote 14: Twenty-one of these persons were Quakers, as Mr. Whittier
+and the writer proved by actual count of the names on Mr. Whittier's
+fac-simile copy of the Declaration.]
+
+[Illustration: JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER AT MIDDLE LIFE.]
+
+In the _Atlantic Monthly_ for February, 1874, Mr. Whittier has given an
+interesting account of the Convention. Some of his pictures are so
+graphic that they shall here be given in his own words:--
+
+     "In the gray twilight of a chill day of late November, forty years
+     ago, a dear friend of mine residing in Boston, made his appearance
+     at the old farm-house in East Haverhill. He had been deputed by the
+     Abolitionists of the city, William L. Garrison, Samuel E. Sewall,
+     and others, to inform me of my appointment as a delegate to the
+     Convention about to be held in Philadelphia for the formation of an
+     American Anti-slavery Society; and to urge upon me the necessity of
+     my attendance.
+
+     "Few words of persuasion, however, were needed. I was unused to
+     travelling; my life had been spent on a secluded farm; and the
+     journey, mostly by stage-coach, at that time was really a
+     formidable one. Moreover the few abolitionists were everywhere
+     spoken against, their persons threatened, and, in some instances, a
+     price set on their heads by Southern legislators. Pennsylvania was
+     on the borders of slavery, and it needed small effort of
+     imagination to picture to oneself the breaking up of the Convention
+     and maltreatment of its members. This latter consideration I do not
+     think weighed much with me, although I was better prepared for
+     serious danger than for anything like personal indignity. I had
+     read Governor Trumbull's description of the tarring and feathering
+     of his hero MacFingal, when after the application of the melted
+     tar, the feather-bed was ripped open and shaken over him, until
+
+     Not Maia's son with wings for ears,
+     Such plumes about his visage wears,
+     Nor Milton's six-winged angel gathers
+     Such superfluity of feathers,
+
+     and I confess I was quite unwilling to undergo a martyrdom which
+     my best friends could scarcely refrain from laughing at. But a
+     summons like that of Garrison's bugle-blast could scarcely be
+     unheeded by one who, from birth and education, held fast the
+     traditions of that earlier abolitionism which, under the lead of
+     Benezet and Woolman, had effaced from the Society of Friends every
+     vestige of slaveholding. I had thrown myself, with a young man's
+     fervid enthusiasm, into a movement which commended itself to my
+     reason and conscience, to my love of country, and my sense of duty
+     to God and my fellow-men. My first venture in authorship was the
+     publication, at my own expense, in the spring of 1833, of a
+     pamphlet entitled 'Justice and Expediency,'[15] on the moral and
+     political evils of slavery, and the duty of emancipation. Under
+     such circumstances, I could not hesitate, but prepared at once for
+     my journey. It was necessary that I should start on the morrow, and
+     the intervening time, with a small allowance for sleep, was spent
+     in providing for the care of the farm and homestead during my
+     absence."
+
+[Footnote 15: Mr. Whittier here made a slip of memory. His first
+work was "Legends of New England," as he himself testifies, in
+his own handwriting, in a memorandum sent to the New England
+Historic-Genealogical Society.]
+
+Mr. Whittier proceeds to tell of his journey to the Quaker City, and of
+the organization and work of the Convention. The following pen-portraits
+are too valuable to be omitted:--
+
+     "Looking over the assembly, I noticed that it was mainly composed
+     of comparatively young men, some in middle age, and a few beyond
+     that period. They were nearly all plainly dressed, with a view to
+     comfort rather than elegance. Many of the faces turned toward me
+     wore a look of expectancy and suppressed enthusiasm; all had the
+     earnestness which might be expected of men engaged in an enterprise
+     beset with difficulty, and perhaps with peril. The fine
+     intellectual head of Garrison, prematurely bald, was conspicuous;
+     the sunny-faced young man at his side, in whom all the beatitudes
+     seemed to find expression, was Samuel J. May, mingling in his veins
+     the best blood of the Sewalls and Quincys; a man so exceptionally
+     pure and large-hearted, so genial, tender, and loving, that he
+     could be faithful to truth and duty without making an enemy.
+
+     The de'il wad look into his face,
+     And swear he could na wrang him.'
+
+     That tall, gaunt, swarthy man, erect, eagle-faced, upon whose
+     somewhat martial figure the Quaker coat seemed a little out of
+     place, was Lindley Coates, known in all Eastern Pennsylvania as a
+     stern enemy of slavery; that slight, eager man, intensely alive in
+     every feature and gesture, was Thomas Shipley, who for thirty years
+     had been the protector of the free colored people of Philadelphia,
+     and whose name was whispered reverently in the slave cabins of
+     Maryland as the friend of the black man,--one of a class peculiar
+     to old Quakerism, who, in doing what they felt to be duty, and
+     walking as the Light within guided them, knew no fear and shrank
+     from no sacrifice. Braver men the world has not known. Beside him,
+     differing in creed but united with him in works of love and
+     charity, sat Thomas Whitson, of the Hicksite school of Friends,
+     fresh from his farm in Lancaster County, dressed in plainest
+     homespun, his tall form surmounted by a shock of unkempt hair, the
+     odd obliquity of his vision contrasting strongly with the clearness
+     and directness of his spiritual insight. Elizur Wright, the young
+     professor of a Western college, who had lost his place by his bold
+     advocacy of freedom, with a look of sharp concentration, in keeping
+     with an intellect keen as a Damascus blade, closely watched the
+     proceedings through his spectacles, opening his mouth only to speak
+     directly to the purpose.... In front of me, awakening pleasant
+     associations of the old homestead in Merrimack valley, sat my first
+     school-teacher, Joshua Coffin, the learned and worthy antiquarian
+     and historian of Newbury. A few spectators, mostly of the Hicksite
+     division of Friends, were present in broad-brims and plain bonnets,
+     among them Esther Moore and Lucretia Mott."
+
+The year 1834 was passed by Whittier quietly on the farm at East
+Haverhill. In April of this year the first anti-slavery society was
+organized in Haverhill, with John G. Whittier as corresponding
+secretary. Not long after a female anti-slavery society was organized in
+the same town. The pro-slavery feeling in Haverhill was as bitter as in
+other places.
+
+One Sabbath afternoon in August, 1835, the Rev. Samuel J. May occupied
+the pulpit of the First Parish Society in Haverhill, and in the evening
+attempted to give an anti-slavery lecture in the Christian Union Chapel,
+having been invited to do so by Mr. Whittier. In his "Recollections of
+the Anti-Slavery Conflict" (p. 152), Mr. May says:--
+
+    "I had spoken about fifteen minutes when the most hideous outcries
+    and yells, from a crowd of men who had surrounded the house,
+    startled us, and then came heavy missiles against the doors and
+    blinds of the windows. I persisted in speaking for a few minutes,
+    hoping the blinds and doors were strong enough to stand the siege.
+    But presently a heavy stone broke through one of the blinds,
+    shattered a pane of glass, and fell upon the head of a lady sitting
+    near the centre of the hall. She uttered a shriek, and fell bleeding
+    into the arms of her sister. The panic-stricken audience rose _en
+    masse_, and began a rush for the doors."
+
+Mr. May succeeded in quieting the fears of the audience, and himself
+escaped through the crowd of infuriated ruffians without by walking
+between two ladies, one of them the sister of Mr. Whittier and the other
+the daughter of a wealthy and determined citizen of the place, who, it
+was well known, would take summary vengeance for any disrespect shown to
+his daughter. It was well that the audience dispersed when it did, since
+a loaded cannon was being drawn to the spot by the furious mob.
+
+This year, 1835, was a year of mobs. On the very same evening that Mr.
+May was mobbed in Haverhill, Mr. Whittier and his English friend, the
+orator George Thompson, were treated in a similar manner in Concord, N.
+H. Whether an account of the Concord mob has been elsewhere published or
+not the author cannot say, but the story given here is as he had it from
+the lips of Mr. Whittier himself.
+
+"Oh! we had a dreadful night of it," he said. The inhabitants had heard
+that an Abolition meeting was to be held in the town, and that the arch
+anarchist, George Thompson, was to speak. So on that Sabbath evening
+they were on the alert, an angry mob some five hundred strong. Mr.
+Whittier, knowing nothing of their state of mind, started down the
+street with a friend: the mob surrounded them, thinking that he was
+Thompson. His friend explained to them that he was Mr. Whittier. "Oh!"
+they exclaimed, "so you are the one who is with Thompson, are you?" and
+forthwith they began to assail the two men with sticks and stones. Mr.
+Whittier said that both he and his friend were hurt, but escaped with
+their lives by taking refuge in the house of a friend named Kent, who
+was not an Abolitionist himself, but was a man of honor and bravery. He
+barred his door, and told the mob that they should have Whittier only
+over his dead body.
+
+In the course of the evening Mr. Whittier learned that the house in
+which Thompson was staying was surrounded by the mob. Becoming anxious,
+he borrowed a hat, sallied out among the crowd, and succeeded in
+reaching his friend. The noise and violence of the mob increased; a
+cannon was brought, and at one time the little band in the house feared
+they might suffer violence. "We did not much fear death," said Mr.
+Whittier, "but we did dread gross personal indignities."
+
+It was fortunately a bright moonlight night, suitable for travelling,
+and about one o'clock the two friends escaped by driving off rapidly in
+their horse and buggy. They did not know the road to Haverhill, but were
+directed by their friends with all possible minuteness. Three miles
+away, also, there was the house of an anti-slavery man, and they
+obtained further directions there. Some time after sunrise they stopped
+at a wayside inn to bait their horse, and get a bite of breakfast for
+themselves. While they were at table the landlord said,--
+
+    "They've been having a h--l of a time down at Haverhill."
+
+    "How is that?"
+
+    "Oh, one of them d--d Abolitionists was lecturin' there; he had been
+    invited to the town by a young fellow named Whittier; but they made
+    it pretty hot for him, and I guess neither he nor Whittier will be
+    in a hurry to repeat the thing."
+
+    "What kind of a fellow is this Whittier?"
+
+    "Oh, he's an ignorant sort of fellow; he don't know much."
+
+    "And who is this Thompson they're talking about?"
+
+    "Why, he's a man sent over here by the British to make trouble in
+    our government."
+
+As the two friends were stepping into the buggy, Mr. Whittier, with one
+foot on the step, turned and said to the host, who was standing by with
+several tavern loafers:--
+
+    "You've been talking about Thompson and Whittier. This is Mr.
+    Thompson, and I am Whittier. Good morning."
+
+"And jumping into the buggy," said the poet, with a twinkle in his eye,
+"we whipped up, and stood not on the order of our going." As for the
+host he stood with open mouth, being absolutely tongue-tied with
+astonishment. "And for all I know," said the narrator, "he's standing
+there still with his mouth open."
+
+Mr. Thompson was secreted at the Whittier farm-house in Haverhill for
+two weeks after this affair.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some two months after the disgraceful scenes just described occurred
+the mobbing of William Lloyd Garrison in Boston. He had gone in the
+evening to deliver a lecture before the Female Anti-Slavery Society. A
+furious mob of "gentlemen of property and standing" surrounded the
+building. Mr. Garrison took refuge in a carpenter's shop in the rear of
+the hall, but was violently seized, let down from a window by a rope,
+and dragged by the mob to the City Hall. Mr. Whittier was staying at the
+house of Rev. Samuel J. May. His sister had gone to the lecture, and Mr.
+Whittier, on hearing of the disturbance, had fears for her safety, and
+went out to seek her. He said to the writer that when he reached the
+City Hall he saw before him the best dressed mob imaginable. Presently
+he heard a cry, "They've got him!" After a short, sharp scuffle Garrison
+was got into a carriage by the police, and taken to the Leverett Street
+jail, as the only place where he could be safe that night in Boston. Mr.
+Whittier and Mr. May immediately went down to the jail to see him.
+Garrison said that he could not say, with Paul, that he was dwelling in
+his own hired house, and so he could not ask them to stay all night
+with him! His coat was not entirely gone, but was pretty badly torn. He
+was at first a good deal agitated by the affair, but when they left him
+he had become calm and assured. On the same evening, the mob threatened
+to make an attack upon Mr. May's house. Mr. Whittier got his sister
+Elizabeth safely bestowed for the night in the dwelling of another
+friend. He and Mr. May passed a sleepless night, and at one time half
+thought that, for safety's sake, they should have stayed in the jail
+with Garrison. However, they were not molested.
+
+It is a remarkable testimony to the esteem in which Mr. Whittier must
+have been held by the citizens of Haverhill that, notwithstanding their
+bitter hatred of Abolitionism, they elected him their representative to
+the State Legislature in 1835, and again in 1836. In 1837 he declined
+re-election. In the legislative documents for 1835 he figures as a
+member of the standing committee on engrossed bills. His name does not
+appear in the State records for 1836: it was undoubtedly owing to his
+secretarial duties, mentioned below, that he was unable to take his
+seat as a member of the Legislature in the second year of his election.
+
+In 1836 Whittier published "Mogg Megone," a poem on an episode in Indian
+life. It will be reviewed, with the rest of his poems, in the second
+part of this volume. In the same year he was appointed Secretary of the
+American Anti-Slavery Society, and removed to Philadelphia. In 1838-39,
+while in that city, he edited a paper which he named the _Pennsylvania
+Freeman_. It had formerly been edited by Benjamin Lundy, under the title
+of the _National Enquirer_. The office of the _Pennsylvania Freeman_ was
+in 1838 sacked and burned by a mob. It was about the same time that
+Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia was burned to the ground by the
+citizens, on the very day after its dedication. Mr. Whittier had read an
+original poem on that occasion. The hall had been built at considerable
+sacrifice by the lovers of freedom, in order that one place at least
+might be open for free discussion. And it was just in order that it
+might not be used thus that it was burned by the guilty-thoughted mob.
+The keys had been given to the mayor, but neither he nor the police
+interfered to prevent the atrocious deed.
+
+In 1837 Mr. Whittier edited, and wrote a preface for, the "Letters of
+John Quincy Adams to his Constituents." These stirring letters of Mr.
+Adams were called forth by the attacks that had been made on him by
+members of Congress for defending the right of negroes to petition the
+Government. Mr. Whittier, in his introductory remarks, speaks of the
+"Letters" as follows:--
+
+     "Their sarcasm is Junius-like, cold, keen, unsparing. In boldness,
+     directness, and eloquent appeal, they will bear comparison with
+     O'Connell's celebrated letters to the Reformers of Great
+     Britain.... It will be seen that, in the great struggle for and
+     against the Right of Petition, an account of which is given in the
+     following pages, their author stood in a great measure alone, and
+     unsupported by his northern colleagues. On 'his gray, discrowned
+     head' the entire fury of slaveholding arrogance and wrath was
+     expended. He stood alone,--beating back, with his aged and single
+     arm, the tide which would have borne down and overwhelmed a less
+     sturdy and determined spirit."
+
+In the same year (1837) Mr. Whittier edited a pamphlet called "Views of
+Slavery and Emancipation," taken from Harriet Martineau's "Society in
+America." The whole subject of slavery is canvassed by Miss Martineau in
+the most searching and judicial manner.
+
+In closing this account of our author's anti-slavery labors, we may
+bestow a word on the attitude assumed toward the Abolition movement by
+the Quakers as a sect. Through the labors of John Woolman, Benjamin
+Lundy, Anthony Benezet, and others, they had early been brought to see
+the wickedness of slaveholding, and in 1780 had succeeded in entirely
+ridding their denomination of the wrong. They not only emancipated their
+slaves, but remunerated them for their past services. Indeed, their
+record in this respect is unique for its fine ideal devotion to exact
+justice. They were the first religious body in the world to remove the
+pollution of slavery from their midst. But the cautious, acquisitive,
+peace-loving Quakers seemed content to rest here, satisfied with having
+cleared their own skirts of wrong. They could not see the good side of
+the Abolition movement. They were scandalized by the violence and
+fanaticism of many Abolitionists. Mr. Whittier felt aggrieved by this
+attitude of the Friends, but did not on that account break with the
+denomination, or abandon the religion of his fathers. In 1868 he wrote
+as follows to the _New Bedford Standard_, which had spoken of him in an
+article on Thomas A. Greene: "My object in referring to the article in
+the paper was mainly to correct a statement regarding myself, viz.: That
+in consequence of the opposition of the Society of Friends to the
+anti-slavery movement, I did not for years attend their meetings. This
+is not true. From my youth up, whenever my health permitted, I have been
+a constant attendant of our meetings for religious worship. _This_ is
+true, however, that after our meeting-houses were denied by the yearly
+meeting for anti-slavery purposes, I did not feel it in my way, for some
+years, to attend the annual meeting at Newport. From a feeling of duty I
+protested against that decision when it was made, but was given to
+understand pretty distinctly that there was no 'weight' in my words. It
+was a hard day for reformers; some stifled their convictions; others,
+not adding patience to their faith, allowed themselves to be worried out
+of the Society. Abolitionists holding office were very generally
+'dropped out,' and the ark of the church staggered on with no profane
+anti-slavery hands upon it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+AMESBURY.
+
+
+After the sacking and burning of the office of the _Pennsylvania
+Freeman_, Whittier returned to Haverhill, and soon after (in 1840) he
+sold the old farm and removed with his mother to Amesbury, a small town
+some nine miles nearer the sea than Haverhill. It is a rural town of
+over three thousand inhabitants, and contains nothing of note except the
+poet Whittier. The business of the place is the manufacture of woollen
+and cotton goods, and of carriages. The landscape is rugged and
+picturesque. The town covers a sloping hillside that stretches down to
+the Merrimack. Across this river rises a high hill, crowned with
+orchards and meadows. In summer time a sweet and quiet air reigns in the
+place. There are old vine-covered houses, grassy lawns, cool crofts, and
+sunken orchards; bees are humming, birds singing, and here and there
+through the trees slender columns of blue wood-smoke float upward in
+airy evanescence. Mr. Whittier's residence is on Friend Street, and not
+far beyond, on the same street, or rather in the delta formed by the
+meeting of two streets, stands the Friends' Meeting-House, where the
+poet has been an attendant nearly all his life:--
+
+    "For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,
+      And holy day, and solemn psalm;
+    For me, the silent reverence where
+      My brethren gather, slow and calm."
+
+This old meeting-house is alluded to by the poet in "Abram Morrison," a
+fine humorous poem published in "The King's Missive" (1881). We there
+read how--
+
+          "On calm and fair First Days
+    Rattled down our one-horse chaise
+    Through the blossomed apple-boughs
+    To the old, brown meeting-house."
+
+Whittier's house is a plain, white-painted structure, standing at the
+corner of two streets, and having in front of it numerous forest trees,
+chiefly maple. Since 1876 the poet has passed only a part of each year
+at Amesbury, his other home being Oak Knoll in Danvers, where he resides
+with distant relatives.
+
+[Illustration: THE WHITTIER HOUSE, AMESBURY, MASS.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The study at Amesbury of course possesses great interest for us as the
+place where most of the poet's finest lyrics have been written. It is a
+very cosey little study, and is entered by one door from within and
+another from without. The upper half of the outer door is of glass. This
+door is at the end of the left-hand porch shown in the view on page 125.
+The two windows in the study look out upon a long strip of yard in the
+rear of the house,--very pretty and quiet, and filled with pear-trees
+and other trees and vines. Upon one side of the room are shelves holding
+five or six hundred well-used volumes. Among them are to be noticed
+Charles Reade's novels and the poems of Robert Browning. A side-shelf is
+completely filled with a small blue and gold edition of the poets. On
+the walls hang oil paintings of views on the Merrimack River and other
+Essex County scenes, including Mr. Whittier's birthplace. In one corner
+is a handsome writing-desk, littered with papers and letters. Upon the
+hearth of the Franklin stove, high andirons smile a fireside welcome
+from their burnished brass knobs. Indeed, everything in the room is as
+neat and cosey as the wax cell of a honey-bee. And over all is shed the
+genial glow of the gentlest, tenderest nature in all the land.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the autumn of 1844 was written "The Stranger in Lowell," a series of
+light sketches suggested by personal experiences. The style of these
+essays reminds one of that of "Twice Told Tales," but it is not so pure.
+The thought is developed too rhetorically, and the essays betray the
+limitations attending the life of a recluse. But these sketches are
+interesting as exhibitions of the growth of the author toward this
+peculiar form of essay-writing, and are valuable on that account.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1847 James G. Birney's anti-slavery paper, _The Philanthropist_,
+published in Cincinnati, was merged with the _National Era_, of
+Washington, D. C., with Dr. Gamaliel Bailey as managing editor, and
+John G. Whittier as associate or corresponding editor. Dr. Bailey had
+previously helped edit _The Philanthropist_. Both papers were treated to
+mobocratic attacks. The _Era_ became an important organ of the Abolition
+party in Washington. To it Mr. Whittier contributed his "Old Portraits
+and Modern Sketches" as well as other reform papers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the same year (1847) our author published his "Supernaturalism of New
+England." [New York and London: Wiley and Putnam.] This pleasant little
+volume shows a marked advance upon Whittier's previous prose work. In
+its nine chapters he has preserved a number of oral legends and
+interesting superstitions of the farmer-folk of the Merrimack region.
+Parts of the work have been quoted elsewhere in this volume. One of the
+chapters closes with the following fine passage:--
+
+     "The witches of Father Baxter and 'the Black Man' of Cotton Mather
+     have vanished; belief in them is no longer possible on the part of
+     sane men. But this mysterious universe, through which, half veiled
+     in its own shadow, our dim little planet is wheeling, with its
+     star-worlds and thought-wearying spaces, remains. Nature's mighty
+     miracle is still over and around us; and hence awe, wonder, and
+     reverence remain to be the inheritance of humanity: still are there
+     beautiful repentances and holy death-beds, and still over the
+     soul's darkness and confusion rises star-like the great idea of
+     duty. By higher and better influences than the poor spectres of
+     superstition man must henceforth be taught to reverence the
+     Invisible, and, in the consciousness of his own weakness and sin
+     and sorrow, to lean with childlike trust on the wisdom and mercy of
+     an overruling Providence."
+
+In 1849 Mr. Whittier collected and published his anti-slavery poems,
+under the title "Voices of Freedom." The year 1850 marks a new era in
+his poetical career. He published at that time his "Songs of Labor,"--a
+volume which showed that his mind had become calmed by time, and was now
+capable of interesting itself in other than reform subjects.
+
+There is not much of outward incident and circumstance to record of the
+quiet poetical years passed since 1840 at Amesbury and Danvers. Almost
+every year or two a new volume of poems has been issued, each one
+establishing on a firmer foundation the Quaker Poet's reputation as a
+creator of sweet and melodious lyrical poetry.
+
+In 1868 an institution called "Whittier College" was opened at Salem,
+Henry County, Iowa. It was founded in honor of the poet, and is
+conducted in accordance with the principles of the Society of Friends.
+
+In 1871 Whittier edited "Child-Life: A Collection of Poems," by various
+home and foreign authors. In the same year he edited, with a long
+introduction, the "Journal of John Woolman."
+
+The name John Woolman is not widely known to persons of the present
+generation; and yet, as Whittier says, it was this humble Quaker
+reformer of New Jersey who did more than any one else to inspire all the
+great modern movements for the emancipation of slaves, first in the West
+Indies, then in the United States, and in Russia. Warner Mifflin, Jean
+Pierre Brissot, Thomas Clarkson, Stephen Grellet, William Allen, and
+Benjamin Lundy,--all these philanthropists owed much of their impulse to
+labor for the freedom of the slave to humble John Woolman. His journal
+or autobiography was highly praised by Charles Lamb, Edward Irving,
+Crabb Robinson, and others. "The style is that of a man unlettered, but
+with natural refinement and delicate sense of fitness, the purity of
+whose heart enters into his language."
+
+Woolman was born in Northampton, West Jersey, in 1720. One day, in the
+year 1742, while clerk in a store in the village of Mount Holly,
+township of Northampton, N. J., he was asked by his employer to make out
+the bill of sale of a negro. He drew up the instrument, but his
+conscience was awakened, and some years after he began his life-work as
+a pedestrian anti-slavery preacher. He refused to ride in, or have
+letters sent him by, the stage-coaches, because of the cruelty exercised
+toward the horses by the drivers. Neither would he accept hospitality
+from those who kept slaves, always paying either the owners or the
+slaves for his entertainment. Woolman was most gentle and kind in his
+appeals to slave-owners, and rarely met with any violent remonstrance.
+Much of his work was within the limits of his own sect, and Mr.
+Whittier's introduction gives a valuable and succinct historical
+_résumé_ of the steps taken by the Friends to rid their sect of the
+stigma of slaveholding.
+
+Mount Holly, in Woolman's day, says Whittier, "was almost entirely a
+settlement of Friends. A very few of the old houses with their quaint
+stoops or porches are left. That occupied by John Woolman was a small,
+plain, two-story structure, with two windows in each story in front, a
+four-barred fence enclosing the grounds, with the trees he planted and
+loved to cultivate. The house was not painted, but whitewashed. The name
+of the place is derived from the highest hill in the county, rising two
+hundred feet above the sea, and commanding a view of a rich and level
+country of cleared farms and woodlands."
+
+Very amusing is the picture given by Mr. Whittier of the eccentric
+Benjamin Lay, once a member of the Society of Friends in England, and
+afterward an inhabitant for some time of the West Indies, whence he was
+driven away on account of the violence and extravagance of his
+denunciations of slavery. He was a contemporary of Woolman. He lived in
+a cave near Philadelphia, as a sort of Jonah or Elijah, prophesying woe
+against the city on account of its participation in the crime of
+slavery. He wore clothes made of vegetable fibre, and ate only vegetable
+food. "Issuing from his cave, on his mission of preaching 'deliverance
+to the captive,' he was in the habit of visiting the various meetings
+for worship and bearing his testimony against slaveholders, greatly to
+their disgust and indignation. On one occasion he entered the Market
+Street Meeting, and a leading Friend requested some one to take him out.
+A burly blacksmith volunteered to do it, leading him to the gate and
+thrusting him out with such force that he fell into the gutter of the
+street. There he lay until the meeting closed, telling the bystanders
+that he did not feel free to rise himself. 'Let those who cast me here
+raise me up. It is their business, not mine.'
+
+"His personal appearance was in remarkable keeping with his eccentric
+life. A figure only four and a half feet high, hunch-backed, with
+projecting chest, legs small and uneven, arms longer than his legs; a
+huge head, showing only beneath the enormous white hat large, solemn
+eyes and a prominent nose; the rest of his face covered with a snowy
+semicircle of beard falling low on his breast,--a figure to recall the
+old legends of troll, brownie, and kobold. Such was the irrepressible
+prophet who troubled the Israel of slaveholding Quakerism, clinging like
+a rough chestnut-burr to the skirts of its respectability, and settling
+like a pertinacious gad-fly on the sore places of its conscience.
+
+"On one occasion, while the annual meeting was in session at Burlington,
+N. J., in the midst of the solemn silence of the great assembly, the
+unwelcome figure of Benjamin Lay, wrapped in his long white overcoat,
+was seen passing up the aisle. Stopping midway, he exclaimed, 'You
+slaveholders! Why don't you throw off your Quaker coats as I do mine,
+and show yourselves as you are?' Casting off as he spoke his outer
+garment, he disclosed to the astonished assembly a military coat
+underneath, and a sword dangling at his heels. Holding in one hand a
+large book, he drew his sword with the other. 'In the sight of God,' he
+cried, 'you are as guilty as if you stabbed your slaves to the heart, as
+I do this book!' suiting the action to the word, and piercing a small
+bladder filled with the juice of poke-weed (_phytolacca decandra_),
+which he had concealed between the covers, and sprinkling as with fresh
+blood those who sat near him."
+
+There is something overwhelmingly ludicrous about this bladder of
+poke-weed juice! And what a subject for a painter!--the portentous,
+white-bearded dwarf standing there in the midst of the church, in act to
+plunge his gigantic sword tragically into the innermost bowels of the
+crimson poke-juice bladder, and from all parts of the house the
+converging looks of the broad-brimmed and shovel-bonneted Quakers!
+
+Mr. Whittier further says that "Lay was well acquainted with Dr.
+Franklin, who sometimes visited him. Among other schemes of reform he
+entertained the idea of converting all mankind to Christianity. This was
+to be done by three witnesses,--himself, Michael Lovell, and Abel Noble,
+assisted by Dr. Franklin. But, on their first meeting at the doctor's
+house, the three 'chosen vessels' got into a violent controversy on
+points of doctrine, and separated in ill-humor. The philosopher, who had
+been an amused listener, advised the three sages to give up the project
+of converting the world until they had learned to tolerate each other."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1873 Mr. Whittier edited "Child-Life in Prose." It is a collection of
+pretty stories, chiefly about the childhood of various eminent persons.
+One of the stories is by the editor, and is about "A Fish that I Didn't
+Catch."
+
+In 1875 appeared "Songs of Three Centuries." The poet's design in this
+work was (to use his own words) "to gather up in a comparatively small
+volume, easily accessible to all classes of readers, the wisest
+thoughts, rarest fancies, and devoutest hymns of the metrical authors of
+the last three centuries." He says, "The selections I have made
+indicate, in a general way, my preferences." It is a choice collection,
+rich in lyrical masterpieces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+LATER DAYS.
+
+
+About a mile westward from the village of Danvers, Mass., a grassy road,
+named Summer Street, branches off to the right and north. It is a
+pleasant, winding road, bordered by picturesque old stone fences and
+lined with barberry and raspberry bushes and gnarled old apple-trees. On
+either side are cultivated fields. Oak Knoll, the winter residence of
+Whittier, is the second house on the left, some half a mile up the road.
+
+This fine old estate had been occupied for half a century by a man of
+wealth and taste. About the year 1875 it passed into the hands of Col.
+Edmund Johnson, of Boston, whose wife was Whittier's cousin.
+
+It was planned that the poet should be a member of the household; rooms
+were set apart and arranged for him, and he gave the estate its present
+name.
+
+It is a spot full of traditions, and well suited to any poet's
+residence, most of all for one so versed in New England legends. It is
+the very spot once occupied by the Rev. George Burroughs, a clergyman
+who was hung for witchcraft in 1692, on the charge, among other things,
+of "having performed feats of extraordinary physical strength." He could
+hold out a gun seven feet long, tradition says, by putting his finger in
+the muzzle, and could lift a barrel of molasses in the same way by the
+bung-hole. For acts like these--deemed unclerical, at least, if not
+unnatural--he was convicted and hanged; and a well on the premises of
+Oak Knoll is still known as the "witch well."
+
+Here, in the home of relatives, the poet has lived since 1876. A
+lovelier and more poetical place it would be difficult to imagine. The
+extensive, carefully kept grounds, and the antique elegance of the
+house, give to the estate the air of an old English manor, or
+gentleman's country hall. The house is approached by a long,
+upward-sweeping lawn, diversified with stately forest trees, clumps of
+evergreens and shrubs and flowers. Down across the road stands a large
+and handsome barn, which is as neat as paint and care can make it. In
+front of the house the eye ranges downward over an extensive landscape,
+as far as to the town of Peabody, in the direction of Salem. Indeed, on
+every side of the estate there are broad and distant views of the blue
+hills of Essex and Middlesex.
+
+[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE PORCH AT OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, MASS.]
+
+In the summer, as you ascend the carriage-road that winds through the
+grounds, your eye is captured by the rare beauty of the scene. Yonder is
+a tall living wall of verdure, with an archway cut through it. To the
+left the grounds sweep gently down to a deep ravine, where a little
+rivulet, named Beaver Brook, creeps leisurely out and winds seaward
+through green and marish meadows. It is in this portion of the grounds
+that the fine oak-trees grow which give to the place its name. Here,
+too, is a large grove of pines, with numerous seats within it. There are
+trees and trees at Oak Knoll,--smooth and shapely hickories, glistering
+chestnuts with cool foliage, maples, birches, and the purple beech. Add
+to the picture the rural accessories of bee-haunted clover-fields, apple
+and pear orchards, and beds of tempting strawberries. The house is of
+wood, salmon-colored, with tall porches on each side, up-propped by
+stately Doric columns. In front, with wide sweep of closely cropped
+grass intervening, is the magnificent Norway spruce that Oliver Wendell
+Holmes, a year or two before Mr. Whittier's death, on one of those
+periodical visits to his brother poet that so delighted their two souls,
+named "The Poets' Pagoda." A luxuriant vine clusters about the eaves of
+the house. On the long porch a mocking-bird and a canary-bird fill the
+green silence with gushes of melody, and near at hand, in his study in
+the wing of the building, sits one with a singing pen and listens to
+their song. To their song and to the murmur of the tall pines by his
+window he listens, then looks into his heart and writes,--this
+sweet-souled magician,--and craftily imprisons between the covers of his
+books, echoes of bird and tree music, bits of blue sky, glimpses of
+green landscape, winding rivers, and idyls of the snow,--all suffused
+and interfused with a glowing atmosphere of human and divine love, such
+as the poet found in this home of his choosing at Oak Knoll. It will not
+perhaps be intruding upon the privacies of home to say that the members
+of the cultured household at Oak Knoll ever, found in their happy
+circle, their highest pleasure in ministering to all needs, social or
+otherwise, of their loved cousin the poet. Three sisters dispense the
+hospitalities of the house, and a young daughter of Mrs. Woodman's adds
+the charm of girlhood to the family life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Readers of Whittier, who know how deeply his writings are tinged with
+the scenery, legendary lore and folk-life of his native Merrimack
+Valley, will not wonder that a certain _Heimweh_, or home-sickness,
+draws him northward, when
+
+                        "Flows amain
+    The surge of summer's beauty."
+
+and
+
+    "Pours the deluge of the heat
+    Broad northward o'er the land."
+
+It is but one hour's ride by cars from Danvers to Amesbury; and part of
+the time in the latter place, and part of the time at the Isles of
+Shoals, and in the beautiful lake and mountain region of New Hampshire,
+Mr. Whittier passes the warm season. For many years it was his custom to
+spend a portion of each summer at the Bearcamp River House, in West
+Ossipee, N. H., some thirty miles north of Lake Winnipiseogee. The hotel
+was situated on a slight eminence, commanding a view of towering "Mount
+Israel" and of "Whittier Mountain," named after the poet. It is a region
+full of noble prospects, being just in the out-skirts of the White
+Mountain group. Several of the poems of Whittier were inspired by this
+scenery, notably "Among the Hills," "Sunset on the Bearcamp," and "The
+Seeking of the Waterfall." In the first of these we read how--
+
+    "Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang,"
+
+and--
+
+    "Above his broad lake Ossipee,
+      Once more the sunshine wearing,
+    Stooped, tracing on that silver shield
+      His grim armorial bearing."
+
+"Sunset on the Bearcamp" contains a stanza considered by some to be one
+of the poet's finest:--
+
+    "Touched by a light that hath no name,
+      A glory never sung,
+    Aloft on sky and mountain wall
+      Are God's great pictures hung.
+    How changed the summits vast and old!
+      No longer granite-browed,
+    They melt in rosy mist; the rock
+      Is softer than the cloud;
+    The valley holds its breath; no leaf
+      Of all its elms is twirled:
+    The silence of eternity
+      Seems falling on the world."
+
+The Bearcamp River House (now no more) was a hostelry whose site,
+antique hospitality, and eminent guests were every whit as worthy to be
+embalmed in lasting verse as were those of the Wayside Inn of Sudbury.
+Before the red, crackling flames of its huge fireplace such literary
+characters as Whittier, Gail Hamilton, Lucy Larcom, and Hiram Rich used
+to gather on chill summer evenings for the kind of talks that only a
+wood fire can inspire. The Quaker poet is a charming conversationalist,
+and can _tell_ a story as capitally as he can write one. He has a
+goodly _répertoire_ of ghost tales and legends of the marvellous. One of
+his best stories is about a scene that took place in Independence Hall
+in Philadelphia, when the court remanded a negro to slavery. The poet
+says that an old sailor who was present became so infuriated by the
+spectacle that he made the air blue with oaths uttered in seven
+different languages.[16]
+
+[Footnote 16: For these details about days on the Bearcamp, the writer
+is indebted to Dr. Robert R. Andrews, an acquaintance of the poet.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+December 17, 1877, was the poet's seventieth birthday, and the occasion
+was celebrated in a twofold manner, namely, by a Whittier Tribute in the
+_Literary World_, and by a Whittier Banquet given at the Hotel
+Brunswick, in Boston, by Messrs. H. O. Houghton and Co., the publishers
+of Whittier's works. The _Literary World_ tribute contained poems by
+Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Bayard Taylor, E. C. Stedman, O. W. Holmes,
+William Lloyd Garrison, and others. Mr. Longfellow's poem, "The Three
+Silences," is one of unusual beauty.
+
+
+              THE THREE SILENCES OF MOLINOS.
+
+    "Three Silences there are: the first of speech,
+      The second of desire, the third of thought;
+      This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught
+      With dreams and visions, was the first to teach.
+    These Silences, commingling each with each
+      Made up the perfect Silence, that he sought
+      And prayed for, and wherein at times he caught
+      Mysterious sounds from realms beyond our reach.
+    O thou, whose daily life anticipates
+      The life to come, and in whose thought and word
+      The spiritual world preponderates,
+    Hermit of Amesbury! thou too hast heard
+      Voices and melodies from beyond the gates,
+      And speakest only when thy soul is stirred!"
+
+There were letters from the poet Bryant, the historian George Bancroft,
+Colonel T. W. Higginson, and Mrs. H. B. Stowe; and there was a pleasant
+description of the Danvers home by Charles B. Rice. Mr. Whittier's
+"Response" was published in the January number of the paper:--
+
+    "Beside that milestone where the level sun,
+      Nigh unto setting, sheds his last, low rays
+    On word and work irrevocably done,
+    Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun,
+      I hear, O friends! your words of cheer and praise,
+    Half doubtful if myself or otherwise.
+      Like him who, in the old Arabian joke,
+      A beggar slept and crowned Caliph woke."
+
+The anniversary of the founding of the _Atlantic Monthly_ happening to
+be synchronous with Whittier's birthday, the publishers determined to
+make a double festival of the occasion. The gathering at the Hotel
+Brunswick was a brilliant one, and the invitations were not limited by
+any clique or any sectional lines.
+
+In this same month the admirers of Mr. Whittier in Haverhill,
+Newburyport, and neighboring towns, formed a Whittier Club, its annual
+meetings to be held on December 17.
+
+The ladies of Amesbury presented to the poet on his birthday a richly
+finished Russia-leather portfolio, containing fourteen beautiful
+sketches in water-colors of scenes in and about Amesbury, by a talented
+Amesbury artist. The subjects of the sketches are those scenes which he
+has immortalized in his poems, and include his home, birthplace, the old
+school-house, old Quaker Meeting-House, Rivermouth Rocks, etc. The
+portfolio was presented to him at Oak Knoll, accompanied by a basket of
+exquisite flowers.
+
+Since taking up his residence in Danvers, the poet has published "The
+Vision of Echard, and Other Poems,"--including the beautiful ballad,
+"The Witch of Wenham,"--and "The King's Missive, and Other Poems."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+PERSONAL.
+
+
+As a boy, Whittier grew up slender, delicate, and shy, with dark hair
+and dark eyes; his nature silent and brooding, gentle, compassionate,
+religious, and sensitive to the beauty of the external world. He is of
+the nervous temperament, and his health has never been robust. Indeed,
+in later life the state of his health has often been precarious, and his
+plans for work have been at the mercy of his nerves. As a young man, and
+crowned Laureate of Freedom, Whittier must have presented a striking
+appearance, with his raven hair, and glittering black eyes flashing with
+the inspiration of a great cause. Mr. J. Miller McKim, a member with
+Whittier of the famous Anti-Slavery Convention held in Philadelphia in
+1833, thus describes the poet:--
+
+     "He wore a dark frock-coat with standing collar, which, with his
+     thin hair, dark and sometimes flashing eyes, and black
+     whiskers,--not large, but noticeable in those unhirsute days,--gave
+     him, to my then unpractised eye, quite as much of a military as a
+     Quaker aspect. His broad, square forehead and well-cut features,
+     aided by his incipient reputation as a poet, made him quite a
+     noticeable feature in the convention."
+
+Frederika Bremer, in her "Sketches of American Homes," gives an outline
+portrait of Whittier as he appeared when forty years of age:--
+
+    "He has a good exterior, a figure slender and tall, a beautiful head
+    with refined features, black eyes full of fire, dark complexion, a
+    fine smile, and lively but very nervous manner. Both soul and spirit
+    have overstrained the nervous cords and wasted the body. He belongs
+    to those natures who would advance with firmness and joy to
+    martyrdom in a good cause, and yet who are never comfortable in
+    society, and who look as if they would run out of the door every
+    moment. He lives with his mother and sister in a country-house to
+    which I have promised to go. I feel that I should enjoy myself with
+    Whittier, and could make him feel at ease with me. I know from my
+    own experience what this nervous bashfulness, caused by the
+    over-exertion of the brain, requires, and how persons who suffer
+    therefrom ought to be met and treated."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+George W. Bungay, in his "Crayon Sketches" of distinguished Americans,
+published in 1852, gives the following picture of Whittier: "His
+temperament is nervous-bilious; [he] is tall, slender and straight
+as an Indian; has a superb head; his brow looks like a white cloud
+under his raven hair; eyes large, black as sloes, and glowing with
+expression,-- ... those star-like eyes dashing under such a magnificent
+forehead."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A writer in the _Democratic Review_ for August, 1845, speaks of "the
+fine intellectual beauty of his expression, the blending brightness and
+softness of the clear dark eye, the union of manly firmness and courage
+with womanly sweetness and tenderness alike in countenance and
+character."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. David A. Wasson says that Whittier is of the Saracenic or Hebrew
+prophet type: "The high cranium, so lofty, especially in the dome,--the
+slight and symmetrical backward slope of the _whole_ head,--the powerful
+level brows, and beneath these the dark, deep eyes, so full of shadowed
+fire,--the Arabian complexion,--the sharp-cut, intense lines of the
+face,--the light, tall, erect stature,--the quick, axial poise of the
+movement,"--all these traits reveal the fiery Semitic prophet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The long backward and upward slope of the head, alluded to by Mr.
+Wasson, is very striking. It is the head of Walter Scott or of Emerson.
+Whittier is now an old man, somewhat hard of hearing, and with the fixed
+sadness of time upon his pleasant face. But ever and anon, as you
+converse with him, his countenance is irradiated by a sudden smile,
+sweet and strange and full of benignity,--like a waft of perfume from a
+bed of white violets, or a glint of rich sunlight on an April day. His
+is one of those Emersonian natures that everybody loves at first sight.
+The very mole under the right eye seems somehow the birth-mark or
+sign-manual of kindliness. The quaint grammatical solecisms of the
+Quaker and the New England farmer--the "thee's" and the omission of the
+_g_'s from present participles and other words ending in
+"ing"--give to the poet's conversation a certain slight piquancy and
+picturesqueness.[17] About half-past nine every morning, when at
+Amesbury, Mr. Whittier walks down for the mail and the news, and perhaps
+has a chat with some neighbor on the street, or with the country editor
+who is setting up in type his own editorials while he grimly rolls his
+quid of tobacco in his cheek. In the spring and early summer the poet's
+dress will be after this fashion: black coat and vest, gray pantaloons,
+cinnamon-colored overcoat, drab tile hat, and perhaps a small gray
+tippet around his neck. As he walks, he salutes those whom he meets with
+a little jerky bow. A forty years' residence in Amesbury has made him
+acquainted with almost everybody, and he might, therefore, very properly
+be somewhat economical of exertion in his salutations. But his abrupt
+bow is really the expression of that unbending rectitude and noble pride
+in individual freedom that made him the reformer and the poet of
+liberty. As a single instance of Whittier's kind-heartedness, take the
+following incident, narrated by an anonymous writer in the _Literary
+World_ for December, 1877: "When I was a young man trying to get an
+education, I went about the country peddling sewing-silk to help myself
+through college; and one Saturday night found me at Amesbury, a stranger
+and without a lodging-place. It happened that the first house at which I
+called was Whittier's, and he himself came to the door. On hearing my
+request he said he was very sorry that he could not keep me, but it was
+quarterly meeting and his house was full. He, however, took the trouble
+to show me to a neighbor's, where he left me; but that did not seem to
+wholly suit his idea of hospitality, for in the course of the evening he
+made his appearance, saying that it had occurred to him that he could
+sleep on a lounge, and give up his own bed to me,--which it is, perhaps,
+needless to say, was not allowed. But this was not all. The next morning
+he came again, with the suggestion that I might perhaps like to attend
+meeting, inviting me to go with him; and he gave me a seat next to
+himself. The meeting lasted an hour, during which there was not a word
+spoken by any one. We all sat in silence that length of time, then all
+arose, shook hands and dispersed; and I remember it as one of the best
+meetings I ever attended."
+
+[Footnote 17: The writer remembers once speaking with a laborer whom Mr.
+Whittier had employed. The good fellow could not conceal his admiration
+for the poet, "Why," he said, "you wouldn't think it, would you, but he
+talks just like common folks. We was talkin' about the apples one day,
+and he said, 'Some years they ain't wuth pickin','--just like anybody,
+you know; ain't stuck up at all, and yet he's a great man, you know. He
+likes to talk with farmers and common folks; he don't go much with the
+bigbugs;--one of the nicest men, and liberal with his money, too."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dom Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil, is a reader of Mr. Whittier's poems,
+and an ardent admirer of his genius. He has exchanged letters with him,
+both in regard to poetry and to the emancipation of slaves.[18] When
+his Majesty was in this country, in 1876, he expressed a wish to meet
+Mr. Whittier, and on Wednesday evening, June 14, a little reception was
+arranged by Mrs. John T. Sargent at her Chestnut Street home, a few
+prominent persons having been invited to be present. "When the Emperor
+arrived, the other guests had already assembled. Sending up his card,
+his Majesty followed it with the quickness of an enthusiastic
+school-boy; and his first question, after somewhat hastily paying his
+greetings, was for Mr. Whittier. The poet stepped forward to meet his
+imperial admirer, who would fain have caught him in his arms and
+embraced him warmly, with all the enthusiasm of the Latin race. The
+diffident Friend seemed somewhat abashed at so demonstrative a greeting,
+but with a cordial grasp of the hand drew Dom Pedro to the sofa, where
+the two chatted easily and with the familiarity of old friends.
+
+[Footnote 18: The Emperor has translated Whittier's "Cry of a Lost Soul"
+into Portuguese, and has sent to the poet several specimens of the
+Amazonian bird whose peculiar note suggested the poem.]
+
+"The rest of the company allowed them to enjoy their _tête-à-tête_ for
+some half hour, when they ventured to interrupt it, and the Emperor
+joined very heartily in a general conversation."
+
+As the Emperor was driving away, he was seen standing erect in his open
+barouche, and "waving his hat, with a seeming hurrah, at the house which
+held his venerable friend."[19]
+
+[Footnote 19: Mrs. Sargent's "Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical
+Club," pp. 301, 302.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As a specimen of Mr. Whittier's genial and winning epistolary style, it
+is permissible to quote here a letter of his, addressed to Mrs. John T.
+Sargent, and included by her in her sketches of the Radical Club:--
+
+     "AMESBURY, Wednesday Eve.
+
+     "MY DEAR MRS. SARGENT,--Few stronger inducements could be held out
+     to me than that in thy invitation to meet Lucretia Mott and Mary
+     Carpenter. But I do not see that I can possibly go to Boston this
+     week. None the less do I thank thee, my dear friend, in thinking of
+     me in connection with their visit.
+
+     "My love to Lucretia Mott, and tell her I have never forgotten the
+     kind welcome and generous sympathy she gave the young abolitionist
+     at a time when he found small favor with his 'orthodox' brethren.
+     What a change she and I have lived to see! I hope to meet Miss
+     Carpenter before she leaves us. For this, and for all thy kindness
+     in times past, believe me gratefully thy friend,
+
+     "JOHN G. WHITTIER."
+
+The modesty and shyness of the poet have already been more than once
+alluded to. They form his most distinctive personal or constitutional
+peculiarity. It is unnecessary to quote from his writings to illustrate
+what is patent to everybody who reads his books, or knows anything about
+him.
+
+The poet's personal friends know well that he has a good deal of genial,
+mellow humorousness in his nature. To get an idea of it, read his
+charming prose sketches of home and rural life, and such poems as the
+whimsical, enigmatical "Demon of the Study," as well as "The Pumpkin,"
+"To My Old Schoolmaster," and the "Double-Headed Snake of Newbury."
+These poems almost equal Holmes's for rich and _riant_ humor.
+
+It is not so well known as it ought to be that the author of
+"Snow-Bound" has as deep a love of children as had Longfellow. Before
+the Bearcamp House was burned to the ground in 1880, Mr. Whittier used
+sometimes to come up from Amesbury with a whole bevy of little misses
+about him, and at the hotel the wee folk hailed him as one of those dear
+old fellows whom they always love at sight. It is said that Edward
+Lear--the friend of Tennyson, and author of "Nonsense Verses" for
+children--used to make a hobby-horse of himself in the castles of
+Europe, and treat his little friends to a gallop over the carpet on his
+back. If Mr. Whittier never got quite so far as this in juvenile
+equestrianism, he has at least equally endeared himself to the children
+who have had the good fortune to look into his loving eyes and enjoy the
+sunshine of his smile. When sitting by the fireside, or stretched at
+ease on the fragrant hay in the barn or field, or walking among the
+hills, nothing pleases him better than to have an audience of young
+folks eagerly listening to one of his stories. If they are engaged in a
+game of archery, he will take a hand in the sport, and no one is better
+pleased than he to hit the white. His unfailing kindness in answering
+the many letters addressed to him by young literary aspirants, or by
+others who desire his advice and help, is something admirable: no one
+knows how to win hearts better than he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To these notes of personal traits it only remains to add a list of the
+offices of dignity and honor which have been held by Mr. Whittier.
+Besides his various editorial, secretarial, and legislative positions,
+he served as Overseer of Harvard College from 1858 to 1863. He was a
+member of the Electoral College in 1860 and in 1864. The degree of
+Master of Arts was bestowed upon him by Harvard College in 1860, and the
+same degree by Haverford College in the same year. He was elected a
+resident member of the American Philosophical Society in 1864, but never
+accepted the honor, notwithstanding the fact that his name appeared for
+two or three years on the Society's roll. In 1871 he was made a Fellow
+of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+ANALYSIS OF HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE MAN.
+
+    _"Not by the page word-painted
+    Let life be banned or sainted:
+    Deeper than written scroll
+    The colors of the soul."_
+
+    MY TRIUMPH.
+
+
+To analyze and describe the _poetry_ of Whittier is a comparatively easy
+task, for it is all essentially lyrical or descriptive, and is
+resolvable into a few simple elements. His poetry is not profound; but
+it is sweet and melodious,--now flashing with the fire of freedom and
+choked with passionate indignation, and now purling and rippling through
+the tranquil meadows of legend and song. Such a poem as Emerson's
+"Sphinx," groaning with its weight of mystical meaning, Whittier never
+wrote, nor could write. Neither is he dramatic, nor skilled in the
+subtile harmonies of rhythm and metre. As an artist he is easily
+comprehensible. But to fathom the _man_,--to drop one's plummet into
+the infinite depths of the human mind, to peer about with one's little
+candle among the dusty phantoms and spent forces of the past, and
+through the endlessly crossing and interblending meshes trace
+confidently up all the greater and the finer hereditary influences that
+have moulded a human character,--and then discover and weigh the
+post-natal forces that have acted upon that character through a long and
+varied life,--this is a very difficult task, and demands in him who
+would undertake it a union of historic imagination with caution and
+modesty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The moral in Whittier predominates over the æsthetic, the reformer over
+the artist. "I am a man, and I feel that I am above all else a man."
+What is the great central element in our poet's character, if it is not
+that deep, never-smouldering moral fervor, that unquenchable love of
+freedom, that--
+
+    "Hate of tyranny intense,
+    And hearty in its vehemence,"
+
+which, mixed with the beauty and melody of his soul, gives to his pages
+a delicate glow as of gold-hot iron; which crowns him the Laureate of
+Freedom in his day, and imparts to his utterances the manly ring of the
+prose of Milton and Hugo and the poetry of Byron, Swinburne, and
+Whitman,--all poets of freedom like himself?
+
+[Illustration: Handwriting: John G. Whittier]
+
+And what is love of freedom but the mainspring of Democracy? And what is
+Democracy but the rallying-cry of the age, the one word of the present,
+the one word of the future, the word of all words, and the white,
+electric beacon-light of modern life?
+
+At the apex of modern Democracy stands Jesus of Nazareth; at its base
+stand the poets and heroes of freedom of the past hundred years.
+Christian Democracy has had its revolutions, its religious ferments and
+revolts, and its emancipations of slaves. Quakerism is one of its
+outcomes. Democracy produced George Fox; George Fox produced Quakerism;
+Quakerism produced Whittier; Whittier helped destroy slavery. He could
+not help doing so, for with slavery both Democracy and Quakerism are
+incompatible. Whittier fought slavery as a Quaker, he has lived as a
+Quaker, and written as a Quaker; he has never fully emancipated himself
+from the shackles of the sect. To understand him, therefore, we must
+understand his religion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The principles of the sect are all summed up in the phrases _Freedom_
+and the _Inner Light_. Historically considered, Quakerism is a product
+of the ferment that followed the civil war in England two centuries ago.
+Considered abstractly, or as a congeries of principles, it has a
+sociological and a philosophical root, both of these running back into
+the great tap-root, love of freedom, whose iron-tough, writhen fibres
+enwrap the dark foundation rocks of human nature itself.
+
+Sociologically speaking, Quakerism is pure democracy, an exaltation of
+the majesty of the individual and of the mass of the people. It is the
+pure precipitate of Christianity. It is a protest against the hypocrisy,
+formalism, tyranny, of priestcraft, king-craft, and aristocracy.
+
+Philosophically, its theory of the Inner Light is identical with the
+doctrine of idealism or innate ideas, held by Descartes, Fichte,
+Schelling, Cousin. It means individualism, a return to the primal
+sanities of the soul. "I think, therefore I am." My thinking soul is the
+ultimate source of ideas and truth. In that serene holy of holies
+full-grown ideas leap into being,--subjective, _a priori_, needing no
+sense-perception for their genesis.
+
+But Transcendentalism differed from Quakerism in this: the former held
+that the illumination of the mind was a natural process; but Quakerism
+maintains that it is a supernatural process, the work of the "Holy
+Ghost." And herein Quakerism is inferior to Transcendentalism. But it is
+superior to it in that it does not believe in the infallibility of
+individual intuitions, but considers the true criterion of truth to be
+the universal reason, the "consensus of the competent." Yet the great
+danger that pertains to all moonshiny, or subjective, systems of
+philosophy is that their individualism will spindle out into wild
+extravagances of theory, and foolish eccentricities of manner and dress;
+and we shall find that, practically, Quakerism has as Quixotic a record
+as Transcendentalism. To say that both systems have performed noble and
+indispensable service in the development of mind is but to utter a
+truism.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We may now consider a little more closely the peculiarities of doctrine
+and life which characterize the Friends. The doctrine of the Inner
+Light, or pure spirituality, resulted in such tenets as these: the
+freedom of conscience; the soul the fountain of all truth, worthlessness
+of tradition and unsanctified learning; the conscience or voice within
+the judge of the Bible or Written Word; disbelief in witchcraft, ghosts,
+and other superstitions; love of friends and enemies, the potency of
+moral suasion, moral ideas, and as a consequence the wickedness of war,
+and a belief in human progress as the result of peaceable industry;
+universal enfranchisement, every man and woman may be enlightened by the
+Inner Light,--hence equality of privilege, no distinction between clergy
+or laity or between sex and sex,--the right of woman to develop her
+entire nature as she sees fit. In the principles which define the
+attitude of the Quaker toward social conventions, we find a queer jumble
+of the doctrines of primitive Christianity with the ideas of individual
+independence innate in the Germanic mind, and especially in the popular
+mind.[20] The Christian gospel of love forbids the Quakers to
+countenance war, capital punishment, imprisonment for debt, slavery,
+suppressment of the right of free speech and the right of petition.
+Their doctrine of equality in virtue of spiritual illumination forbids
+them to remove their hats in presence of any human being, even a king;
+leads them to avoid the use of the plural "you," as savoring of
+man-worship, and to refuse to employ a hired priesthood. Their doctrine
+of pure spirituality is inconsistent with sacerdotal rites and
+mummeries, such as baptism, the eucharist, forms of common prayer, etc.
+Music, poetry, painting, and dancing also have a worldly savor and tend
+to distract the mind from its spiritual life. So do rich and gaudy
+robes: we must therefore have simplicity of dress. Hear William Penn on
+this subject:[21]--
+
+    "I say, if sin brought the first coat, poor Adam's offspring have
+    little reason to be proud or curious in their clothes.... It is all
+    one as if a man who had lost his nose by a scandalous distemper,
+    should take pains to set out a false one, in such shape and splendor
+    as should give the greater occasion for all to gaze upon him; as if
+    he would tell them he had lost his nose, for fear they would think
+    he had not. But would a wise man be in love with a false nose,
+    though ever so rich, and however finely made?"
+
+[Footnote 20: The same sterling material that went to the making of the
+Quaker went also to the making of the Puritan farmer-and-artisan victors
+of Naseby, and Worcester, and Marston Moor. The same faults
+characterized each class. In stiff-backed independence and scorn of the
+gilt-edged poetry of conventional manners, and in the absurd extreme to
+which they carried that independence and scorn, the Quaker and the
+Puritan were alike. Only the Quaker out-puritaned the Puritan,--was much
+more consistent in his fanatical purism, scrawny asceticism, and
+contempt for distinguished manners and the noble imaginative arts.]
+
+[Footnote 21: In his work "No Cross, No Crown."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A natural corollary of the Friends' doctrine of inward supernatural
+illumination is their habit of silent worship, or silent waiting.[22]
+It is probable that this feature of their religious gatherings has done
+much to cultivate that peculiar tranquillity of demeanor which
+distinguishes them.[23] They meet the burdens, bereavements, and
+disappointments of life with a placid equanimity in strong antithesis to
+the often passionate grief and rebellion of other classes of religious
+people. Finally, we may add to the list of their characteristics their
+great moral sincerity. "With calm resoluteness they tell you your faults
+face to face, and without exciting your ill-will."
+
+[Footnote 22: Their ideas on this subject are very well stated in the
+following words taken from a Quaker pamphlet by Mary Brook: "Solomon
+saith, 'The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the
+tongue, are from the Lord.' If the Lord alone can prepare the heart,
+stir it up, or incline it towards unfeigned holiness, how can any man
+approach him acceptably, till his heart be prepared by him?--and how can
+he know this preparation except he wait in silence to feel it?"]
+
+[Footnote 23: See Appendix I.]
+
+The objections to the Quakerism of our day are that it is retractile,
+stationary, negative; it is selfish, narrow, ascetic, tame; it has no
+iron in its blood; it rarely adds anything to the world's thought. The
+Quakers are a hopelessly antiquated sect, a dying branch almost wholly
+severed from connection with the living forces of the tree of modern
+society. There are, it is true, a goodly number of liberal Quakers, who,
+in discarding the peculiar costume of the time of Charles II., which
+many of them even yet wear, have also thrown off the intellectual
+mummy-robes of the sect. Many adopt the tenets of Unitarianism, or make
+that religious body the stepping-stone to complete emancipation from an
+obsolete system of thought. But the mass of them are immovable. They
+have been characterized substantially in the following words by Mr. A.
+M. Powell, himself a Quaker by birth, and an unwilling witness to the
+faults of a system of doctrines in which he sees much to admire:--
+
+    "In its merely sectarian aspect, Quakerism is as uninteresting,
+    narrow, timid, selfish, and conservative as is mere sectarianism
+    under any other name. The Quakers have little comprehension of the
+    meaning of Quakerism beyond a blind observance of the peculiarities
+    of dress and speech and the formality of the Meeting. They cling to
+    the now meaningless protests of the past. They are inaccessible to
+    new conceptions of truth. They have dishonored the important
+    fundamental principle [of the Inner Light] and tarnished the
+    Society's good name by subordinating it to narrow views of religion,
+    to commercial selfishness, and to the prevalent palsying
+    conservatism of the outside world."[24]
+
+[Footnote 24: Mrs. John T. Sargent's "Sketches and Reminiscences of the
+Radical Club."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In all that is said in these pages by way of criticism of the Quakers,
+reference is had solely to their doctrines as a system of thought. Of
+their sweet and beautiful _lives_ it is hardly necessary to speak at
+length. Volumes might be filled with instances of their large-hearted
+benevolence and personal self-sacrifice in care for others. The
+loveliness of their lives is like a beautiful perfume in the society in
+which they move. As you see the Quaker women of Philadelphia, with their
+pure, tranquil faces, and plain, immaculate dress, moving about among
+the greedy and vile-mannered non-Quaker _canaille_ of that democratic
+city, they seem like Christian and Faithful amid the crowds of Vanity
+Fair. Their faces are like a benediction, and you thank heaven for them.
+The liberal Friends in America have many great and noble names on their
+roll of honor. And surely a sect that has produced such characters as
+Lucretia Mott, John Bright, and John G. Whittier, must win our
+intellectual respect. But it is only because these persons, like Milton,
+were in most respects above their sect that we admire them. There are
+proofs manifold, however, throughout the prose and poetry of Whittier
+that he has nominally remained within the pale of Quakerism all his
+days. Doubtless such a course was essential to the very existence in him
+of poetic inspiration. His genius is wholly lyrical. A song or lyric is
+the outgushing of pure emotion. Especially in the case of the religious
+and ethical lyrist is faith life, and doubt death. Doubt, in Whittier's
+case, would have meant the cessation of his songs. To break away
+entirely from the faith of his fathers would have chilled his
+inspiration. He has not, it is true, escaped the conflict with doubt. As
+we shall see, no man has had a severer struggle to reconcile his faith
+with the terror and mystery of life. But, although his religious views
+have been liberalized by science, yet he has never ceased to retain a
+hearty sympathy with, and belief in, the Quaker principles of the Inner
+Light, silent waiting, etc.
+
+That he has remained within the pale of Quakerism has been an injury to
+him as well as a help. It makes him obtrude his sectarianism too
+frequently, especially in his prose writings. By the very nature of the
+creed, he must either be blind to its faults, or constantly put on the
+defensive against the least assault, from whatever quarter it may come.
+When he dons the garb of the sectary, he naturally becomes weakened, and
+loses his chief charm. We see then that he is a man hampered by a creed
+which forbids a catholic sympathy with human nature. He is shut up in
+the narrow field of sectarian morals and religion. He cannot, for
+example, enter, by historical imagination, into poetical sympathy with
+the gorgeous ritual and dreamy beauty of a European cathedral service.
+And yet so pure, gentle, and sweet is his nature that it is hard to
+censure him for this peculiarity. It is regret rather than censure that
+we feel, regret that he has been so bound by circumstances that
+prevented his breaking wholly away from hampering limitations, and to be
+always, what he so often is, the strong and sweet-voiced spokesman of
+the heart of humanity.
+
+Let us hear his gentle confessions of faith. In the autobiographical
+poem, "My Namesake," we read:--
+
+    "He worshipped as his fathers did,
+      And kept the faith of childish days,
+    And, howsoe'er he strayed or slid,
+      He loved the good old ways.
+
+    The simple tastes, the kindly traits,
+      The tranquil air, and gentle speech,
+    The silence of the soul that waits
+      For more than man to teach."
+
+In "The Meeting" he has given us an "Apologia pro Vita Sua,"--a defence
+of his religious habits. He says he is accustomed to meet with the
+Friends twice a week in the little "Meeting" at Amesbury, chiefly for
+two reasons: first, because in the silent, unadorned house, with
+"pine-laid floor," his religious communings are not distracted by
+outward things as they would be if he worshipped always amid the
+solitudes of nature; and, secondly, he finds in "The Meeting" a
+heart-solace in the memories of dear ones passed away, who once sat by
+his side there. He says, in reference to the Quaker service:--
+
+    "I ask no organ's soulless breath
+    To drone the themes of life and death,
+    No altar candle-lit by day,
+    No ornate wordsman's rhetoric-play,
+    No cool philosophy to teach
+    Its bland audacities of speech,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    No pulpit hammered by the fist
+    Of loud-asserting dogmatist."
+
+In "Memories" he says:--
+
+    "Thine the Genevan's sternest creed,
+    While answers to my spirit's need
+      The Derby dalesman's simple truth.
+    For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,
+      And holy day and solemn psalm;
+    For me, the silent reverence where
+      My brethren gather slow and calm."
+
+There are two epochs in the religious or philosophical development of
+Whittier. The first--that of simple piety unclouded by doubt, the epoch
+of unhesitating acceptance of the popular mythology--seems to have
+lasted until about 1850, or the period of early Darwinism and
+Spencerianism,--the most momentous epoch in the religious history of
+the world. This pivotal point is very well marked by the publication, in
+1853, of "The Chapel of the Hermits" and "Questions of Life." It is now
+that harrowing doubt begins, and restless striving to retain the faith
+amid new conditions and a vastly widened mental horizon.
+Transcendentalism, too, had just passed the noon meridian of its
+splendor. Emerson had written many of his exquisite philosophical poems,
+and Parker had blown his clear bugle-call to a higher religious life. It
+is evident that Whittier was--as, indeed, he could not help
+being--profoundly moved by the new spirit of the times.
+
+With Transcendentalism he must have had large sympathy, owing to the
+similarity of its principles to those of Quakerism. And that he was
+profoundly agitated by the revelations of science his poetry shows. In
+"My Soul and I" (a poem remarkable for its searching subjective
+analysis), and in the poem "Follen," he had given expression to
+religious doubt, over which, as always in his case, faith was
+triumphant. But it is in "The Chapel of the Hermits" and succeeding
+poems that he first gave free and full utterance to the doubt and
+struggle of soul that was not his alone, but which was felt by all
+around him. In respect of doubt "My Soul and I" and "Questions of Life"
+resemble "Faust," as well as Tennyson's "Two Voices" and the "In
+Memoriam."
+
+    "Life's mystery wrapped him like a cloud;
+      He heard far voices mock his own,
+    The sweep of wings unseen, the loud,
+      Long roll of waves unknown.
+
+    The arrows of his straining sight
+      Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage
+    Like lost guides calling left and right,
+      Perplexed his doubtful age.
+
+    Like childhood, listening for the sound
+      Of its dropped pebbles in the well,
+    All vainly down the dark profound
+      His brief-lined plummet fell."
+
+    _My Namesake_
+
+The "Questions of Life" are such as these:--
+
+    "I am: but little more I know!
+    Whence came I? Whither do I go?
+    A centred self, which feels and is;
+    A cry between the silences."
+
+    *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "This conscious life,--is it the same
+    Which thrills the universal frame?"
+
+    *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Do bird and blossom feel, like me,
+    Life's many-folded mystery,--
+    The wonder which it is _To Be_?
+    Or stand I severed and distinct,
+    From Nature's chain of life unlinked?"
+
+Such questions as these he confesses himself unable to answer. He
+shrinks back terrified from the task. He will not dare to trifle with
+their bitter logic. He will take refuge in faith; he will trust the
+Unseen; let us cease foolish questioning, and live wisely and well our
+present lives. He comes out of the struggle purified and chastened,
+still holding by his faith in God and virtue. A good deal of the old
+Quakerism is gone,--the belief in hell, in the Messianic and atonement
+machinery, in local and special avatars, etc. Again and again, in his
+later poems, he asserts the humanity of Christ and the co-equal divinity
+of all men: see "Miriam," for example. His opinion about hell he
+embodies in the sweet little poem, "The Minister's Daughter," published
+in "The King's Missive." In short, his religion is a simple and
+trustful theism. But there is no evidence that he has ever incorporated
+into his mind the principles of the development-science,--the evolution
+of man, the correlation of forces, the development of the universe
+through its own inner divine potency; or, in fine, any of the
+unteleological, unanthropomorphic explanations of things which are
+necessitated by science, and admitted by advanced thinkers, both in and
+out of the Churches.
+
+As witnesses to his trustful attitude, we may select such a cluster of
+stanzas as this:--
+
+    "Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight,
+    Through present wrong, the eternal right;
+    And, step by step, since time began,
+    I see the steady gain of man;
+
+    That all of good the past hath had
+    Remains to make our own time glad,--
+    Our common daily life divine,
+    And every land a Palestine.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Through the harsh noises of our day
+    A low, sweet prelude finds its way;
+    Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear,
+    A light is breaking calm and clear."
+
+    _Chapel of the Hermits_
+
+
+    "Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
+      And tossed by storm and flood,
+    To one fixed stake my spirit clings;
+      I know that God is good!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "I know not where His islands lift
+      Their fronded palms in air;
+    I only know I cannot drift
+      Beyond His love and care."
+
+    _The Eternal Goodness._
+
+
+    "When on my day of life the night is falling,
+      And in the winds from unsunned spaces blown,
+    I hear far voices out of darkness calling
+      My feet to paths unknown,
+
+    Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant,
+      Leave not its tenant when its walls decay;
+    O love divine, O Helper ever present,
+      Be Thou my strength and stay!"
+
+    _At Last._
+
+
+    "Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
+      Forgive our foolish ways!
+    Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
+    In purer lives thy service find,
+      In deeper reverence, praise."
+
+    _The Brewing of Soma._
+
+But Whittier is as remarkable for his faith in man as for his faith in
+God. He is in the highest degree patriotic, American. He loves America
+because it is the land of freedom. It has been charged against him that
+he is no true American poet, but a Quaker poet. The American, it is
+said, is eager, aggressive, high-spirited, combative; the Quaker,
+subdued and phlegmatic. The American is loud and boastful and daring and
+reckless; the Quaker, cautious, timid, secretive, and frugal. This is
+undoubtedly true of the classes as types, but it is far from being true
+of Whittier personally. He has blood militant in him. He comes of
+Puritan as well as Quaker stock. The Greenleafs and the Batchelders were
+not Quakers. The reader will perhaps remember the Lieutenant Greenleaf,
+already mentioned, who fought through the entire Civil War in
+England.[25] But his writings alone furnish ample proof of his martial
+spirit. The man and the Quaker struggle within him for the mastery; and
+the man is, on the whole, triumphant. Whenever his Quakerism permits, he
+stands out a normal man and a genuine American. As Lowell says:--
+
+    "There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart
+    Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart,
+    And reveals the live Man still supreme and erect
+    Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect."
+
+[Footnote 25: Hear Whittier himself on the subject:--
+
+"Without intending any disparagement of my peaceable ancestry for many
+generations, I have still strong suspicions that somewhat of the old
+Norman blood, something of the grim Berserker spirit, has been
+bequeathed to me. How else can I account for the intense childish
+eagerness with which I listened to the stories of old campaigners who
+sometimes fought their battles over again in my hearing? Why did I, in
+my young fancy, go up with Jonathan, the son of Saul, to smite the
+garrisoned Philistines of Michmash, or with the fierce son of Nun
+against the cities of Canaan? Why was Mr. Greatheart, in Pilgrim's
+Progress, my favorite character? What gave such fascination to the grand
+Homeric encounter between Christian and Apollyon in the valley? Why did
+I follow Ossian over Morven's battle-fields, exulting in the
+vulture-screams of the blind scald over his fallen enemies? Still,
+later, why did the newspapers furnish me with subjects for hero-worship
+in the half-demented Sir Gregor McGregor, and Ypsilanti at the head of
+his knavish Greeks? I can account for it only on the supposition that
+the mischief was inherited,--an heirloom from the old sea-kings of the
+ninth century."--_Prose Works, II._, 390, 391.]
+
+If anybody will take the trouble to glance over the complete works of
+Whittier, he or she will find that one of the predominant
+characteristics of his writings is their indigenous quality, their
+national spirit. Indeed, this is almost too notorious to need mention.
+He, if any one, merits the proud title of "A Representative American
+Poet." His whole soul is on fire with love of country. As in the case
+of Whitman, his country is his bride, and upon it he has showered all
+the affectional wealth of his nature. The Quaker may be too obtrusive in
+his prose writings, but it is not so in the greater and better portion
+of his poetry. When the rush and glow of genuine poetical inspiration
+seize him, he invariably rises in spirit far above the weltering and
+eddying dust-clouds of faction and sect into the serene atmosphere of
+genuine patriotism. Read his "Last Walk in Autumn," where he says:--
+
+    "Home of my heart! to me more fair
+      Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls,
+    The painted, shingly town-house where
+      The freeman's vote for Freedom falls!"
+
+Read his "Eve of Election":--
+
+            "Not lightly fall
+            Beyond recall
+    The written scrolls a breath can float;
+            The crowning fact,
+            The kingliest act
+    Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!"
+
+Or take "After Election," a poem that cannot be read without a thrill of
+the nerves and a leaping of the heart. You have concentrated in that
+wild lyric burst the purest essence of democratic patriotism,--the
+trembling anxiety and yearning of a mother-heart. It is a poem
+celebrating a victory of peace with all the fiery energy of a war-ode (a
+significant fact that the advocates of gory war, as a source of poetic
+inspiration, would do well to ponder):--
+
+    "The day's sharp strife is ended now,
+    Our work is done, God knoweth how!
+    As on the thronged, unrestful town
+    The patience of the moon looks down,
+    I wait to hear, beside the wire,
+    The voices of its tongues of fire.
+
+    Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first:
+    Be strong, my heart, to know the worst!
+    Hark!--there the Alleghanies spoke;
+    That sound from lake and prairie broke,
+    That sunset gun of triumph rent
+    The silence of a continent!
+
+    That signal from Nebraska sprung,
+    This, from Nevada's mountain tongue!
+    Is that thy answer, strong and free,
+    O loyal heart of Tennessee?
+    What strange, glad voice is that which calls
+    From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls?
+
+    From Mississippi's fountain-head
+    A sound as of the bison's tread!
+    There rustled freedom's Charter Oak!
+    In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke!
+    Cheer answers cheer from rise to set
+    Of sun. We have a country yet!"
+
+To sum up now our analysis of the poet's character. We have seen that
+the central trait of his mind is love of freedom. (Even his religion,
+which is so profound an element in his nature, and so all-pervasive in
+his writings, will be found, on a deep analysis, to be a yearning for
+freedom from the trappings of sense and time, in order to attain to a
+spiritual union with the Infinite.) This love of freedom, this hatred of
+oppression, intensified by persecution, both ancestral and personal,
+stimulated by contact with Puritan democracy, as well as by the New
+England Transcendental movement, and flowering out luxuriantly in the
+long struggle against slavery,--this noble sentiment, and that long
+self-sacrificing personal warfare in behalf of the oppressed, form the
+true glory of Whittier's character. Shy, timid, almost an invalid,
+having a nervous horror of mobs and personal indignities, he yet forgot
+himself in his love of Man, overcame and underwent,--suffered social
+martyrdom for a quarter of a century, never flinching, never holding
+his peace for bread's sake or fame's sake, not stopping to count the
+cost, taking his life in his hand, and never ceasing to express his
+high-born soul in burning invective and scathing satire against the
+oppressor, or in words of lofty hope and cheer for the suffering
+idealist and lover of humanity, whoever and wherever he was. Whittier is
+a hero as well as a poet. He will be known to posterity by a few
+exquisite poems, but chiefly by his moral heroism and patriotism. As a
+thinker and a poet he belongs, with Bryant and Longfellow, to the
+pre-scientific age. The poetry of the future (of the new era of
+self-consciousness) will necessarily differ widely from that of the
+first half of this century. It will not be distinctively the poetry of
+Wordsworth, or Cowper, or Byron, or Longfellow, or Whittier. When the
+present materialistic and realistic temper of mind disappears from
+literature, and really noble ideal poetry returns, it will be vast in
+its scope and range, robust in its philosophy, unfettered by petty
+rhymes and classicisms, but powerfully rhythmic and harmonious. The
+writings of Shakspere, Goethe, Jean Paul, Hugo, Tennyson, Whitman, and
+Emerson are the magnificent proem to it. It will be built upon a
+scientific and religious cosmism. It will not discuss Apollo and Luna
+and Neptune, and the nymphs and muses, but will draw its imagery from
+the heaven-staining red-flames of the sun, the gulfs of space, the
+miracles of organic and inorganic life, and human society. It will draw
+its inspiration not more from the storied past than from the storied
+future foreseen by its prophetic eye. It will idealize human life and
+deify nature. It will fall in the era of imagination. (After it will
+come another age of criticism.) It will fall in the age of splendid
+democracies. And in that age men will look back with veneration, not so
+much, perhaps, to the scholar-poets as to the hero-poets, like Whittier,
+who put faith in the rights of man and woman, who did believe in divine
+democracy, and were not ashamed of it, but nursed it patiently through
+its puling infancy, well assured of its undying grandeur when it should
+come to man's estate.
+
+We subjoin fittingly to this chapter a characteristic letter of Mr.
+Whittier's, in which he speaks lovingly of Robert Burns, that other
+poet of freedom and independence of thought for all men.
+
+At the Burns festival in Washington, 1869, the following letter from
+John G. Whittier was read:
+
+     "AMESBURY, 1st month, 18th day, 1869.
+
+     "DEAR FRIEND,--I thank the club represented by thee for remembering
+     me on the occasion of its annual festival. Though I have never been
+     able to trace my ancestry to the Land o' Cakes, I have--and I know
+     it is saying a great deal--a Scotchman's love for the poet whose
+     fame deepens and broadens with years. The world has never known a
+     truer singer. We may criticise his rustic verse and compare his
+     brief and simple lyrics with the works of men of longer scrolls and
+     loftier lyres; but after rendering to Wordsworth, Tennyson and
+     Browning the homage which the intellect owes to genius, we turn to
+     Burns, if not with awe and reverence, [yet] with a feeling of
+     personal interest and affection. We admire others; we love him. As
+     the day of his birth comes round, I take down his well-worn volume
+     in grateful commemoration, and feel that I am communing with one
+     whom living I could have loved as much for his true manhood and
+     native nobility of soul as for those wonderful songs of his which
+     shall sing themselves forever.
+
+     "They know little of Burns who regard him as an aimless
+     versifier--'the idle singer of an idle lay.' Pharisees in the
+     Church, and oppressors in the State, knew better than this. They
+     felt those immortal sarcasms which did not die with the utterer,
+     but lived on to work out the divine commission of Providence. In
+     the shout of enfranchised millions, as they lift the untitled
+     Quaker of Rochdale into the British Cabinet, I seem to hear the
+     voice of the Ayrshire poet:--
+
+     "'For a' that and a' that,
+     It's comin' yet for a' that;
+     That man to man the world o'er
+     Shall brothers be for a' that.'
+
+     "With hearty sympathy and kind greetings for the Burns Club of
+     Washington,
+
+     "I am, very truly, thy friend,
+     "JOHN G. WHITTIER."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE ARTIST.
+
+
+The title of this chapter is almost a misnomer; for the style, or
+technique, of the poet whose works we are considering is so very simple
+and unoriginal that he can hardly be said to have a distinctive style of
+his own,--unless a few persistent mannerisms establish a claim to it.
+His diction, however, is always pictorial, and glows with an intense
+Oriental fervor. Fused in this interior vital heat, his thoughts do not
+sink, like powerful Jinn, into the deep silence-sphere of the mind, to
+fetch thence sparkling treasures, rich and strange: rather, they run to
+and fro with lightning swiftness amid the million surface-pictures of
+the intellect; rearranging, recombining, and creatively blending its
+images, and finally pouring them out along the page to charm our fancy
+and feeling with old thoughts and scenes painted in fresh colors and
+from new points of view. There is more of fancy than of creative
+imagination in Whittier.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The artistic quality, or tone, of his mind is a fusion of that of
+Wordsworth and that of Byron. In his best ballads and other lyrics you
+have the moral sincerity of Wordsworth and the sweet Wordsworthian
+simplicity (with a difference); and in his reform poems you have the
+Byronic indignation, and scorn of Philistinism and its tyrannies. As a
+religious poet, he reveals the quiet piety and devoutness of Cowper; and
+his rural and folk poems show that he is a debtor to Burns.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He has been a diligent reader,--"a close-browed miser of the scholar's
+gains,"--and his writings are full of bookish allusions. But, if the
+truth must be told, his doctor's gown does not often sit gracefully upon
+his shoulders. His readers soon learn to know that his strength lies in
+his moral nature, and in his power to tell a story melodiously, simply,
+and sweetly. Hence it is, doubtless, that they care little for his
+literary allusions,--think, perhaps, that they are rather awkwardly
+dragged in by the ears, and at any rate hasten by them impatiently that
+they may inhale anew the violet-freshness of the poet's own soul. What
+has just been said about bookish allusions does not apply to the
+beautiful historical ballads produced by Whittier in the mellow maturity
+of his powers. These fresh improvisations are as perfect works of art as
+the finest Greek marbles. In them Whittier at length succeeds in freeing
+himself completely from the shackles of didacticism. Such ballads as
+"The Witch's Daughter" and "Telling the Bees" are as absolutely
+faultless productions as Wordsworth's "We are Seven" and his "Lucy
+Gray," or as Uhland's "Des Sänger's Fluch," or William Blake's "Mary."
+There is in them the confident and unconscious ease that marks the work
+of the highest genius. A shower of lucid water-drops falls in no truer
+obedience to the law of perfect sphericity than flowed from the pen of
+the poet these delicate creations in obedience to the law of perfect
+spontaneity. Almost all of Whittier's lyrics have evidently been rapidly
+written, poured forth in the first glow of feeling, and not carefully
+amended and polished as were Longfellow's works. And herein he is at
+fault, as was Byron. But the delicate health of Whittier, and his
+toilsome early days, form an excuse for his deficiency in this respect.
+His later creations, the product of his leisure years, are full of pure
+and flawless music. They have no harmony or rhythmic volume of sound, as
+in Tennyson, Swinburne, Milton, and Shakspere; but they set themselves
+to simple melodious airs spontaneously. As you read them, your feet
+begin to tap time,--only the music is that of a good rural choir rather
+than that of an orchestra.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The thought of each poem is generally conveyed to the reader's
+understanding with the utmost lucidity. There is no mysticism, no
+obscurity. The story or thought unfolds itself naturally, and without
+fatigue to our minds. A great many poems are indeed spun out at too
+great length; but the central idea to be conveyed is rarely lost sight
+of.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To the list of his virtues as an artist, it remains to add his frequent
+surprising strength. This is naturally most marked in the anti-slavery
+poems. When he wrote these, he was in the flush of manhood, his soul at
+a white heat of moral indignation. He is occasionally nerved to almost
+super-human effort: it is the battle-axe of Richard thundering at the
+gates of Front de Boeuf. For nervous energy, there is nothing in the
+Hebrew prophets finer than such passages as these:--
+
+    "Strike home, strong-hearted man!
+              Down to the root
+    Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel."
+
+    _To Ronge._
+
+
+    "Maddened by Earth's wrong and evil,
+      'Lord!' I cried in sudden ire,
+    'From thy right hand, clothed with thunder,
+      Shake the bolted fire!'"
+
+    _What the Voice Said._
+
+
+    "Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play
+      No trick of priestcraft here!
+    Back, puny lordling! darest thou lay
+      A hand on Elliott's bier?
+    Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust,
+      Beneath his feet he trod:
+    He knew the locust-swarm that cursed
+      The harvest-fields of God.
+
+    "On these pale lips, the smothered thought
+      Which England's millions feel,
+    A fierce and fearful splendor caught,
+      As from his forge the steel.
+    Strong-armed as Thor,--a shower of fire
+      His smitten anvil flung;
+    God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire,--
+      He gave them all a tongue!"
+
+    _Elliott._
+
+
+    "And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,
+      Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,
+      Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God
+    The blasphemy of wrong."
+
+    _The Rendition._
+
+
+    "All grim and soiled, and brown with tan,
+      I saw a Strong One, in his wrath,
+    Smiting the godless shrines of man
+      Along his path."
+
+    _The Reformer._
+
+
+     As Whittier has grown older, and the battles of his life have
+     become (as he expressed it to the writer) like "a remembered
+     dream," his genius has grown mellow and full of graciousness. His
+     art culminated in "Home Ballads," "Snow-Bound," and "The Tent on
+     the Beach." He has kept longer than most poets the lyric glow; only
+     in his later poems it is "emotion remembered in tranquillity."
+
+     If asked to name the finest poems of Whittier, would not the
+     following instinctively recur to the mind: "Snow-Bound," "Maud
+     Muller," "Barbara Frietchie," "The Witch's Daughter," "Telling the
+     Bees," "Skipper Ireson's Ride," "King Volmer and Elsie," and "The
+     Tent on the Beach"?
+
+     To these one would like to add several exquisite hymns and short
+     secular lyrics. But the poems mentioned would probably be regarded
+     by most critics as Whittier's finest works of art. They merit this
+     distinction certainly; and they furnish remarkable instances for
+     those who desire to study the poet's greater versatility in the
+     ballad line, as they are all good representatives of his
+     wonderfully long range.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     The foregoing remark must be our cue for beginning to pass in
+     review the artistic deficiencies of Whittier. He has three crazes
+     that have nearly ruined the mass of his poetry. They are the reform
+     craze, the religious craze, and the rhyme craze. Of course, as a
+     man, he could not have a superfluity of the first of these; but, as
+     a poet, they have been a great injury to him. We need not deny that
+     he has taken the manlier course in subordinating the artist to the
+     reformer and preacher; but in estimating his poetic merits we ought
+     to regard his work from an absolute point of view. Let us not be
+     misunderstood. It is gladly and freely conceded that the theory
+     that great poetry is not necessarily moral, and that the aim of
+     poetry is only to please the senses, is a petty and shallow one,
+     and that the true function of the great poet is also to bear
+     witness to the ideal and noble, to the moral and religious. Let us
+     heartily agree with Principal Shairp when he says that the true end
+     of the poet "is to awaken men to the divine side of things; to bear
+     witness to the beauty that clothes the outer world, the nobility
+     that lies hid, often obscured, in human souls; to call forth
+     sympathy for neglected truths, for noble but oppressed persons, for
+     downtrodden causes, and to make men feel that through all outward
+     beauty and all pure inward affection God himself is addressing
+     them." We may admit all this, and yet find fault with the
+     moralizations and homilies of Whittier. The poetry of Dante and
+     Milton is full of ethical passion, and occasionally a little sermon
+     is wedged in; yet they do not treat us to endless broadsides of
+     preaching, as Whittier does in his earlier poems, and in some of
+     his later ones. But there is this distinction: the moral in Dante
+     and Milton and Shakspere and Emerson is so garnitured with beauty
+     that while our souls are ennobled our imaginations are gratified.
+     But in many of Whittier's poems we have the bare skeleton of the
+     moral, without the rounded contour and delicate tints of the living
+     body of beauty. His reform poems have been called stump-speeches in
+     verse. His anti-slavery poems are, with a few exceptions, devoid of
+     beauty. They should have been written in the manner he himself
+     commends in a review of Longfellow's "Evangeline": he should have
+     depicted the truth strongly and attractively, and left to the
+     reader the censure and the indignation. Mr. Whittier seems to know
+     his peculiar limitations as well as his critics. He speaks of
+     himself as one--
+
+                       "Whose rhyme
+      Beat often Labor's hurried time,
+    Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife,"
+
+     and he has once or twice expressed himself in prose in a way that
+     seems to show that he recognizes the artistic mistake in the
+     construction of his earlier poems. The omission of the moral
+     _envoi_ from so many of his maturer creations strengthens one in
+     this surmise. In 1867 Whittier published the following letter in
+     the New York _Nation_:
+
+     "TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:
+
+     "I am very well aware that merely personal explanations are not
+     likely to be as interesting to the public as to the parties
+     concerned; but I am induced to notice what is either a
+     misconception on thy part, or, as is most probable, a failure on my
+     own to make myself clearly understood. In the review of 'The Tent
+     on the Beach' in thy paper of last week, I confess I was not a
+     little surprised to find myself represented as regretting my
+     life-long and active participation in the great conflict which has
+     ended in the emancipation of the slave, and that I had not devoted
+     myself to merely literary pursuits. In the half-playful lines upon
+     which this statement is founded, if I did not feel at liberty to
+     boast of my anti-slavery labors and magnify my editorial
+     profession, I certainly did not mean to underrate them, or express
+     the shadow of a regret that they had occupied so large a share of
+     my time and thought. The simple fact is that I cannot be
+     sufficiently thankful to the Divine Providence that so early called
+     my attention to the great interests of humanity, saving me from the
+     poor ambitions and miserable jealousies of a selfish pursuit of
+     literary reputation. Up to a comparatively recent period my
+     writings have been simply episodical, something apart from the real
+     object and aim of my life; and whatever of favor they have found
+     with the public has come to me as a grateful surprise rather than
+     as an expected reward. As I have never staked all upon the chances
+     of authorship, I have been spared the pain of disappointment and
+     the temptation to envy those who, as men of letters, deservedly
+     occupy a higher place in the popular estimation than I have ever
+     aspired to.
+
+     "Truly thy friend,
+     "John G. Whittier.
+     "AMESBURY, 9th, 3d mo., 1867."
+
+One is reminded by this letter that Wordsworth once said to Dr. Orville
+Dewey, of Boston, that, "although he was known to the world only as a
+poet, he had given twelve hours' thought to the condition and prospects
+of society for one to poetry." In a letter read at the third decade
+meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia, Mr.
+Whittier said: "I am not insensible to literary reputation; I love,
+perhaps too well, the praise and good-will of my fellow-men; but I set a
+higher value on my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of
+1833 than on the title-page of any book."
+
+In his earlier years our poet was wholly ignorant of the fact that an
+artist should love beauty for its own sake. The simple-hearted Quaker
+and Puritan farmer-youth thought it almost a sin to spend his time in
+the cultivation of the beautiful. In his dedication of the
+"Supernaturalism of New England" to his sister, he says:--
+
+    "And knowing how my life hath been
+    A weary work of tongue and pen,
+    A long, harsh strife with strong-willed men,
+        Thou wilt not chide my turning,
+    To con, at times, an idle rhyme,
+    To pluck a flower from childhood's clime,
+    Or listen, at Life's noon-day chime,
+        For the sweet bells of Morning!"
+
+"Poor fellow!" we say at first. And yet there is something refreshing
+and noble in such a spirit. It is with difficulty that the Germanic mind
+can bring itself to the study of the beautiful as something of co-equal
+worth with the moral. Let us leave that, says the Teuton, to the nation
+whose word for love of art is "virtue." How Whittier would have abhorred
+in his youth and early manhood the following sentiment by one of the
+Latin race:--
+
+    "The arts require idle, delicate minds, not stoics, especially not
+    Puritans, easily shocked by dissonance, inclined to sensuous
+    pleasure, employing their long periods of leisure, their free
+    reveries, in harmoniously arranging, and with no other object but
+    enjoyment, forms, colors, and sounds." (Taine's _English
+    Literature_, II. 332.)
+
+Or the following from the same work:--
+
+    "The Puritan destroys the artist, stiffens the man, fetters the
+    writer, and leaves of artist, man, writer, only a sort of abstract
+    being, the slave of a watchword. If a Milton springs up among them,
+    it is because, by his wide curiosity, his travels, his comprehensive
+    education, and by his independence of spirit, loftily adhered to
+    even against the sectarians, Milton passes beyond sectarianism." (I.
+    397, 398.)
+
+Here is another passage from Whittier on this same subject. It is almost
+a pity to give it, since the author has apparently repudiated the
+sentiment by omitting the lines from his complete works. In the
+introduction to "Supernaturalism of New England" he says:--
+
+    "If in some few instances, like Burns in view of his national
+    thistle, I have--
+
+      'Turned my weeding-hook aside,
+       And spared the symbol dear,'
+
+    I have been influenced by the comparatively innocent nature and
+    simple poetic beauty of the traditions in question; yet not even for
+    the sake of poetry and romance would I confirm in any mind a
+    pernicious credulity, or seek to absolve myself from that stern duty
+    which the true man owes to his generation, to expose error whenever
+    and wherever he finds it."
+
+One more instance. In one of his sketches he is describing an old custom
+called "Pope Night," which has been kept up in the Merrimack Valley in
+unbroken sequence from the time of the Guy Fawkes plot. The plot is
+commemorated by bonfires and effigies of the Pope and others, and
+Whittier quotes these lines of a song which is sung on the occasion:--
+
+    "Look here! from Rome
+    The Pope has come,
+      That fiery serpent dire;
+    Here's the Pope that we have got,
+    The old promoter of the plot;
+    We'll stick a pitchfork in his back,
+      And throw him in the fire."
+
+Mr. Whittier was so broad-minded in regard to all matters pertaining to
+true growth, and withal so conscientious a student of the best
+versification, that is, the most natural, that we soon find him
+striving, at least, to free himself from all these minor faults.
+
+Consequently his mannerisms more and more drop away. He is a born
+preacher. And presently we see in him a decided advance toward the
+delineation of what is simply true and beautiful, without the
+appreciable pause by the way, "to point a moral and adorn a tale." For a
+preacher is not a poet; and true poetic fire must be dimmed at once,
+and the divine afflatus be a lack-lustre thing, when appeals by pious
+exhortation are brought in to fill out rhyme and metre. Many of
+Whittier's purely religious poems are the most exquisite and beautiful
+ever written. The tender feeling, the warm-hearted trustfulness, and the
+reverent touch of his hymns speak directly to our hearts. The
+prayer-hymn at the close of "The Brewing of Soma" ("Dear Lord and Father
+of mankind," etc.), and such poems as "At Last" and "The Wish of
+To-day," are unsurpassed in sacred song. Some one has said that in
+Whittier's books we rarely meet with ideas expressed in such perfection
+and idiosyncrasy of manner that ever afterward the same ideas must recur
+to our minds in the words of this author and no other; that is to say,
+there are few dicta, few portable and universally-quoted passages in his
+writings. But exception must be made in favor of his best hymns. Their
+stanzas haunt the mind with their beauty, and you are obliged to learn
+them by heart before you can have peace. These purely religious
+productions show Whittier's work at high-water mark, and as long as the
+English language is spoken, they will be employed by those who require a
+vehicle for thought, by which the true worship may be served. There is
+only one poet in the world whose works will not suffer by reading his
+entire poetical productions in consecutive perusal, and that is
+Shakspere. Poetry should be read solely for the refreshment and
+elevation of the mind, and only when one's mood requires it.
+Unquestionably, if so read, all mannerisms that Mr. Whittier might have
+been accused of at an early stage in his authorship would not appear so
+conspicuous.
+
+One of the mannerisms of our poet is his inclination toward the
+four-foot line with consecutive or alternate rhymes. Almost all of
+Burns's poetry is written as just described; and it is evident Mr.
+Whittier's ear was naturally inclined to it, from his early love for
+Burns, his patron saint, as it were, in those then untrodden fields. An
+ear educated by Tennyson, and the other Victorian poets, might be unable
+to grasp even the beauty of thought unless conveyed by their especial
+methods. One is pleased when rhymes are so masked, so subtly
+intertwined, and parted by intervening lines, that each shall seem like
+a delicate echo of that which preceded it,--the assonance just
+remembered, and no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A minor mannerism of Whittier is his frequent use of the present
+participle in ing, with the verb _to be_; "is flowing," "is shining,"
+etc. The jingle of the _ing_ evidently caught the poet's rhyme-loving
+ear, and sometimes it really has a very pretty effect. Certain it is he
+has used it with great skill, and given his readers insight into another
+of his versatile gifts.
+
+As to the originality of our poet there is this to be said: He has a
+distinctively national spirit or vision; he is democratic in his
+feelings, and treats of indigenous subjects. His vehicle, his poetic
+forms and handling, he has treated as minor subjects for thought. He is
+democratic, not so powerfully and broadly as Whitman, but more
+unaffectedly and sincerely. He has not the magnificent prophetic vision,
+or Vorstellungskraft, of Whitman, any more than he has the crushing
+mastodon-steps of Whitman's ponderous rhythm. But he has thrown himself
+with trembling ardor and patriotism, into the life of his country. It is
+this fresh, New-World spirit that entitles him to be called original: he
+is non-European. He has not travelled much, nor mingled in the seething
+currents of Western and Southern life; but his strong sympathy has gone
+forth over the entire land. He also reflects faithfully the quiet scenes
+of his own Merrimack Valley. From his descriptions of these scenes we
+receive the impression of freshness and originality; and we recognize a
+master hand that can so portray them as to make us see the same places,
+though only on the printed page.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One regrets using a critical pen at all in discussing such a writer. It
+would be ungracious to call to a severe account one who places the most
+modest estimate upon his own work, and who has distinctly stated that,
+up to "about the year 1865, his writings were simply episodical,
+something apart from the real object and aim of [his] life." It is hard
+to criticise severely one who is unjust to himself through excess of
+diffident humility. In the exquisite Proem to his complete poems he
+would fain persuade us that he cannot breathe such notes as those of--
+
+                    "The old melodious lays
+    Which softly melt the ages through,
+            The songs of Spenser's golden days,
+            Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase,
+    Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew."
+
+But not so, O gentle minstrel of Essex! There are poems of thine which
+thousands prefer to the best of Spenser's or Sidney's, and which will
+continue to exist as long as beauty is its own excuse for being. Thou
+too hast been in Paradise, to fetch thence armfuls of dewy roses for our
+delight; not mounting thither by the "stairway of surprise," but along
+the common highway of daily duty and noble endeavor, unmindful of the
+dust and heat and chafing burdens, but singing aloud thy songs of lofty
+cheer, all magically intertwined with pictures of wayside flowers, and
+the homely beauty of lowliest things. And thou hast imparted to us the
+"groping of the keys of the heavenly harmonies," that no one who loves
+thy songs, ever loses from his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+POEMS SERIATIM.
+
+
+Among the three or four critical papers on Whittier that have up to this
+time been published, there is one that is marked by exceptional vigor;
+namely, the admirable philosophical analysis by Mr. David A. Wasson,
+published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for March, 1864. The author gladly
+acknowledges his indebtedness to this paper for several things,--chiefly
+for its keen _aperçu_ into the nature of Whittier's genius, and the
+proper psychological grouping of his poems. Mr. Wasson's classification
+can hardly be improved upon in its general features. He divides the
+literary life of the poet into three epochs,--The Struggle for Life, The
+Culture Epoch, and The Epoch of Poetic Realism; and between each of
+these he places transitional periods. The lines of his classification,
+however, are too sharply drawn, and the epochs seem too minutely
+subdivided. Moreover, the present writer would add an introductory or
+preparatory period; in other respects it seems to him that the grouping
+is as correct as such mathematical measurements of a poet's development
+can be. Suppose we group and name the poet's mental epochs as follows:--
+
+             FIRST PERIOD.--INTRODUCTORY. 1830-1833.
+
+     During this quiet, purely literary epoch, Whittier published
+     "Legends of New England" and "Moll Pitcher," and edited the
+     "Literary Remains of Brainard."
+
+
+           SECOND PERIOD.--STORM AND STRESS. 1833-1853.
+
+     The beginning of this period was marked by the publication of
+     "Justice and Expediency," and during its continuance were written
+     most of the anti-slavery productions, the Indian poems, many
+     legendary lays and prose pieces, religious lyrics, and "Songs of
+     Labor." The latter, being partially free from didacticism, leads
+     naturally up to the third period.
+
+
+                  THIRD PERIOD.--TRANSITION. 1853-1860
+
+     This Mr. Wasson calls the epoch of culture and religious doubt, the
+     central poems of which are "Chapel of the Hermits" and "Questions
+     of Life." We now begin to see a love of art for art's sake, and
+     there are fewer moral stump-speeches. The indignation of the
+     reformer is giving place to the calm repose of the artist. And such
+     ballads as "Mary Garvin" and "Maud Muller" form the introduction to
+     the culminating (or fourth) epoch in the poet's creative life.
+
+
+           FOURTH PERIOD.--RELIGIOUS AND ARTISTIC REPOSE. 1860-
+
+     During this time have been written nearly all the author's great
+     works, namely, his beautiful ballads, as well as "Snow-Bound" and
+     "The Tent on the Beach." The literary style is now mature. The
+     beautiful is sought for its own sake, both in nature and in lowly
+     life. It is a season of trust and _naïve_ simplicity.
+
+The works produced during the Introductory period have already been
+discussed in the biographical portion of this volume.
+
+Before passing rapidly in review some of the more important detached
+poems of the three latter periods (reserving a number of poems for
+consideration by groups), we must be allowed to offer a few criticisms
+on the earlier poems in general, meaning by this the ones published
+previous to the "Songs of Labor" in 1850. These earlier productions are
+to be commended chiefly for two things: (1) the subjects are drawn from
+original and native sources, and (2) the slavery poems are full of moral
+stamina and fiery indignation at oppression. There are single poems of
+great merit and beauty. But the style of most of them is unoriginal,
+being merely an echo of that of the English Lake School. Whittier's
+poetical development has been a steady growth. His genius matured late,
+and in his early poems there is little promise of the exquisite work of
+his riper years, unless it is a distinct indication of his rare power of
+telling a story in verse. It must be remembered that when Whittier began
+to write, American literature had yet to be created. There was not a
+single great American poem, with the exception of Bryant's
+"Thanatopsis." The prominent poets of that time--Percival, Brainard,
+Trumbull, Joel Barlow, Hillhouse, Pierpont, Dana, Sprague--are all
+forgotten now. The breath of immortality was not upon anything they
+wrote. A national literature is a thing of slow growth. Every writer is
+insensibly influenced by the intellectual tone of his neighbors and
+contemporaries. Judged in the light of his early disadvantages, and
+estimated by the standard of that time, Whittier's first essays are
+deserving of much credit, and they have had a distinct æsthetic and
+moral value in the development of American literature and the American
+character. But their deficiencies are very grave. There is a good deal
+of commonplace, and much extravagance of rhetoric. There are a great
+many "Lines" called forth by circumstances not at all poetical in their
+suggestions. Emotion and rhyme and commonplace incident are not enough
+to make a poem. One cannot embalm the memory of all one's friends in
+verse. In casting about for an explanation of the circumstance that our
+poet has so often chosen tame and uninspiring themes for his poems, we
+reach the conclusion that it is due to his solitary and uneventful
+life, and to the subdued and art-chilling atmosphere of his Quaker
+religion. You get, at any rate, no true impression of the intellectual
+breadth of the poet's mind from many of the productions of the period we
+are considering: the theme is too weak to support the poetical structure
+reared upon it. The poems and essays are written by one untoughened and
+unvitalized by varied and cheerful intercourse with men and affairs, a
+state of mind that was changed considerably as Mr. Whittier emerged from
+his semi-obscurity into a larger comprehension of his own powers.
+
+A minor fault of this period is the too frequent interruption of
+explanatory notes, that break and mar the free-flowing melody of
+versified thought. We find the same blemish in Longfellow's early work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the opening of the complete poetical works of Whittier stand two long
+Indian poems, with their war-paint and blood--like scarlet maples at the
+entrance of an aboriginal forest. The first of these poems, "Mogg
+Megone," is every way inferior to the second, or "The Bridal of
+Pennacook." "Mogg Megone" was published in 1836, and "The Bridal of
+Pennacook" in 1848. Mr. Whittier half apologizes for retaining the
+former of these in his complete works. There is, amongst much that,
+eliminated, might not be missed, a certain fresh and realistic diction,
+or nomenclature. It is picturesque, in portions somewhat dramatic and
+thrilling, and now is valuable as a link between the early stage of his
+authorship and the advanced culture of later years. In style it is an
+echo of Scott's "Lady of the Lake" or "Marmion."
+
+In "The Bridal of Pennacook" we have an Indian idyl of unquestionable
+power and beauty, a descriptive poem full of the cool, mossy sweetness
+of mountain landscapes, and although too artificial and subjective for a
+poem of primitive life, yet saturated with the imagery of the wigwam and
+the forest. A favorite article of food with the Indians of Northern Ohio
+was dried bear's-meat dipped in maple syrup. There is a savor of the
+like ferity and sweetness in this poem. It is almost wholly free from
+the strongly-marked faults of "Mogg Megone," and (that test of all
+tests) it is pleasant reading. Its two cardinal defects are lack of
+simplicity of treatment, and tenuity or triviality of the subject, or
+plot. The story is sometimes lost sight of in a jungle of verbiage and
+description. In contrasting such a poem with "Hiawatha," we see the
+wisdom of Longfellow in choosing an antique vehicle, or rhythmic style.
+Aborigines have a dialect of their own; the sentences of an Indian brave
+being as abrupt and sharp as the wild screams of an eagle. The set
+speeches of the North American Indians are always full of divers stock
+metaphors about natural scenery, wild animals, totems, and spirits, and
+are so different from those of civilized life that an expert can
+instantly detect a forgery or an imitation, so that all incongruities
+that attribute the complex and refined emotions of civilized life to the
+savage, seriously mar the pleasure of the reader. The descriptions of
+natural scenery in these Indian legends of Mr. Whittier's are fine, as
+all such writing by his facile pen was ever felicitous. And by virtue of
+this descriptive power, these idyls will be held long in grateful
+remembrance.
+
+In plan the poem is like the "Decameron," the "Princess," the
+"Canterbury Tales," and "Tales of a Wayside Inn." The different portions
+are supposed to be related by five persons,--a lawyer, a clergyman, a
+merchant and his daughter, and the poet,--who are all sight-seeing in
+the White Mountains. The opening description, in blank verse, conveys a
+vague but not very powerful impression of sublimity. The musical
+nomenclature of the red aborigines is finely handled, and such words as
+Pennacook, Babboosuck, Contoocook, Bashaba, and Weetamoo chime out here
+and there along the pages with as silvery a sweetness as the Tuscan
+words in Macaulay's "Lays." At the wedding of Weetamoo we have--
+
+    "Pike and perch from the Suncook taken,
+    Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken,
+    Cranberries picked from the Squamscot bog,
+    And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog:
+
+    And, drawn from that great stone vase which stands
+    In the river scooped by a spirit's hands,
+    Garnished with spoons of shell and horn,
+    Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn."
+
+The following stanza on the heroine, Weetamoo, is a fine one:--
+
+    "Child of the forest!--strong and free,
+      Slight-robed, with loosely flowing hair,
+    She swam the lake, or climbed the tree,
+      Or struck the flying bird in air.
+    O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon
+      Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way;
+    And, dazzling in the summer noon,
+      The blade of her light oar threw off its shower of spray!"
+
+The "Song of Indian Women," at the close of "The Bridal of Pennacook,"
+is admirable for melody, weird and wild beauty, and naturalness. It is a
+lament for the lost Weetamoo, who, unfortunate in her married life, has
+committed suicide by sailing over the rapids in her canoe:--
+
+               "The Dark Eye has left us,
+                The Spring-bird has flown;
+              On the pathway of spirits
+                She wanders alone.
+    The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore,--
+    _Mat wonck kunna-monee!_--We hear it no more!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+                 O mighty Sowanna!
+                Thy gateways unfold,
+              From thy wigwams of sunset
+                Lift curtains of gold!
+    Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er,--
+    _Mat wonck kunna-monee!_--We see her no more!"
+
+There are two minor Indian poems by Whittier that have the true ring;
+namely, the "Truce of Piscataqua" and "Funeral Tree of the Sokokis." The
+latter well-known poem is pitched in as high and solemn a key as
+Platen's "Grab im Busento," a poem similar in theme to Whittier's:--
+
+    "They heave the stubborn trunk aside,
+    The firm roots from the earth divide,--
+    The rent beneath yawns dark and wide.
+
+    And there the fallen chief is laid,
+    In tasselled garbs of skins arrayed,
+    And girded with his wampum-braid."
+
+    _Whittier._
+
+
+    "In der wogenleeren Höhlung wühlten sie empor die Erde,
+    Senkten tief hinein den Leichnam, mit der Rüstung auf dem Pferde.
+    Deckten dann mit Erde wieder ihn und seine stolze Habe."
+
+    _Platen._
+
+
+    In the empty river-bottom hurriedly they dug the death-pit,
+    Deep therein they sank the hero with his armor and his war-steed,
+    Covered then with earth and darkness him and all his splendid
+      trappings.
+
+When the reader, who has worked gloomily along through Whittier's
+anti-slavery and miscellaneous poems, reaches the "Songs of Labor," he
+feels at once the breath of a fresher spirit,--as a traveller who has
+been toiling for weary leagues through sandy deserts bares his brow with
+delight to the coolness and shade of a green forest through whose thick
+roof of leaves the garish sunlight scarcely sifts. We feel that in these
+poems a new departure has been made. The wrath of the reformer has
+expended itself, and the poet now returns, with mind elevated and more
+tensely keyed by his moral warfare, to the study of the beautiful in
+native themes and in homely life. "The Shipbuilders," "The Shoemakers,"
+"The Fishermen," and "The Huskers" are genuine songs; and more shame to
+the craftsmen celebrated if they do not get them set to music, and sing
+them while at their work. One cannot help feeling that Walt Whitman's
+call for some one to make songs for American laborers had already been
+met in a goodly degree by these spirited "Songs of Labor." What workman
+would not be glad to carol such stanzas as the following, if they were
+set to popular airs?
+
+    "Hurrah! the seaward breezes
+      Sweep down the bay amain;
+    Heave up, my lads, the anchor!
+      Run up the sail again!
+    Leave to the lubber landsmen
+      The rail-car and the steed:
+    The stars of heaven shall guide us,
+      The breath of heaven shall speed."
+
+    _The Fishermen._
+
+
+    "Ho! workers of the old time styled
+      The Gentle Craft of Leather!
+    Young brothers of the ancient guild,
+      Stand forth once more together!
+    Call out again your long array,
+      In the olden merry manner!
+    Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day,
+      Fling out your blazoned banner!
+
+    Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stone
+      How falls the polished hammer!
+    Rap, rap! the measured sound has grown
+      A quick and merry clamor.
+    Now shape the sole! now deftly curl
+      The glossy vamp around it,
+    And bless the while the bright-eyed girl
+      Whose gentle fingers bound it!"
+
+    _The Shoemakers._
+
+The publication of "The Chapel of the Hermits" and "Questions of Life,"
+in 1853, marks (as has been said) the period of culture and of
+religious doubt,--doubt which ended in trust. In this period we have
+such genuine undidactic poems as "The Barefoot Boy."
+
+    "Blessings on thee, little man,
+    Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
+    With thy turned-up pantaloons,
+    And thy merry whistled tunes;
+    With thy red lip, redder still
+    Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
+    With the sunshine on thy face,
+    Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace."
+
+Also, such fine poems as "Flowers in Winter" and "To My Old
+Schoolmaster;" as well as the excellent ballads, "Maud Muller,"
+"Kathleen," and "Mary Garvin."
+
+The period in Whittier's life from about 1858 to 1868 we may call the
+Ballad Decade,[26] for within this time were produced most of his
+immortal ballads. We say immortal, believing that if all else that he
+has written shall perish, his finest ballads will carry his name down to
+a remote posterity. "The Tent on the Beach" is mainly a series of
+ballads; and "Snow-Bound," although not a ballad, is still a narrative
+poem closely allied to that species of poetry, the difference between a
+ballad and an idyl being that one is made to be sung and the other to be
+read: both narrate events as they occur, and leave to the reader all
+sentiment and reflection.
+
+[Footnote 26: The beginning of this decade nearly coincides with the
+fourth or final period in our classification, upon the consideration of
+which we shall now enter.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The finest ballads of Whittier have the power of keeping us in
+breathless suspense of interest until the _dénouement_ or the
+catastrophe, as the case may be. The popularity of "Maud Muller" is well
+deserved. What a rich and mellow translucence it has! How it appeals to
+the universal heart! And yet "The Witch's Daughter" and "Telling the
+Bees" are more exquisite creations than "Maud Muller": they have a
+spontaneity, a subtle pathos, a sublimated sweetness of despair that
+take hold of the very heart-strings, and thus deal with deeper emotions
+than such light, objective ballads as "Maud Muller" and "Skipper
+Ireson's Ride." But the surface grace of the two latter have of course
+made them the more popular, just as the "Scarlet Letter" finds greater
+favor with most people than does "The House of the Seven Gables,"
+although Hawthorne rightly thought the "Seven Gables" to be his finest
+and subtlest work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mark the Chaucerian freshness of the opening stanzas of "The Witch's
+Daughter":--
+
+    "It was the pleasant harvest time,
+      When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
+      And garrets bend beneath their load,
+
+    And the old swallow-haunted barns--
+      Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
+      Through which the moted sunlight streams.
+
+    And winds blow freshly in, to shake
+      The red plumes of the roosted cocks,
+      And the loose hay-mow's scented locks--
+
+    Are filled with summer's ripened stores,
+      Its odorous grass and barley sheaves,
+      From their low scaffolds to their eaves."
+
+A companion ballad to "The Witch's Daughter" is "The Witch of Wenham," a
+poem almost equal to it in merit, and like it ending happily. These
+ballads do not quite attain the almost supernatural simplicity of
+Wordsworth's "Lucy Gray" and "We are Seven"; but they possess an equal
+interest, excited by the same poetical qualities. "Telling the Bees,"
+however, seems to the writer as purely Wordsworthian as anything
+Wordsworth ever wrote:--
+
+    "Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
+      Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"
+
+How the tears spring to the eyes in reading this immortal little poem!
+The bee-hives ranged in the garden, the sun "tangling his wings of fire
+in the trees," the dog whining low, the old man "with his cane to his
+chin,"--we all know the scene: its every feature appeals to our
+sympathies and associations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Double-headed Snake of Newbury" is a whimsical story, in which the
+poet waxes right merry as he relates how--
+
+    "Far and wide the tale was told,
+    Like a snowball growing while it rolled.
+    The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry;
+    And it served, in the worthy minister's eye,
+    To paint the primitive serpent by.
+
+    Cotton Mather came galloping down
+    All the way to Newbury town,
+    With his eyes agog and his ears set wide,
+    And his marvellous inkhorn at his side;
+    Stirring the while in the shallow pool
+    Of his brains for the lore he learned at school,
+    To garnish the story, with here a streak
+    Of Latin, and there another of Greek:
+    And the tales he heard and the notes he took,
+    Behold! are they not in his Wonder-Book?"
+
+A word about Whittier's "Prophecy of Samuel Sewall." It seems that old
+Judge Sewall made the prophecies of the Bible his favorite study. One of
+his ideas was that America was to be the site of the New Jerusalem.
+Toward the end of his book entitled "Phenomena Quædam Apocalyptica; ...
+or ... a Description of the New Heaven as it makes to those who stand
+upon the New Earth" (1697), he gives utterance to the triumphant
+prophecy that forms the subject of Whittier's poem. His language is so
+quaint that the reader will like to see the passage in Sewall's own
+words:--
+
+    "As long as Plum Island shall faithfully keep the commanded post,
+    notwithstanding till the hectoring words and hard blows of the
+    proud and boisterous ocean; as long as any salmon or sturgeon shall
+    swim in the streams of Merrimac, or any perch or pickerel in Crane
+    Pond; as long as the sea-fowl shall know the time of their coming,
+    and not neglect seasonably to visit the places of their
+    acquaintance; as long as any cattle shall be fed with the grass
+    growing in the meadows, which do humbly bow down themselves before
+    Turkey Hill; as long as any sheep shall walk upon Old-Town Hills,
+    and shall from thence pleasantly look down upon the River Parker,
+    and the fruitful marshes lying beneath; as long as any free and
+    harmless doves shall find a white oak or other tree within the
+    township, to perch, or feed, or build a careless nest upon, and
+    shall voluntarily present themselves to perform the office of
+    gleaners after barley-harvest; as long as Nature shall not grow old
+    and dote, but shall constantly remember to give the rows of Indian
+    corn their education by pairs; so long shall Christians be born
+    there, and being first made meet, shall from thence be translated to
+    be made partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."
+
+Moses Coit Tyler, in his "History of American Literature," II., p. 102
+(note), says: "Whittier speaks of Newbury as Sewall's 'native town,' but
+Sewall was born at Horton, England. He also describes Sewall as an 'old
+man,' propped on his staff of age when he made this prophecy; but Sewall
+was then forty-five years old."
+
+There are two or three other ballads in which Whittier is said to have
+made historical blunders. It really does not seem of much importance
+whether he did or did not get the precise facts in each case. The
+important point is that he made beautiful ballads. But it will be right
+to give, in brief, the objections that have been brought against
+"Skipper Ireson's Ride" and "Barbara Frietchie." "The King's Missive"
+will be discussed in another place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Apropos of Skipper Ireson, Mr. John W. Chadwick has spoken as follows in
+_Harper's Monthly_ for July, 1874:--
+
+    "In one of the queerest corners of the town [Marblehead], there
+    stands a house as modest as the Lee house was magnificent. So long
+    as he lived it was the home of 'Old Flood Oirson,' whose name and
+    fame have gone farther and fared worse than any other fact or fancy
+    connected with his native town. Plain, honest folk don't know about
+    poetic license, and I have often heard the poet's conduct in the
+    matter of Skipper Ireson's ride characterized with profane severity.
+    He unwittingly departed from the truth in various particulars. The
+    wreck did not, as the ballad recites, contain any of 'his own
+    town's-people.' Moreover, four of those it did contain _were_ saved
+    by a whale-boat from Provincetown. It was off Cape Cod, and not in
+    Chaleur Bay, that the wreck was deserted; and the desertion was in
+    this wise: It was in the night that the wreck was discovered. In the
+    darkness and the heavy sea it was impossible to give assistance.
+    When the skipper went below, he ordered the watch to lie by the
+    wreck till 'dorning'; but the watch wilfully disobeyed, and
+    afterward, to shield themselves, laid all the blame upon the
+    skipper. Then came the tarring and feathering. The women, whose
+    _rôle_ in the ballad is so striking, had nothing to do with it. The
+    vehicle was not a cart, but a dory; and the skipper, instead of
+    being contrite, said, 'I thank you for your ride.' I asked one of
+    the skipper's contemporaries what the effect was on the skipper.
+    'Cowed him to death,' said he, 'cowed him to death.' He went skipper
+    again the next year, but never afterward. He had been dead only a
+    year or two when Whittier's ballad appeared. His real name was not
+    Floyd, as Whittier supposes, but Benjamin, 'Flood' being one of
+    those nicknames that were not the exception, but the rule, in the
+    old fishing-days. For many years before his death the old man earned
+    a precarious living by dory-fishing in the bay, and selling his
+    daily catch from a wheelbarrow. When old age and blindness overtook
+    him, and his last trip was made, his dory was hauled up into the
+    lane before his house, and there went to rot and ruin.... The hoarse
+    refrain of Whittier's ballad is the best-known example of the once
+    famous Marblehead dialect, and it is not a bad one. To what extent
+    this dialect was peculiar to Marblehead it might be difficult to
+    determine. Largely, no doubt, it was inherited from English
+    ancestors. Its principal delight consisted in pronouncing _o_ for
+    _a_, and _a_ for _o_. For example, if an old-fashioned Marbleheader
+    wished to say he 'was born in a barn,' he would say, he 'was barn in
+    a born.' The _e_ was also turned into _a_, and even into _o_, and
+    the _v_ into _w_. 'That vessel's stern' became 'that 'wessel's
+    starn,' or 'storn.' I remember a school-boy declaiming from
+    Shakspere, 'Thou little walliant, great in willany.' There was a
+    great deal of shortening. The fine name Crowninshield became
+    Grounsel, and Florence became Flurry, and a Frenchman named
+    Blancpied found himself changed into Blumpy. Endings in _une_ and
+    _ing_ were alike changed into _in_. Misfortune was misfartin', and
+    fishing was always fishin'. There were words peculiar to the place.
+    One of these was planchment for ceiling. Crim was another, meaning
+    to shudder with cold, and there was an adjective, crimmy. Still
+    another was _clitch_, meaning to stick badly, surely an
+    onomatopoetic word that should be naturalized before it is too late.
+    Some of the swearing, too, was neither by the throne nor footstool,
+    such as 'Dahst my eyes!' and 'Godfrey darmints.' The ancient
+    dialect in all its purity is now seldom used. It crops out here and
+    there sometimes where least expected, and occasionally one meets
+    with some old veteran whose speech has lost none of the ancient
+    savor."
+
+Now for "Barbara Frietchie." The incident of the poem was given to
+Whittier by the novelist, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, whose letter we
+append. The philanthropist, Dorothea Dix, investigated the case in
+Frederick, and she says that Barbara did wave the flag, etc. An army
+officer also made affidavit of the truth of the lines. A young Southern
+soldier has declared that he was present, and that his was one of the
+shots that hit the flagstaff!
+
+On the other side are Samuel Tyler and Jacob Engelbrecht, the latter an
+old and greatly respected citizen of Frederick, and living directly
+opposite Barbara's house. Jacob wrote to the Baltimore _Sun_, saying
+that Stonewall Jackson's corps marched through another street, and did
+not approach Dame Frietchie's house at all. Lee's column did pass it, he
+says; but he, who stood watching at his window, saw no flag whatever at
+_her_ window.
+
+He says that when ten days later General McClellan passed through the
+town she did exhibit a flag.
+
+Finally, General Jubal Early comes upon the witness stand, and testifies
+that as the Southern troops passed through Frederick, there were only
+two cases of waving of Union flags; one of these was by a little girl,
+about ten years old, who stood on the platform of a house and waved
+incessantly a little "candy flag," and cried in a dull, monotonous
+voice: "Hurrah for the Stars and Stripes! Down with the Stars and Bars!"
+No one molested her. The other case was that of a coarse,
+slovenly-looking woman, who rushed up to the entrance of an alley and
+waved a dirty United States flag.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Pipes at Lucknow" is a poem full of martial fire and lyric
+rush,--the subject a capital one for a poet. A little band of English,
+besieged in a town in the heart of India, and full of despair, hear in
+the distance the sweetest sound that ever fell upon their ears, namely,
+the shrill pibroch of the MacGregor Clan; and--
+
+        "When the far-off dust-cloud
+      To plaided legions grew,
+    Full tenderly and blithesomely
+      The pipes of rescue blew!"
+
+Another group of ballads comprises "Cobbler Keezar's Vision," "Amy
+Wentworth," and "The Countess."
+
+In the first of these, old Cobbler Keezar, of the early Puritan times,
+by virtue of a mystic lapstone, sees a vision of our age of religious
+tolerance, and wonders greatly thereat:--
+
+        "Keezar sat on the hillside
+      Upon his cobbler's form,
+    With a pan of coals on either hand
+      To keep his waxed-ends warm.
+
+    And there, in the golden weather,
+      He stitched and hammered and sung;
+    In the brook he moistened his leather,
+      In the pewter mug his tongue."
+
+The ballad of "Amy Wentworth" treats of the same subject as "Among The
+Hills," namely, a superior woman, of the white-handed caste, falling in
+love with and marrying a broad-shouldered, brown-handed hero, with a
+right manly heart and brain.
+
+Many and many a poem of Whittier's is spoiled by its too great
+length,--a thing that is fatal in a lyric. The long prelude to "Amy
+Wentworth" should have been omitted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The scene of the lovely poem entitled "The Countess" is laid in Rocks
+Village, a part of East Haverhill, and lying on the Merrimack, where--
+
+    "The river's steel-blue crescent curves
+      To meet, in ebb and flow,
+    The single broken wharf that serves
+      For sloop and gundelow.
+
+    With salt sea-scents along its shores
+      The heavy hay-boats crawl,
+    The long antennæ of their oars
+      In lazy rise and fall.
+
+    Along the gray abutment's wall
+      The idle shad-net dries;
+    The toll-man in his cobbler's stall
+      Sits smoking with closed eyes."
+
+Whittier dedicates his poem to his father's family physician, Elias
+Weld, of Rocks Village. The story which forms the subject of the poem is
+a romantic one, and exquisitely has our poet embalmed it in verse. From
+a sketch by Rebecca I. Davis, of East Haverhill, the following facts
+relating to the personages that figure in the poem have been culled:--
+
+The Countess was Miss Mary Ingalls, daughter of Henry and Abigail
+Ingalls, of Rocks Village. She was born in 1786, and is still remembered
+by a few old inhabitants as a young girl of remarkable beauty. She was
+of medium height, had long golden curls, violet eyes, fair complexion,
+and rosy cheeks, and was exceedingly modest and lovable. It was in the
+year 1806 that a little company of French exiles fled from the Island of
+Guadaloupe on account of a bloody rebellion or uprising of the
+inhabitants. Among the fugitives were Count Francis de Vipart and Joseph
+Rochemont de Poyen. The company reached Newburyport. The two gentlemen
+just mentioned settled at Rocks Village, and both married there. Mary
+Ingalls was only a laborer's daughter, and of course her marriage with
+the count created a sensation in the simple, rustic community. The
+count was a pleasant, stately man, and a fine violinist. The bridal
+dress, says Miss Davis, was of a pink satin, with an overdress of white
+lace; her slippers also were of white satin. The count delighted to
+lavish upon her the richest apparel, yet nothing spoiled the sweet
+modesty of her disposition. After one short year of happy married life
+the lovely wife died. Assiduous attention to a sick mother had brought
+on consumption. In the village God's-acre her gray tombstone is already
+covered with moss.
+
+The count returned to his native island overwhelmed with grief. In after
+years, however, he married again. When he died he was interred in the
+family burial-place of the De Viparts at Bordeaux. He left several
+children.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Stedman, in his fine synthetic survey of American poetry, published
+in _The Century_, has remarked that most of our early poetry and
+painting is full of landscape. The loveliest season in America is the
+autumn, when, as Whittier beautifully says, the woods "wear their robes
+of praise, the south winds softly sigh,"--
+
+    "And sweet, calm days in golden haze
+      Melt down the amber sky."
+
+We have plenty of idyls of autumn color, like Buchanan Read's "Closing
+Scene," and portions of Longfellow's "Hiawatha." But American winter
+landscapes are as poetical as those of autumn.[27] It is probable that
+the scarcity of snow-idyls hitherto is due to the supposed cheerlessness
+of the snow. But with the rapid multiplication of winter comforts, our
+nature-worship is cautiously broadening so as to include even the stern
+beauty of winter. There are already a good many signs of this in
+literature. We have had, of late, lovely little snow-and-winter
+vignettes in prose by John Burroughs of New York, and Edith Thomas of
+Ohio; and there is plenty of room for further study of winter in other
+regions of the United States. The most delicate bit of realistic winter
+poetry in literature is Emerson's "Snow-Storm." Mr. Whittier is an
+ardent admirer of that writer--as what poet is not?--and his own
+productions show frequent traces of Emersonianisms. He has prefixed to
+"Snow-Bound" a quotation from the "Snow-Storm," and there can scarcely
+be a doubt that to the countless obligations we all owe Emerson must be
+added this: that he inspired the writing of Whittier's finest poem, and
+the best idyl of American rural life. It is too complex and diffusive
+fully to equal in artistic purity and plastic proportion the "Cotter's
+Saturday Night" of Burns; but it is much richer than that poem in
+felicitous single epithets, which, like little wicket doors, open up to
+the eye of memory many a long-forgotten picture of early life.
+
+[Footnote 27: What is the subtle fascination that lurks in such bits of
+winter poetry as the following, collected by the writer out of his
+reading?
+
+    "Yesterday the sullen year
+    Saw the snowy whirlwind fly."--_Gray._
+
+    "All winter drives along the darkened air."--_Thomson._
+
+    "High-ridged the whirled drift has almost reached
+    The powdered keystone of the churchyard porch;
+    Mute hangs the hooded bell; the tombs lie buried."--_Grahame._
+
+    "Alas! alas! thou snow-smitten wood of
+    Troy, and mountains of Ida."--_Sophocles._
+
+    "O hard, dull bitterness of cold."--_Whittier._
+
+    "And in the narrow house o' death
+    Let winter round me rave."--_Burns._
+
+    "The mesmerizer, Snow,
+    With his hand's first sweep
+    Put the earth to sleep."--_Robert Browning._
+
+    "And the cakèd snow is shuffled
+    From the plough-boy's heavy shoon."--_Keats._]
+
+"Snow-Bound" was published in 1860, and was written, Mr. Whittier has
+said, "to beguile the weariness of a sick-chamber." The poet has obeyed
+the canon of Lessing, and instead of giving us dead description wholly,
+has shown us his characters in action, and extended his story over three
+days and the two intervening nights,--that is to say, the main action
+covers that time: the whole time mentioned in the poem is a week. It is
+unnecessary to give here any further account of the idyl than has
+already been furnished in the account of Whittier's boyhood.
+
+"The Tent on the Beach" is a cluster of ballads. In accordance with a
+familiar fiction, they are supposed to be sung, or told, by several
+persons, in this case three, namely, the poet himself, "a lettered
+magnate" (James T. Fields), and a traveller (Bayard Taylor). All of the
+poems are readable, and many of them are to be classed among Whittier's
+best lyrics. "The Wreck of Rivermouth," "The Changeling," and
+"Kallundborg Church" are masterpieces in the line of ballads. In "The
+Dead Ship of Harpswell" we have the fine phrase,--
+
+    "O hundred-harbored Maine!"
+
+Whittier has now become almost a perfect master of verbal melody.
+Hearken to this:--
+
+    "Oho!" she muttered, "ye're brave to-day!
+    But I hear the little waves laugh and say,
+    'The broth will be cold that waits at home;
+    For it's one to go, but another to come!'"
+
+There is a light and piquant humor about some of the interludes of the
+"Tent on the Beach." The song in the last of these contains a striking
+and original stanza concerning the ocean:--
+
+    "Its waves are kneeling on the strand,
+       As kneels the human knee,
+    Their white locks bowing to the sand,
+       The priesthood of the sea!"
+
+"Among the Hills" is a little farm-idyl, or love-idyl, of the New
+Hampshire mountain land, and bearing some resemblance to Tennyson's
+"Gardener's Daughter." It is an excellent specimen of the poems of
+Whittier that reach the popular heart, and engage its sympathies. In the
+remotest farm-houses of the land you are almost sure to find among their
+few books a copy of Whittier's Poems, well-thumbed and soiled with use.
+The opening description of the prelude to "Among the Hills" could not be
+surpassed by Bion or Theocritus. In this poem a fresh interest is
+excited in the reader by the fact that the city woman falls in love with
+a manly farmer, thus happily reversing the old, old story of the city
+man wooing and winning the rustic beauty. The farmer accuses the fair
+city maid of coquetry. She replies:
+
+    "'Nor frock nor tan can hide the man;
+      And see you not, my farmer,
+    How weak and fond a woman waits
+      Behind this silken armor?
+
+    'I love you: on that love alone,
+      And not my worth, presuming,
+    Will you not trust for summer fruit
+      The tree in May-day blooming?'
+
+    Alone the hangbird overhead,
+      His hair-swung cradle straining,
+    Looked down to see love's miracle,--
+      The giving that is gaining."
+
+In "Lines on a Fly-Leaf," the author of "Snow-Bound" gives in his hearty
+adherence to that movement for the elevation of woman, and the securing
+of her rights as a human being, which is perhaps the most significant
+and important of the many agitations of this agitated age.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The poem "Miriam," like "The Preacher," is one of those long sermons, or
+meditations in verse, which Whittier loves to spin out of his mind in
+solitude. It contains in "Shah Akbar" a fine Oriental ballad.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The narrative poem called "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim," published in 1872,
+has no striking poetical merit, but is valuable and readable for the
+pleasant light in which it sets forth the doings of the quaint people of
+Germantown and the Wissahickon, near Philadelphia, nearly two hundred
+years ago. It introduces us to the homes and hearts of the little
+settlements of German Quakers under Francis Daniel Pastorius, the
+Mystics under the leadership of Magister Johann Kelpius, and the
+Mennonites under their various leaders. "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim" is a
+poem for Quakers, for Philadelphians who love their great park and its
+Wissahickon drives, and for antiquarian historical students. We may
+regret, if we choose, that the poet has not succeeded in embalming the
+memory of the Germantown Quakers in such felicitous verse as other poets
+have sung the virtues and ways of the Puritans, but we cannot deny that
+he has garnished with the flowers of poetry a dry historical subject,
+and so earned the gratitude of a goodly number of students and scholars.
+
+In "The King's Missive, and Other Poems," published in 1881, the most
+notable piece is "The Lost Occasion," a poem on Daniel Webster, finer
+even than the much-admired "Ichabod," published many years previously.
+"The Lost Occasion" is pitched in a high, solemn, and majestic strain.
+It is a superb eulogy, full of magnanimity and generous forgiveness.
+Listen to a few stanzas:--
+
+                    "Thou
+    Whom the rich heavens did endow
+    With eyes of power and Jove's own brow,
+    With all the massive strength that fills
+    Thy home-horizon's granite hills,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Whose words, in simplest home-spun clad,
+    The Saxon strength of Caedmon had,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Sweet with persuasion, eloquent
+    In passion, cool in argument,
+    Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes
+    As fell the Norse god's hammer blows,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Too soon for us, too soon for thee,
+    Beside thy lonely Northern sea,
+    Where long and low the marsh-lands spread,
+    Laid wearily down thy august head."
+
+The poem of "The King's Missive" calls for such extended discussion that
+a brief chapter shall be devoted to it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE KING'S MISSIVE.
+
+    "_Under the great hill sloping bare
+      To cove and meadow and Common lot,
+    In his council chamber and oaken chair,
+      Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott._"
+
+
+So run the opening lines of the historical poem contributed by Whittier
+to the first volume of the Memorial History of Boston (1880). While the
+governor is thus sitting, in comes Clerk Rawson with the unwelcome news
+that banished Quaker Shattuck, of Salem, has returned from abroad. The
+choleric governor swears that he will now hew in pieces the pestilent,
+ranting Quakers. Presently Shattuck is ushered in: "Off with the knave's
+hat," says the governor. As they strike off his hat he smilingly holds
+out the Missive, or mandamus, of Charles II. The governor immediately
+asks him to cover, and humbly removes his own hat. The king's letter
+commands him to cease persecuting the Quakers. After consultation with
+the deputy governor, Bellingham, he obeys, and the then imprisoned
+Quakers file out of jail with words of praise on their lips.
+
+The poem fascinates us, for the incident is dramatic, and focusses in a
+single picturesque situation all the features of that little historical
+episode of two hundred years ago, _i. e._, the persecution of the
+Quakers by the Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A brief setting
+forth of the facts connected with this persecution will not only be full
+of intrinsic interest, but is indispensable to a right understanding of
+the Quaker poet's inherited character, as well as to a comprehension of
+his prose and poetry. One whose ancestors have been persecuted for
+generations will inherit a loathing of oppression, as Whittier has done.
+And this hatred of tyranny will be intensified in the case of one who is
+thoroughly read in the literature of that persecution, and is in quick
+and intimate sympathy with the victims, as Whittier is.
+
+But first a word more about the "King's Missive." Joseph Besse, in his
+"Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers" (a sort of
+"Fox's Book of Martyrs," in two huge antique volumes), says [II., p.
+226] that the principal instrument in procuring the royal mandamus
+(styled by Whittier the King's Missive) was Edward Burroughs,[28] who
+went to the king and told him that "There was a Vein of innocent Blood
+open'd in his Dominions, which if it were not stopt might over-run all.
+To which the king replied, 'But I will stop that Vein.'" Accordingly, in
+the autumn of 1661, Samuel Shattuck was selected to bear a letter to
+America. The London Friends hired Ralph Goldsmith, also a Friend, to
+convey Shattuck to his destination. They paid him £300 for the service.
+The ship entered Boston Harbor on a Sunday in the latter part of
+November, 1661.
+
+[Footnote 28: "There is a story," says Dr. George E. Ellis, "that
+Burroughs got access to the king out of doors, while his Majesty was
+playing tennis. As Burroughs kept on his hat while accosting the king,
+the latter gracefully removed his plumed cap and bowed. The Quaker, put
+to the blush, said, 'Thee need'st not remove thy hat.' 'Oh,' replied the
+king, 'it is of no consequence, only that when the king and another
+gentleman are talking together it is usual for one of them to take off
+his hat.'"]
+
+"The Townsmen," says Besse, "seeing a Ship with _English_ Colours, soon
+came on board, and asked for the Captain? _Ralph Goldsmith_ told them,
+_He was the Commander_. They asked, _Whether he had any Letters_? He
+answered, _Yes_. But withal told them, _He would not deliver them that
+Day_. So they returned on shore again, and reported, that _There were
+many_ Quakers _come, and that_ Samuel Shattock (who they knew had been
+banished on pain of Death) _was among them_. But they knew nothing of
+his Errand or Authority. Thus all was kept close, and none of the Ship's
+Company suffered to go on shore that Day. Next morning _Ralph
+Goldsmith_, the Commander, with _Samuel Shattock_, the King's Deputy,
+went on shore, and sending the Boat back to the Ship, they two went
+directly through the Town to the Governour's House, and knockt at the
+Door: He sending a Man to know their Business, they sent him Word, that
+_Their Message was from the King of_ England, _and that they would
+deliver it to none but himself_. Then they were admitted to go in, and
+the Governour came to them, and commanded _Samuel Shattock's_ Hat to be
+taken off, and having received the Deputation and the _Mandamus_, he
+laid off his own Hat; and ordering Shattock's Hat to be given him again,
+perused the Papers, and then went out to the Deputy-Governour's, bidding
+the King's Deputy and the Master of the Ship to follow him: Being come
+to the Deputy-Governour, and having consulted him, he returned to the
+aforesaid two Persons and said, _We shall obey his Majesty's Command_.
+After this, the Master of the Ship gave Liberty to his Passengers to
+come on shore, which they did, and had a religious Meeting with their
+Friends of the Town, where they returned Praises to God for his Mercy
+manifested in this wonderful Deliverance."
+
+The persecution, it is true, only ceased for about a year (the next
+recorded whipping-order bearing date of December 22, 1662). But the
+Quakers were greatly encouraged by the interposition in their favor.
+
+In an address before the Massachusetts Historical Society, Dr. George E.
+Ellis, of Boston, read a paper criticising Mr. Whittier's "King's
+Missive." This address was published in the Proceedings of the Society
+for March, 1881. In the "Memorial History of Boston" [I., p. 180] he
+asserts that the Quakers were all "of low rank, of mean breeding, and
+illiterate." He says that they courted persecution, and that they were a
+pestilent brood of ranters, disturbers of the public peace, and dreaded
+by the leaders of the infant Commonwealth as they would have dreaded the
+cholera. He quotes Roger Williams, who wrote of the Quakers that they
+were "insufferably proud and contentious," and advised a "due and
+moderate restraint of their incivilities." Dr. Ellis, it is true, takes
+the theoretical ground of "the equal folly and culpability of both
+parties in the tragedy," but seems entirely to nullify this statement by
+his apparently unbiassed, but really partisan treatment of the subject.
+When you have finished his paper you perceive that the impression left
+on your mind is that the really bitter and unrelenting Puritan
+persecutors were long-suffering, angelic natures, while their victims,
+the Quakers, were mere gallows' dogs. His theoretical position is summed
+up in the following words:--
+
+    "The crowning folly or iniquity in the course of the Puritans was in
+    following up their penal inflictions, through banishments,
+    imprisonments, fines, scourgings, and mutilations, to the execution
+    on the gallows of four martyr victims. But what shall we say of the
+    persistency, the exasperating contemptuousness and defiance, the
+    goading, maddening obstinacy, and reproaching invectives of those
+    who drove the magistrates, against their will, to vindicate their
+    own insulted authority, and to stain our annals with innocent
+    blood?"--Memorial History of Boston, I., 1882.
+
+Dr. Ellis is right in holding that some of the Quakers were gadflies of
+obstinacy, and full of self-righteous pride; but he fails to tell us of
+the patience, Christian sweetness, and meekness of character of the
+majority of them; and it is only when we turn to the pages of Fox and
+Besse that we see the inadequate character of such a picture as that
+drawn by Dr. Ellis. In the plain, _naïve_ annals of Besse, the
+hard-heartedness and haughty pride of the Puritan magistrates (traits
+still amply represented in their descendants) are thrown into the most
+striking relief. They glower over their victims like tigers; they are
+choked with their passions; they spurn excuses and palliatives; they
+demand blood.
+
+In the _Boston Daily Advertiser_ for March 29, 1881, Mr. Whittier
+published a long reply to Dr. Ellis, in which he fortified the positions
+taken by him in his ballad, showing that he did not mean to hold up
+Charles II. as a consistent friend of toleration, and that there must
+have been a general jail delivery in consequence of the receipt of the
+mandamus. He says:--
+
+    "The charge that the Quakers who suffered were 'vagabonds' and
+    'ignorant, low fanatics,' is unfounded in fact. Mary Dyer, who was
+    executed, was a woman of marked respectability. She had been the
+    friend and associate of Sir Henry Vane and the ministers Wheelwright
+    and Cotton. The papers left behind by the three men who were hanged
+    show that they were above the common class of their day in mental
+    power and genuine piety. John Rous, who, in execution of his
+    sentence, had his right ear cut off by the constable in the Boston
+    jail, was of gentlemanly lineage, the son of Colonel Rous of the
+    British army, and himself the betrothed of a high-born and
+    cultivated young English lady. Nicholas Upsall was one of Boston's
+    most worthy and substantial citizens, yet was driven in his age and
+    infirmities, from his home and property, into the wilderness."
+
+Mr. Whittier further remarks:--
+
+    "Dr. Ellis has been a very generous, as well as ingenious defender
+    of the Puritan clergy and government, and his labors in this respect
+    have the merit of gratuitous disinterestedness. Had the very worthy
+    and learned gentleman been a resident in the Massachusetts colony in
+    1660, one of his most guarded doctrinal sermons would have brought
+    down upon him the wrath of clergy and magistracy. His Socinianism
+    would have seemed more wicked than the 'inward light' of the
+    Quakers; and, had he been as 'doggedly obstinate' as Servetus at
+    Geneva (as I do him the justice to think he would have been), he
+    might have hung on the same gallows with the Quakers, or the same
+    shears which clipped the ears of Holder, Rous, and Copeland might
+    have shorn off his own."
+
+Let us look a little more closely at the evidence on both sides.
+
+In the fourth chapter of the seventh book of Cotton Mather's "Magnalia"
+we have a specimen of Quaker rant. After stating that he is opposed to
+the capital punishment of Quakers, but advises shaving of the head, or
+blood-letting, the proud and scornful old doctor concludes as follows:--
+
+    "_Reader_, I can foretell what usage I shall find among the
+    _Quakers_ for this chapter of our _church-history_; for a worthy man
+    that writes of them has observed, _for pride and hypocrisie, and
+    hellish reviling against the painful ministers of Christ, I know no
+    people can match them_. Yea, prepare, friend _Mather_, to be
+    assaulted with such language as _Fisher_ the Quaker, in his
+    pamphlets, does bestow upon such men as _Dr. Owen; thou fiery
+    fighter and green-headed trumpeter; thou hedgehog and grinning dog;
+    thou bastard that tumbled out of the mouth of the Babilonish bawd;
+    thou mole; thou tinker; thou lizzard; thou bell of no metal, but the
+    tone of a kettle; thou wheelbarrow; thou whirlpool; thou whirlegig.
+    O thou firebrand; thou adder and scorpion; thou louse; thou
+    cow-dung; thou moon-calf; thou ragged tatterdemallion; thou Judas;
+    thou livest in philosophy and logick which are of the devil_. And
+    then let _Penn_ the Quaker add, Thou gormandizing Priest, one of the
+    abominable tribe; _thou bane of reason, and beast of the earth; thou
+    best to be spared of mankind; thou mountebank priest_. These are the
+    very words, (I wrong them not!) which they vomit out against the
+    best men in the _English_ nation, that have been so hardy as to
+    touch their _light within_: but let the _quills_ of these
+    _porcupines_ fly as fast as they will, I shall not feel them! Yea,
+    every _stone_ that these _Kildebrands_ throw at me, I will wear as a
+    _pearl_."
+
+As an offset to this quaint and amusing tirade, and to the charges of
+Dr. Ellis, one may read the following words of Whittier, and, by
+striking a general average between all the speakers, get a tolerable
+approximation to the exact truth. Mr. Whittier says:--
+
+    "Nor can it be said that the persecution grew out of the
+    'intrusion,' 'indecency,' and 'effrontery' of the persecuted.
+
+    "It owed its origin to the settled purpose of the ministers and
+    leading men of the colony to permit no difference of opinion on
+    religious matters. They had banished the Baptists, and whipped at
+    least one of them. They had hunted down Gorton and his adherents;
+    they had imprisoned Dr. Child, an Episcopalian, for petitioning the
+    General Court for toleration. They had driven some of their best
+    citizens out of their jurisdiction, with Ann Hutchinson, and the
+    gifted minister, Wheelwright. Any dissent on the part of their own
+    fellow-citizens was punished as severely as the heresy of strangers.
+
+    "The charge of 'indecency' comes with ill-grace from the authorities
+    of the Massachusetts Colony. The first Quakers who arrived in
+    Boston, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, were arrested on board the ship
+    before landing, their books taken from them and burned by the
+    constable, and they themselves brought before Deputy Governor
+    Bellingham, in the absence of Endicott. This astute magistrate
+    ordered them to be _stripped naked and their bodies to be carefully
+    examined, to see if there was not the Devil's mark on them as
+    witches_. They were then sent to the jail, their cell window was
+    boarded up, and they were left without food or light, until the
+    master of the vessel that brought them was ordered to take them to
+    Barbadoes. When Endicott returned, he thought they had been treated
+    too leniently, and declared that he would have had them whipped.
+
+    "After this, almost every town in the province was favored with the
+    spectacle of aged and young women stripped to the middle, tied to a
+    cart-tail and dragged through the streets and scourged without mercy
+    by the constable's whip. It is not strange that these atrocious
+    proceedings, in two or three instances, unsettled the minds of the
+    victims. Lydia Wardwell of Hampton, who, with her husband, had been
+    reduced to almost total destitution by persecution, was summoned by
+    the church of which she had been a member to appear before it to
+    answer to the charge of non-attendance. She obeyed the call by
+    appearing in the unclothed condition of the sufferers whom she had
+    seen under the constable's whip. For this she was taken to Ipswich
+    and stripped to the waist, tied to a rough post, which tore her
+    bosom as she writhed under the lash, and severely scourged to the
+    satisfaction of a crowd of lookers-on at the tavern. One, and only
+    one, other instance is adduced in the person of Deborah Wilson of
+    Salem. She had seen her friends and neighbors scourged naked through
+    the street, among them her brother, who was banished on pain of
+    death. She, like all Puritans, had been educated in the belief of
+    the plenary inspiration of Scripture, and had brooded over the
+    strange 'signs' and testimonies of the Hebrew prophets. It seemed to
+    her that the time had arrived for some similar demonstration, and
+    that it was her duty to walk abroad in the disrobed condition to
+    which her friends had been subjected, as a sign and warning to the
+    persecutors. Whatever of 'indecency' there was in these cases was
+    directly chargeable upon the atrocious persecution. At the door of
+    the magistrates and ministers of Massachusetts must be laid the
+    insanity of the conduct of these unfortunate women.
+
+    "But Boston, at least, had no voluntary Godivas. The only disrobed
+    women in its streets were made so by Puritan sheriffs and
+    constables, who dragged them amidst jeering crowds at the cart-tail,
+    stripped for the lash, which in one instance laid open with a
+    ghastly gash the bosom of a young mother!"[29]
+
+[Footnote 29: Mr. Whittier stated to a member of the Massachusetts
+Historical Society that it was his intention "at some time to prepare a
+full and exhaustive history of the relations of Puritan and Quaker in
+the seventeenth century." It may be added that the newspaper articles
+quoted above, with the several replications of their authors, may all be
+found in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for
+1880-81 (see the index of that volume).]
+
+We may conclude this discussion by giving a few instances of Quaker
+persecutions, in addition to those mentioned by Mr. Whittier. In England
+the members of the sect suffered a whole Jeremiad of woes: they were
+dragged through the streets by the hair of the head, incarcerated in
+loathsome dungeons, beaten over the head with muskets, pilloried,
+whipped at the cart's-tail, branded, their tongues bored with red-hot
+irons, and their property confiscated to the State. One First Day,
+George Fox went into the "steeple-house" of Tickhill. "I found," he says
+in his Journal, "the priest and most of the chief of the parish together
+in the chancel. I went up to them and began to speak; but they
+immediately fell upon me; the clerk got up with his Bible, as I was
+speaking, and struck me in the face with it, so that my face gushed out
+with blood, and I bled exceedingly in the steeple-house. The people
+cried, 'Let us have him out of the church.' When they had got me out,
+they beat me exceedingly, threw me down, and threw me over a hedge. They
+afterwards dragged me through a house into the street, stoning and
+beating me as they dragged me along; so that I was all over besmeared
+with blood and dirt. They got my hat from me, which I never had again."
+Fox was at various times thrust into dungeons filled ankle-deep with
+ordure, and was shot at, beaten with stones and clubs, etc.
+
+One evening he passed through Cambridge: "When I came into the town, the
+scholars, hearing of me, were up and exceeding rude. I kept on my
+horse's back, and rode through them in the Lord's power; but they
+unhorsed Amor Stoddart before he could get to the inn. When we were in
+the inn, they were so rude in the courts and in the streets, that the
+miners, colliers, and carters could never be ruder. The people of the
+house asked us what we would have for supper. 'Supper!' said I, 'were it
+not that the Lord's power is over them, these rude scholars look as if
+they would pluck us in pieces and make a supper of us.' They knew I was
+so against the trade of preaching, which they were there as apprentices
+to learn, that they raged as bad as ever Diana's craftsmen did against
+Paul."
+
+In the declaration made by the Quakers to Charles II. it appears that in
+New England, up to that time, "thirty Quakers had been whipped;
+twenty-two had been banished on pain of death if they returned;
+twenty-five had been banished upon the penalty of being whipped, or
+having their ears cut, or being branded in the hand if they returned;
+three had their right ears shorn off by the hangman; one had been
+branded in the hand with the letter H; many had been imprisoned; many
+fined; and three had been put to death, and one (William Leddra) was
+soon after executed."
+
+Besse, in his "Sufferings of the Quakers," states that one William
+Brand, a man in years, was so brutally whipped by an infuriated jailer,
+in Salem, that "His Back and Arms were bruised and black, and the Blood
+hanging as it were in Bags under his Arms, and so into one was his Flesh
+beaten that the Sign of a particular Blow could not be seen." And the
+surgeon said that "His Flesh would rot from off his Bones e'er the
+bruized Parts would be brought to digest." To all this must be added the
+humiliating fact that four persons were hanged on Boston Common for the
+crime of being Quakers. Their names were Marmaduke Stephenson, William
+Robinson, William Leddra, and Mary Dyer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+POEMS BY GROUPS.
+
+
+Besides "The King's Missive," Whittier has written numerous other Quaker
+poems, the finest of which are "Cassandra Southwick," "The Old South,"
+and the spirited, ringing ballad of "The Exiles." In the first two of
+these the poet shows a delicate intuition into the feelings that might
+have prompted the Quaker women who witnessed for the truth in Boston two
+hundred years ago.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is nothing in American literature, unless it be the anti-slavery
+papers of Thoreau, which equals the sevenfold-heated moral indignation
+of Whittier's poems on slavery,--a wild melody in them like that of
+Highland pibrochs; now plaintively and piteously pleading, and now
+burning with passion, irony, satire, scorn; here glowing with tropical
+imagery, as in "Toussaint L'Ouverture," and "The Slaves of Martinique,"
+and there rising into lofty moral atmospheres of faith when all seemed
+dark and hopeless. Every one knows the power of a "cry" (a song like
+"John Brown's Body," or a pithy sentence or phrase) in any great popular
+movement. There can be no doubt that Whittier's poems did as much as
+Garrison's editorials to key up the minds of people to the point
+required for action against slavery. Some of these anti-slavery pieces
+still possess great intrinsic beauty and excellence, as, for example,
+"Toussaint L'Ouverture," "The Farewell," "The Slave Ships," and "The
+Slaves of Martinique." In these four productions there is little or none
+of the dreary didacticism of most of the anti-slavery poems, but a
+simple statement of pathetic, beautiful fact, which is left to make its
+own impression. Another powerful group of these slavery poems is
+constituted by the scornful, mock-congratulatory productions, such as
+"The Hunters of Men," "Clerical Oppressors," "The Yankee Girl," "A
+Sabbath Scene," "Lines suggested by Reading a State Paper wherein the
+Higher Law is Invoked to Sustain the Lower One," and "The Pastoral
+Letter."[30] The sentences in these stanzas cut like knives and sting
+like shot. The poltroon clergy, especially, looks pitiful, most pitiful,
+in the light of Whittier's noble scorn and contempt.
+
+[Footnote 30: "The Pastoral Letter" was an idiotic manifesto of the
+clergy of Massachusetts aimed at the Grimké sisters.]
+
+"Randolph of Roanoke" is a noble tribute to a political enemy by one who
+admired in him the man. The long poem, "The Panorama," must be
+considered a failure, poetically speaking. Its showman's pictures and
+preachings do not get hold of our sympathies very strongly.
+
+The Tyrtaean fire in Whittier was so thoroughly kindled by the
+anti-slavery conflict that it has never wholly gone out. All through his
+life his hand has instinctively sought the old war-lyre whenever a voice
+was to be raised in honor of Freedom. The formal close of the
+anti-slavery period with him may be said to be marked by "Laus Deo," a
+triumphant, almost ecstatic shout of joy uttered on hearing the bells
+ring when the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery was passed.
+
+Naturally, the war poems of a Quaker--and even of our martial
+Whittier--could not be equal to his peace poems. Still there are many
+strong passages in the lyrics written by Whittier during the civil war
+of 1861-65. At first he counsels that we allow disunion rather than
+kindle the lurid fires of fratricidal war:--
+
+                            "Let us press
+    The golden cluster on our brave old flag
+    In closer union, and, if numbering less,
+    Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain."
+
+    _A Word for the Hour._
+
+So he wrote in January, 1861. But afterward he becomes a pained but
+sadly approving spectator of the inevitable conflict:--
+
+    "Then Freedom sternly said: 'I shun
+    No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
+    When human rights are staked and won.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The moor of Marston felt my tread,
+    Through Jersey snows the march I led,
+    My voice Magenta's charges sped.'"
+
+    _The Watchers._
+
+As a Friend, he and his brethren could not personally engage in war. But
+they could minister to the sick and dying, and care for the slave.
+
+    "THE SLAVE IS OURS!"
+
+he says,--
+
+    "And we may tread the sick-bed floors
+        Where strong men pine,
+    And, down the groaning corridors,
+    Pour freely from our liberal stores
+        The oil and wine."
+
+    _Anniversary Poem._
+
+"Barbara Frietchie" is, of course, the best of these war lyrics. The
+"Song of the Negro Boatmen" was set to music and sung from Maine to
+California during the war days:--
+
+    "De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
+      We'll hab de rice an' corn;
+    O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
+      De driver blow his horn!"
+
+After "Voices of Freedom," in the complete edition of Whittier's poems,
+come a cluster of Biblical, or Old Testament poems,--"Palestine,"
+"Ezekiel," "The Wife of Manoah to her Husband," "The Cities of the
+Plain," "The Crucifixion," and "The Star of Bethlehem." The best of
+these, perhaps, are "Cities of the Plain," and "Crucifixion,"--the
+former intense and thrilling in style, and suggesting the "Sennacherib"
+and "Waterloo" of Byron; the latter a high, solemn chant, and well
+calculated to touch the religious heart. Whittier has drawn great
+refreshment and inspiration from the thrice-winnowed wheat and the
+living-water wells of Old Testament literature.
+
+Allusion has already been made to the hymns of our poet. Hymn-book
+makers have had in his poems a very quarry to work. The hymn tinkers,
+too, have not spared Whittier even while he was alive, and many of his
+sacred lyrics have been "adapted" after the manner of hymn-book makers.
+Dr. Martineau's "Hymns of Praise" (1874) contains seven of Whittier's
+religious songs; the "Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book" (1868) also has
+seven; the Plymouth Collection (1855) has eleven, and Longfellow and
+Johnson's "Hymns of the Spirit" (1864) has twenty-two.
+
+The Essex minstrel has written quite a number of children's poems, such
+as "The Robin," "Red Riding Hood," and "King Solomon and the Ants." He
+has also compiled two books of selections for children, as has already
+been mentioned.
+
+Like many authors, Whittier has been attracted, in the autumn of his
+life, to the rich fields of Oriental literature. His Oriental poems show
+careful and sympathetic study of eastern books. "The Two Rabbis" and
+"Shah Akbar" are especially fine. The little touch in the former of "the
+small weeds that the bees bow with their weight" is a very pretty one.
+In "The King's Missive" we have a few "Oriental Maxims," being
+paraphrases of translations from the Sanscrit. "The Dead Feast of the
+Kol-Folk," and "The Khan's Devil," are also included in the same volume.
+
+Mr. Whittier has also made successful studies in Norse literature, for
+which his beautiful ballads, the "Dole of Jarl Thorkell," "Kallundborg
+Church," and "King Volmer and Elsie" are vouchers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+PROSE WRITINGS.
+
+
+It is to be feared that the greater portion of the prose writings of
+Whittier will be _caviare_ to many readers of this day. He himself
+almost admits as much in the prefatory note to the second volume of the
+complete edition of his essays. That many of the papers are entertaining
+reading, and that they are written often in a light and genial and
+vivacious style, is true; and, as he himself hints, they will at least
+be welcomed and indulgently judged by his personal friends and admirers.
+His prose work was done in a time seething with moral ideas; the air was
+full of reforms; the voice of duty sounded loud in men's consciences,
+and the ancestral buckler called--
+
+    "Self-clanging, from the walls
+    In the high temple of the soul!"
+
+    _Lowell._
+
+That particular era is now passed. The great secular heart is now in its
+diastole, or relaxation. Hence it is that the philanthropic themes
+discussed by Mr. Whittier thirty years ago (and most of his essays are
+of a philanthropic character) possess but a languid interest for the
+present reading public. The artistic essays, however, are charming, and
+possess permanent interest. Let us except from these the long
+productions, "Margaret Smith's Journal" and "My Summer with Dr.
+Singletary." Some have thought these to be the best papers in the
+collection. But to many they must appear frigid and old-fashioned in the
+extreme. They seem aimless and sprawling, mere _esquisses_, tentative
+work in a field in which the author was doubtful of his powers. They
+would ordinarily be classed under the head of Sunday-school literature.
+It has been suggested that the idea of "Margaret Smith's Journal" might
+have been derived from the "Diary of Lady Willoughby," which appeared
+about the same time. "The Journal" is a reproduction of the antique in
+style and atmosphere, and is said to be very successful as far as that
+goes. But certainly the iteration of the archaism, "did do," "did
+write," etc., gets to be very wearisome. The "Journal" purports to be
+written by a niece of Edward Rawson, Secretary of Massachusetts from
+1650-1686. The scene is laid in Newbury, where Rawson settled about
+1636. We have pleasant pictures of the colonial life of the day, of the
+Quakers and Indians and Puritans, and, on the whole, the sketch is well
+worth reading by historical students.
+
+"Old Portraits and Modern Sketches" consists chiefly of newspaper
+articles on modern reformers. They were originally contributed to the
+_National Era_. The portraits drawn are those of John Bunyan, Thomas
+Ellwood, James Nayler, Andrew Marvell, John Roberts, Samuel Hopkins,
+Richard Baxter,--and, among Americans, William Leggett and Nathaniel
+Peabody Rogers,--both anti-slavery reformers and journalists; and,
+lastly, Robert Dinsmore, the rustic Scotch-American poet of Haverhill.
+The last three papers mentioned are the best.
+
+The second volume of Mr. Whittier's prose writings bears the title
+"Literary Recreations and Miscellanies," and consists of various
+reviews, thumb-nail essays, and indigenous folk-and-nature studies, made
+in the region of the Merrimack. These last are of most interest, and
+indicate the field which Mr. Whittier would have cultivated with most
+success. In the reviews of the volume the newspapery tone and journalist
+diction are rather unpleasantly conspicuous. As a critic, our poet is
+not very successful, because he is too earnest a partisan, too merciless
+and undistinguishing in his invective or too generous in his praise. For
+example, what he says about Carlyle, in reviewing that author's infamous
+"Discourse on the Negro Question," is true as far as it goes. But of the
+elementary literary canon, that the prime function of the critic is to
+put himself in the place of the one he is criticising,--of this law Mr.
+Whittier has not, practically, the faintest notion. He considers
+everything from the point of view of the Quaker or of the reformer.
+
+Numerous specimens of Mr. Whittier's prose have already been given in
+various parts of this volume, but for the sake of illustration we may
+add two more. For an example of his serious style take the following
+from "Scottish Reformers": "He who undertakes to tread the pathway of
+reform--who, smitten with the love of truth and justice, or, indignant
+in view of wrong and insolent oppression, is rashly inclined to throw
+himself at once into that great conflict which the Persian seer not
+untruly represented as a war between light and darkness--would do well
+to count the cost in the outset. If he can live for Truth alone, and,
+cut off from the general sympathy, regard her service as its own
+'exceeding great reward'; if he can bear to be counted a fanatic and
+crazy visionary; if, in all good nature, he is ready to receive from the
+very objects of his solicitude abuse and obloquy in return for
+disinterested and self-sacrificing efforts for their welfare; if, with
+his purest motives misunderstood and his best actions perverted and
+distorted into crimes, he can still hold on his way and patiently abide
+the hour when 'the whirligig of Time shall bring about its revenges';
+if, on the whole, he is prepared to be looked upon as a sort of moral
+outlaw or social heretic under good society's interdict of food and
+fire; and if he is well assured that he can, through all this, preserve
+his cheerfulness and faith in man,--let him gird up his loins and go
+forward in God's name. He is fitted for his vocation; he has watched all
+night by his armor.... Great is the consciousness of right. Sweet is the
+answer of a good conscience. He who pays his whole-hearted homage to
+truth and duty,--who swears his life-long fealty on their altars, and
+rises up a Nazarite consecrated to their service,--is not without his
+solace and enjoyment when, to the eyes of others, he seems the most
+lonely and miserable. He breathes an atmosphere which the multitude know
+not of; 'a serene heaven which they cannot discern rests over him,
+glorious in its purity and stillness.'"
+
+For a specimen of our author's vein of pleasantry take the following bit
+of satire on "The Training": "What's now in the wind? Sounds of distant
+music float in at my window on this still October air. Hurrying
+drum-beat, shrill fife-tones, wailing bugle-notes, and, by way of
+accompaniment, hurrahs from the urchins on the crowded sidewalks. Here
+come the citizen-soldiers, each martial foot beating up the mud of
+yesterday's storm with the slow, regular, up-and-down movement of an
+old-fashioned churn-dasher. Keeping time with the feet below, some
+threescore of plumed heads bob solemnly beneath me. Slant sunshine
+glitters on polished gun-barrels and tinselled uniform. Gravely and
+soberly they pass on, as if duly impressed with a sense of the deep
+responsibility of their position as self-constituted defenders of the
+world's last hope,--the United States of America, and possibly Texas.
+They look out with honest, citizen faces under their leathern vizors
+(their ferocity being mostly the work of the tailor and tinker), and, I
+doubt not, are at this moment as innocent of bloodthirstiness as yonder
+worthy tiller of the Tewksbury Hills, who sits quietly in his wagon
+dispensing apples and turnips without so much as giving a glance at the
+procession. Probably there is not one of them who would hesitate to
+divide his last tobacco-quid with his worst enemy. Social, kind-hearted,
+psalm-singing, sermon-hearing, Sabbath-keeping Christians; and yet, if
+we look at the fact of the matter, these very men have been out the
+whole afternoon of this beautiful day, under God's holy sunshine, as
+busily at work as Satan himself could wish in learning how to butcher
+their fellow-creatures, and acquire the true scientific method of
+impaling a forlorn Mexican on a bayonet, or of sinking a leaden missile
+in the brain of some unfortunate Briton, urged within its range by the
+double incentive of sixpence per day in his pocket and the cat-o'-nine
+tails on his back!"
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL.
+
+
+The passing away from earth of John Greenleaf Whittier occurred on
+September 7, 1892, at four-thirty A. M., at Hampton Falls, N. H., in the
+very heart of the region he has immortalized by his ballads. The hour
+was just as the reddening east was mingling its light with that of the
+full harvest moon. Around his bedside were numerous relatives and
+friends. He fell asleep in an unconscious state, after an illness of a
+week. Let us now go back and, taking up the thread of the narrative
+where it was dropped on page 152, run over the incidents that have
+intervened in the decade since 1882 in the life of this pleasant
+singer--this plain Quaker farmer, who drew such soul-thrilling strains
+from his home-made rustic flute as to concentrate upon himself the
+attention of the whole world.
+
+In 1883 (January 7) died, in Boston, Whittier's brother, Matthew
+Franklin Whittier, whose daughter Elizabeth, before her marriage to
+Samuel T. Pickard, was house-keeper for a number of years for her uncle,
+the poet, at Amesbury. "Frank," as his associates called him, obtained,
+it is said, his position in the Boston Custom House through the
+influence of his brother. Says a friend (Mr. Charles O. Stickney):--
+
+    "Frank was not a poet, and being of a practical turn of mind, had
+    the good sense not to attempt the impossible; but he was a man of
+    intellect, an omnivorous reader, was well posted, and, though
+    inclined to seclusion and taciturnity, was nevertheless genial and
+    companionable; his conversation spiced with his quiet, quaint humor,
+    which bubbled up in some happy _mot_, neat fun, or well-turned bit
+    of satire which raised a laugh, but left no sting behind." His
+    quaint, humorous dialect articles, over the signature "Ethan Spike,"
+    are said to have given Nasby and Artemus Ward their cue. They were
+    chiefly contributed to the Portland _Transcript_, the Boston _Carpet
+    Bag_, and New York _Vanity Fair_. They all purported to emanate
+    from "Hornby," a "smart town" in Maine--"a veritable down-east
+    wonderland, whose wide-awake citizens were up to the times and ready
+    to settle any great question of the day at 'a special town
+    meetin'.'" Mr. Spike was as intense in his anti-slavery views as his
+    brother Greenleaf. Specimens of his work may be found in the
+    Portland _Transcript_, January 10, 1846, the _Carpet Bag_, October
+    14, 1850, and November, 1851.
+
+In 1884 Whittier's seventy-seventh birthday was observed at Oak Knoll,
+when the genial old bachelor received with courtesy and hospitality all
+who called. Gifts of flowers poured in to serve as foil to the two huge
+birthday cakes from relatives.
+
+An editorial writer in one of Boston's chief dailies thus describes a
+visit to Mr. Whittier, made in 1884:--
+
+    "Mr. Whittier met us at the door of the pleasant house at Oak Knoll.
+    He came out on the piazza, and shook us each by the hand, and said,
+    'I am glad to see thee.' He concerned himself about our rubbers and
+    waterproofs in the hall-way, and said that we were kind to come. I
+    had taken a great fit of shyness on seeing him, and was surprised
+    to hear my friend speaking to him in the same quiet tone that she
+    had used when alone with me. I listened, and reveled in silence as
+    the old poet and the young artist spoke together. He led us into the
+    parlor, and they talked of a landscape on the wall, of pictures, and
+    of a portrait.
+
+    "Presently he said: 'It is a little cold here. Shall we go into my
+    room?' He led the way to the bright library where most of his days
+    are now spent. Mr. Whittier happened to glance from the window as we
+    stood for a moment speaking with him: he saw our cab waiting for us
+    on the drive. The rain had begun again. Then a wonderful thing
+    befell.
+
+    "He forbade us to go away within the quarter hour; he forbade us to
+    go for three hours. He went out and sent the cabman away, then he
+    took us into the library. We sat down in front of the cheery open
+    fire, and Mr. Whittier talked with us. He spoke of the claims of
+    young people on life, it was different from any talk I had heard; in
+    the face of my poets, I used to think that all good people believed
+    that life is our creditor and hard taskmaster."
+
+On October 24, 1884, a portrait of Whittier was presented by Charles F.
+Coffin, of Lynn, Mass., a devoted friend and admirer of his, to the
+Friends' School of Providence, R.I. It was painted by Edgar Parker, of
+Boston, and represents Whittier sitting in an arm-chair in an attitude
+of peaceful thought.
+
+It is hung in Alumni Hall, between busts of Elizabeth Fry and John
+Bright, and is considered to be a worthy memorial of the poet. Letters
+on this occasion were read from James Russell Lowell, Dr. Holmes, E. P.
+Whipple, John Bright, George William Curtis, Boyle O'Reilly, Matthew
+Arnold, and others. From Mr. Whipple's letter the following is an
+extract:--
+
+    "I have had the privilege of knowing him intimately for many years,
+    and of doing all I could through the press to point out his
+    exceptional and original merits as a writer. My admiration of his
+    genius and character has increased with every new volume he has
+    published and every new manifestation of that essential gentleness
+    which lies at the root of his nature, even when some of his poems
+    suggest the warrior rather than the Quaker. One thing is certain:
+    that the reader feels that the writer possesses that peculiar
+    attribute of humanity which we instinctively call by the high name
+    of soul; and, whether he storms into the souls of others or glides
+    into them, his hot invectives equally with his soft persuasions mark
+    him as a man; a man, too, of might; a man whose force is blended
+    with his insight, and who can win or woo his way into hostile or
+    recipient minds by innate strength or delicacy of nature."
+
+In 1885 the poet's birthday was again quietly celebrated at Oak Knoll,
+and in the afternoon Mr. Whittier's portrait was unveiled before a large
+audience in the Town Hall of Haverhill.
+
+In September, 1885, occurred a most interesting festival--the reunion of
+the graduates of the old Haverhill Academy, for whom the poet cherished
+to the end of his life an earnest and outspoken affection. It was here
+that Whittier got all the scholastic education he ever had outside of
+the district school; the reunion was thoroughly enjoyed therefore by
+him, although it was in his honor. For his health was pretty good, and
+he was in fine spirits. An interesting letter was received from the
+aged Miss Arethusa Hall, a preceptress in the Academy when Whittier
+attended it. Among others, Dr. Holmes wrote: "The class of 1829
+[Harvard] has a bright record; but how much brighter it would have been
+if we could have read upon the triennial and quinquennial catalogues:
+Johannes Greenleaf Whittier, A. B., A. M., LL. D., etc! But what, after
+all, can all the degrees of all the colleges do for him whose soul has
+been kindled by that 'ae spark of Nature's fire,' which Burns caught
+from her torch on the banks of Ayr, and Whittier among the mists that
+rise from the Merrimack?"
+
+Mr. Whittier presented photographs of himself with his autograph to his
+school-mates, promised to think over the sitting for an oil portrait,
+and entered with zest into any bit of mirthfulness that sparkled out
+during the evening, although, as will be seen from the following
+description of a representative of the Boston _Advertiser_, he could
+scarcely understand the situation:--
+
+    "In the company was one man who seemed neither to accept nor to
+    comprehend the situation. That man was John G. Whittier. His face
+    and demeanor that day would have afforded study for a psychologist.
+    That it was fifty-seven years since he entered Haverhill Academy he
+    remembered with a certain sweet melancholy. That everybody was vying
+    with everybody else in making love to him he could not help
+    observing. But what it was all about, and why people should persist
+    in talking of him when he wanted other, more congenial topics to be
+    uppermost--these questions evidently puzzled him. A countenance on
+    which was a look of shyness, of surprise, of perplexity; withal, a
+    countenance irradiated by reciprocal affection and pleasure in
+    seeing others pleased--if any one of the present artists could have
+    caught and delineated those features, the painter would have been
+    destined to share the immortality of the poet. On such a subject the
+    temptation to indulge in reminiscence is strong. But space will
+    permit me to mention only two or three characteristic incidents. A
+    gifted vocalist had just sung a composition prepared for that day;
+    and Mr. Whittier, turning to her, said, 'Friend, I wish that I could
+    write a song for thee to sing.' An elocutionist of note read aloud
+    one of the author's poems. He listened eagerly, as if it was wholly
+    new to him; and a little mist gathered in those deep, dreamy eyes at
+    the lines beginning,
+
+         'I mourn no more my vanished years,'
+
+    but there was an answering gleam at the words,
+
+         'The windows of my soul I throw Wide open to the sun.'
+
+    "Two circumstances made that one of the few red-letter days in the
+    memory of the present writer. I had known in Kansas a lady who
+    belonged to that band of Haverhill Academy pupils whose boast and
+    joy it was to have studied and played with the Quaker poet. On
+    mentioning this lady's name, I found myself instantly accepted as
+    her proxy. For some minutes Mr. Whittier seemed to have no other
+    interest than to learn all possible particulars of her and send to
+    her all possible expressions of regard.
+
+    "The other circumstance was the result of my connection with the
+    _Advertiser_. Taking me into one corner of the room, he asked me to
+    sit beside him on the sofa. Then, drawing from his pocket the
+    manuscript of the poem which he had written for that occasion and on
+    portions of which the ink was not yet dry, the author, in a manner
+    irresistibly winning, seemed to take his humble brother of the
+    pen-craft into confidence, explaining the motive for various lines
+    and passing on to speak of those boyhood days which the poem and the
+    occasion recalled."
+
+December 17 again came round in 1886, and found Whittier receiving
+friends, presents, and congratulatory telegrams at Oak Knoll. Wendell
+Phillips, for example, sent him a handsome cane, and some one else sent
+a great frosted cake and a basket that strained its sides to hold the
+gift of fruit it contained.
+
+In December, 1887, it occurred to a young lady journalist on the staff
+of the Boston _Advertiser_ (Miss Minna C. Smith) that it would be a good
+idea to have a "Whittier number" of that journal. The thought was a
+fertile one and was put into execution in great haste, but with eminent
+success. Poems were contributed by Walt Whitman, Dr. Holmes, James
+Jeffrey Roche, Hezekiah Butterworth, Herbert D. Ward, Minot J. Savage,
+Margaret Sidney (Mrs. D. Lothrop), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and others,
+and there was a great array of letters from other writers and eminent
+persons. Edward Everett Hale told the story of Whittier's Kansas
+"Emigrants' Song," how it was sung _en route_ and in the West by brave
+pioneers of New England. James Parton, of Newburyport, Whittier's
+Amesbury neighbor, wrote that Whittier was carrying his burthen of
+eighty years "with considerable ease and constant cheerfulness." He
+continued:--
+
+    "I am sometimes asked, 'Is the poet Whittier really a Quaker or only
+    one by inheritance?' He is really a Quaker. He wears, it is true, a
+    silk hat of the kind familiarly called the stove-pipe, which gleams
+    in the brilliant sun of winter, and seems to indicate at once the
+    man of Boston and the man of the world. But it is not the
+    broad-brimmed hat that makes the Quaker. The poet does actually keep
+    a Quaker coat for Sundays and other dress occasions, which coat was
+    made by a firm of Orthodox Friends in Philadelphia, the metropolitan
+    city of the gentle sect. He also uses the _thee_ and _thou_ in
+    conversation, although without attaching the least importance to
+    these trifles. But he is also a Friend from heartfelt conviction. A
+    few miles from his home is one of the smallest meeting-houses in New
+    England, standing alone in a land of farms and fields. It is painted
+    white, and looks a little like a small school-house. This edifice
+    will seat perhaps forty persons, but the usual congregation numbers
+    about fourteen, who on winter Sundays dwindle often to seven and
+    sometimes to three. This is the meeting-house which the poet
+    Whittier attends whenever he is at home, unless prevented by the
+    weather.
+
+    "What an extraordinary thing is this! The poet who has most deeply
+    felt and most beautifully expressed the sentiment and soul of New
+    England is a member of the sect to which New England was so
+    intolerant and so cruel! When the essential New England has ceased
+    to exist, it will live again, and live long, in Whittier's poems;
+    and he a Quaker! Was there ever before a revenge so complete and so
+    sublime?"
+
+Mr. Charles M. Thompson sent for this octogenarian birthday a fine
+poetical stanza:--
+
+    "A thousand stars swim on through time,
+      Unknown and unregarded in the skies.
+    But one, kings followed; one, thy rhyme,
+      Led on a land of kings in liberty's emprise!"
+
+Mr. James H. Carleton knew Whittier in connection with a circle of
+intellectual and social people that centred around the family of Judge
+Pitman in the years just preceding the rise of the abolition movement.
+"The Pitmans were neighbors of mine," said Mr. Carleton, "and I (I
+hardly know why) was admitted to the meetings of the people who gathered
+there. They were the leaders in everything that was progressive. They
+have since become widely scattered.
+
+"I remember Mr. Whittier as a leader of these leaders. These people
+formed to a large extent his social world at that time. It was the one
+place at which Mr. Whittier threw off his natural reserve and took his
+proper place. He was a good conversationalist on occasion, and when he
+spoke he was worth listening to. I remember him as intensely interested
+in whatever subject occupied the attention of the circle. He was never
+the first to begin a discussion, but rather bided his time for an
+especial opportunity."
+
+Mr. George C. How wrote of Mr. Whittier's friendliness, his cordiality,
+and his unassuming manner: "In the few delightful days I spent in his
+company in the White Mountain region, I saw no signs of formality or
+reserve. He told me, under the trees, many stories of his life and of
+his earliest successes. He impresses you strongly as a true and generous
+friend to everything and every man he believes good and honest. He does
+not like to be lionized, and refused to be introduced to a man whose
+only claim to his friendship was that he had read all his works. When,
+however, Mr. Whittier learned that this same man was an ardent admirer
+of the poet Hayne, a chord of sympathy was struck that made them firm
+friends during this stranger's stay."
+
+At Oak Knoll the winter day was clear and sunshiny, if cold, and warm
+hearts within laughed the season to scorn. The ladies of Boston, at the
+suggestion of Mrs. D. Lothrop, sent up a most unique and exquisite gift;
+eighty beautiful roses edged a large basket fringed with fern-sprays,
+that held an open book of white roses, across whose face lay a pen of
+violets, and on the wide satin book-mark was inscribed the closing
+stanza of "My Triumph." The Essex Club of Boston presented a large
+album; fruit and flowers flanked a mighty birthday cake in the
+dining-room. Mr. Charles F. Coffin, of Lynn, sent a large overflowing
+basket of fruit, arranged under his personal supervision, "every fruit
+in its season," of exquisite colors and shapes, to express his affection
+for his life-long friend, the poet.
+
+The new town of Whittier, in California, sent an advance copy of the
+first issue of the town's newspaper; the Governor of the Commonwealth,
+as the winter afternoon quickly declined, cut and distributed to the
+guests slices of the birthday cake, while all through the day Whittier
+passed to and fro from room to room, conversing with young and old, and
+hospitable to all.
+
+Whittier himself is reported as saying on his eightieth birthday: "When
+a man is eighty years old, it is time to give up active mental work. Oh!
+I am able to go about these grounds pretty well. I have never attempted
+to imitate Gladstone and chop down trees, but I like to split wood."
+
+This was James Russell Lowell's verse for Mr. Whittier on his eightieth
+birthday:--
+
+    "How fair a pearl chain, eighty strong,
+      Lustrous and hallowed every one
+    With saintly thoughts and sacred song,
+      As 'twere the rosary of a nun!"
+
+The excitement and nervous exhaustion attendant upon these birthday
+occasions, it always took Mr. Whittier three or four weeks fully to
+recover from. Hence in 1889 (and partly on account of the recent death
+of a beloved cousin), the poet announced, through the press, that he
+should have to ask his friends to spare him any public reception.
+However, December 17 was observed as "Whittier Day" very generally
+throughout the country, as it had been in 1887, in accordance with the
+custom that has grown up of celebrating the birthdays of eminent men in
+the schools, and introducing into their courses of supplementary reading
+selected portions of the writings of each. Among the gifts received at
+Oak Knoll was a painting of a golden vase by Mr. Herman Marcus, of New
+York City, to whom the poet had appeared in a dream, bearing in his
+hand an elegant portfolio of red morocco, containing a picture of a vase
+of Grecian design, richly ornamented, and inscribed with the legend,
+"May in the smallest part thy sorrows lie concealed and all the rest be
+filled with joy overflowing." The portfolio and the picture on its page
+are a close realization of what the donor saw in his dream.
+
+Speaking of visitors, Col. Higginson tells two incidents in point. He
+says two nice little boys called one day on Whittier, saying that they
+had recently called on Longfellow, and, as he had died soon after, they
+thought it best to call at once on Mr. Whittier. One of the poet's
+housekeepers once asked him in severe tones whether all "these people"
+came on business or whether they were relatives. When told that neither
+was the case, she said she did not see what they came for then. "Neither
+did I," said Whittier, with laughing eye.
+
+In December, 1890, Mr. Whittier, who had gone down to Amesbury to vote,
+had been taken ill there, and hardly expected to be able to get back to
+Oak Knoll by the seventeenth. He did arrive, however, on a sunny day.
+Many of his friends spared him visits, merely leaving their cards or
+sending remembrances. His mail was very large, as usual on this day.
+
+In the summer of 1891 Mr. Whittier's health was so feeble that he was
+obliged to abandon his daily walks, except about the grounds at Oak
+Knoll. Driving was too fatiguing for him, and his hearing had grown so
+bad that he could converse only with difficulty.
+
+In Whittier's poem, "The Red River Voyageur," there is a beautiful
+allusion to the "bells of the Roman mission," now the Archepiscopate of
+St. Boniface. Archbishop Tache was reminded by Lieut.-Gov. Schultz that
+December 17, 1891, was the eighty-fourth birthday of the poet, the
+suggestion being made that the anniversary should be greeted by a
+joy-peal from the tower of the Cathedral of St. Boniface, in Winnipeg,
+Manitoba. His Grace cordially concurred, and the graceful tribute was
+rendered at midnight with the last stroke of the clock ushering the
+natal day. Mr. Whittier, having been informed of the incident by United
+States Consul Taylor, wrote to the Archbishop: "I have reached an age
+when literary success and manifestations of popular favor have ceased
+to satisfy one upon whom the solemnity of life's sunset is resting; but
+such a delicate and beautiful tribute has deeply moved me. I shall never
+forget it. I shall hear the bells of St. Boniface sounding across the
+continent, and awakening a feeling of gratitude for thy generous act."
+
+Our poet's eighty-fourth birthday (1891), and alas! his last on earth,
+was delightfully observed at the home of the Cartlands, his cousins, in
+Newburyport, with whom he was spending the winter. Mr. Joseph Cartland
+is himself a Quaker, and his white hair and genial cheery temperament
+are quite of the old régime. He and his wife were teachers in the
+Friends' School at Providence, R. I. Their fine old mansion on High
+Street is the identical one built and lived in by Judge Livermore,
+father of the shrewish saint and devotee of "Snow-Bound." It may be
+stated, too, that it was to succeed one of the Cartlands in the
+editorial chair of the _Pennsylvania Freeman_ that Whittier went to
+Philadelphia in 1838. In this house is kept the old maple-wood desk,
+made by Joseph Whittier, grandfather of the poet, who, by the way,
+"wrote on it his first poem." The desk is about one hundred and eighty
+years old now. On the back are carved the initials "J. W., 1786," in
+large letters. The wood has been smoothed down a little and a coat of
+shellac applied. On the back of the drawers are memoranda in chalk and
+pencil made by Greenleaf's father. On December 17, 1891, the old piece
+of furniture was covered with hundreds of congratulatory letters which
+would have made the old farmer Quaker, its builder, rub his eyes in
+astonishment, could he have seen them.
+
+"As he walks slowly down the broad stairs of the Cartlands at
+Newburyport," says one who saw him on his birthday, "there is much to
+suggest his years, it is true, yet no signs of unusual feebleness. He is
+erect for a man of eighty-four; his early litheness has not degenerated
+into the hopeless leanness of an ill-nourished and uncared-for old age;
+his step does not drag after his body as if unwilling to carry the
+burden longer; his head is not lowered, awaiting the smite of Time."
+
+Another thus describes Whittier in 1891: "In personal appearance he is
+remarkable. Tall, and as straight as one of the young pines in his
+favorite grove, it seems impossible that he is at the end of fourscore
+years. The crown of his head is bald, and his hair is glossy silver; but
+his great black eyes are as clear, bright and piercing as if he were in
+the prime of life. He walks with the deliberation and dignity of age,
+but without a suggestion of physical feebleness, and while he remains
+standing his head is as finely poised as a soldier's. The straightness
+of his figure is the more noticeable on account of his Quaker dress, the
+coat of which fits him as neatly and closely as if it were the
+conventional 'swallow-tail.' When seated and listening, his head drops
+slightly forward and aside--a pose which seems peculiar to poetic
+natures the world over. He is a most appreciative reader of other men's
+books and poems, and talks admirably of all good writings except his
+own, of which he can scarcely be persuaded to speak, even to his dearest
+intimates."
+
+Mr. S. T. Pickard, and Mr. and Mrs. Cartland received the guests in the
+wide hall of the old-fashioned hospitable Quaker home; and the poet
+himself wandered here and there about the room, so said the Boston
+_Advertiser_, "greeting every guest informally and pleasantly, from the
+old and tried comrades of anti-slavery's earliest days to the little
+girl in cream-white dress and wide hat, his little friend Margaret
+Lothrop, who had to stand on tip-toe to greet the bowed head with her
+childish kiss; and whose small hand he held closely as he kept her by
+his side."
+
+A pleasant note was received from Phillips Brooks:--
+
+     "DEAR MR. WHITTIER:
+
+     "I have no right save that which love and gratitude and reverence
+     may give, to say how devoutly I thank God that you have lived, that
+     you are living, and that you will always live. May his peace be
+     with you more and more.
+
+     "Affectionately your friend,
+
+     "PHILLIPS BROOKS."
+
+The first guests to arrive were a deputation of fifty from Haverhill,
+members of the Whittier Club of that town. Whittier made them a little
+speech, saying it was evident that sometimes a prophet was honored in
+his own country.
+
+The house was filled with cut flowers--in the window-seats, on the
+tables, in the poet's bedroom, up-stairs--all gifts from friends. The
+Whittier Club of Haverhill brought eighty-four roses. There was a basket
+of English violets from Mr. and Mrs. D. Lothrop. Mr. C. F. Coffin, of
+Lynn, sent, as usual, his generous basket of fruit. From Mr. E. C.
+Stedman came a painting "High Tide, Hampton Meadows," by Carroll D.
+Brown. And some kindly old soul sent a half-dozen pairs of socks--the
+spirit that prompted the gift as deeply appreciated as that of others.
+Other gifts were: an oil painting of a scene at York Harbor, painted by
+J. L. Smith, of Boston, the frame carved by A. G. Smith; a ruler of
+various inlaid woods from California, the gift of pupils of the workshop
+at West Point, Calaveras County, who wrote a letter, saying that they
+would devote the birthday to reading and speaking selections from his
+works; a paper-cutter made from the wood of Fort Loudon, of Winchester,
+Penn., and sent by the ladies of that place; a hand-painted tray from
+artist Florence Cammett of Amesbury; a late photograph of Dr. Holmes,
+"with his hat in his hand, and his most man-of-the-world air;" a
+souvenir spoon of Independence Hall from W. H. and S. B. Swazey, of
+Newburyport; a picture of the old Mission at Santa Barbara, done on
+native olive-wood, from Professor John Murray, of California; a handsome
+footstool from Elizabeth Cavazza, of Portland, Me.; photogravures of
+scenes about the Whittier homestead in Haverhill; a transparency
+("Snow-Bound") from Austin P. Nichols; eighty-four roses from the girls
+of Lasell Seminary near Boston, and a wreath of evergreens from Mrs.
+Annie Fields.
+
+Among the messages was one from a little Indian maiden whom Whittier had
+befriended: "Your young Mohawk friend asks for you to-day the Great
+Spirit's blessing"--signed, E. Pauline Johnson; a letter came from Abby
+Hutchinson, of the Hutchinson singers.
+
+Among those present were, Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, Sarah Orne Jewett,
+"Margaret Sidney," Mrs. James T. Fields, Mrs. William Claflin, Harriet
+McEwen Kimball, T. E. Burnham, Mayor of Haverhill, and others.
+
+Among the company, conspicuous by those natural gifts that make one a
+centre for intellectual and genial comradeship, was Mr. D. Lothrop--the
+eminent publisher--(since passed away, mourned by all) who probably has
+done more than any other man of present times to create a new literature
+for children and young people, all achieved when it cost to do it, and
+that consumed years of patient, persistent struggling, till his splendid
+success was won.
+
+Mr. Whittier writes to his widow, "Thy husband and Mr. Coffin" (the
+old-time friend referred to), "were the life of my birthday reception,
+and now both are gone before me." (Mr. Coffin died the week after the
+birthday.)
+
+Again, to quote one of the many extracts of Mr. Whittier's letters
+concerning Mr. Lothrop: "Let me sit in the circle of thy mourning, for I
+too have lost in him a friend."
+
+There was much to draw the two men together; both sprang from New
+England ancestry, sturdy as the granite hills of their native State;
+each possessed the same indomitable will, where a question of right was
+involved, and the same breadth of charity for all, of whatsoever creed
+or divergence of opinion.
+
+Mr. Whittier partook of but little food in the dining-room, nibbling a
+bit here and there, and refusing firmly all offers of tea or coffee. His
+eyes, every one noticed, flamed with old-time lustre, whenever he was
+interested.
+
+Letters of congratulation were received from Robert C. Winthrop, Celia
+Thaxter, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Andrew P. Peabody,
+Rose Terry Cooke (who has since died), George W. Cable, T. W. Higginson,
+Charles Eliot Norton, and others.
+
+Donald G. Mitchell wrote that above Whittier's literary art he admired
+the broad and cheery humanities of the man.
+
+For the eighty-fourth birthday the Boston _Advertiser_ printed a superb
+illustrated Whittier number, as did also the Boston _Journal_. For the
+latter Dr. Holmes contributed the following letter:
+
+     MY DEAR WHITTIER:--I congratulate you on having climbed another
+     glacier and crossed another crevasse in your ascent of the white
+     summit which already begins to see the morning twilight of the
+     coming century. A life so well filled as yours has been cannot be
+     too long for your fellow-men and women. In their affections you are
+     secure, whether you are with them here or near them in some higher
+     life than theirs. I hope your years have not become a burden, so
+     that you are tired of living. At our age we must live chiefly in
+     the past. Happy is he who has a past like yours to look back upon.
+
+     It is one of the felicitous incidents--I will not say accidents--of
+     my life that the lapse of time has brought us very near together,
+     so that I frequently find myself honored by seeing my name
+     mentioned in near connection with your own. We are lonely, very
+     lonely, in these last years. The image which I have used before
+     this in writing to you recurs once more to my thought. We were on
+     deck together as we began the voyage of life two generations ago. A
+     whole generation passed, and the succeeding one found us in the
+     cabin, with a goodly company of coevals. Then the craft which held
+     us began going to pieces, until a few of us were left on the raft
+     pieced together of its fragments. And now the raft has at last
+     parted, and you and I are left clinging to the solitary spar, which
+     is all that still remains afloat of the sunken vessel.
+
+     I have just been looking over the headstones in Mr. Griswold's
+     cemetery, entitled "The Poets and Poetry of America." In that
+     venerable receptacle, just completing its half-century of
+     existence--for the date of the edition before me is 1842--I find
+     the names of John Greenleaf Whittier and Oliver Wendell Holmes next
+     each other, in their due order, as they should be. All around are
+     the names of the dead--too often of forgotten dead. Three which I
+     see there are still among those of the living. Mr. John Osborne
+     Sargent, who makes Horace his own by faithful study and ours by
+     scholarly translation; Isaac McLellan, who was writing in 1830, and
+     whose last work is dated 1886; and Christopher P. Cranch, whose
+     poetical gift has too rarely found expression.
+
+     Of these many dead you are the most venerated, revered and beloved
+     survivor; of these few living the most honored representative. Long
+     may it be before you leave a world where your influence has been so
+     beneficent, where your example has been such inspiration, where
+     you are so truly loved, and where your presence is a perpetual
+     benediction.
+
+     Always affectionately yours,
+
+     Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+
+Following is one of two stanzas sent to the Poet of Freedom by his
+friend "Margaret Sidney," and which, says the _Advertiser_, with one
+other tribute, was the only one of the innumerable letters and poems
+sent him that he read in its entirety that day, owing to his failing
+eyesight:
+
+    "To be near the heart of Christ
+          Was his creed;
+    White as truth the life
+          That all men may read;
+    Strengthful of soul,
+          Yet lowly in meekness;
+    Dreading no hate of men,
+          Scorning all weakness,
+    He sounded the warning note,
+          When it cost to be brave and true;
+    Sang freedom for the slave,
+          Then almost death to do.
+        'Unbind every shackle,
+        Loosen each chain,
+        Bid every slave go free!'"
+
+Mr. F. B. Sanborn wrote some interesting autobiographical reminiscences
+for the _Advertiser_. He stated: "I can scarcely remember when I did
+not read Whittier and Holmes. Their verses were eagerly caught up and
+reprinted by all the newspapers, and I knew them by heart before I ever
+saw a volume of them. Whittier, indeed, was almost my neighbor, living
+only eight miles away across the Merrimack, and sometimes coming for
+silent worship or to hear Mrs. Edward Gove speak in the Quaker
+meeting-house at Seabrook, only three miles from the farm of my
+ancestors. But I did not know this then; I never went there to see him.
+He is a distant cousin of mine, both of us tracing descent, through his
+daughters, from that stout and ungovernable old Puritan minister,
+Stephen Bachiler, who planted the old town of Hampton, in whose wide
+limits I was born, and which extended almost to Amesbury."
+
+Another scholarly writer in the same paper wrote instructively of
+Whittier in the Massachusetts Legislature. The Legislature of 1835 he
+describes as a notable one in the quality of its members and in the work
+accomplished. An extra session was held in the autumn. The Speaker of
+the House was Judge Julius Rockwell of Pittsfield, with whom Whittier
+had already formed a personal acquaintance through Judge Rockwell's
+contributions to the _New England Review_. Among the Suffolk County
+representatives were such names as Frothingham, Brooks, Otis, Sturgis,
+Peabody, and Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, also Col. J. B. Fay, the first
+mayor of Chelsea. It is not remembered that Whittier made any set
+speech, but he nevertheless did so much and such arduous work as to make
+himself ill before the session was half over. Dr. Bowditch, he often
+recalled with amusement, told him that, if he followed implicitly the
+rules he laid down for him, he might live to see his fiftieth birthday;
+otherwise, not.
+
+Perhaps no one man has been more frequently interviewed concerning the
+policy of party politics than John G. Whittier. With gifted qualities of
+heart and mind, was added wisdom, prudence and sagacity, in all that
+related to governmental affairs. The late Henry Wilson once said of him,
+"I can rely more safely upon the advice of Whittier than upon any other
+man in America."
+
+In the early movements of the Republican party he was acknowledged to
+be the power behind the throne. Sumner, wise and learned, could trust to
+the advice of Whittier. His correspondence with such men as Giddings,
+Chase, Sumner, Wilson, John P. Hale, Upham and other celebrities, upon
+national topics, is known to a few of his friends. They contain
+sentiments which prove him as wise in statesmanship as he is eloquent in
+verse.
+
+How well and faithfully he labored is best expressed in his words:
+
+    "I am not insensible to literary reputation; I love, perhaps too
+    well, the love and praise of my fellow-men; but I set a higher value
+    on my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of 1833, than
+    on the title page of any book."
+
+On the subject of the abolishment of capital punishment, Whittier's vote
+is found recorded in the affirmative, as might have been expected. He
+has said that one of the pleasantest years of his life was that passed
+during the session of the Legislature in 1835.
+
+One of the chief reasons why Whittier went seven miles from his Amesbury
+home last summer was to "escape pilgrims" (as he called them). One
+Sunday after meeting at Amesbury he said to his life-long friend, Miss
+Gove, "Abby, has thee a spare room up at thy house?" She responded in
+the affirmative, and he went to her home in Hampton Falls for the latter
+part of the summer. It was here he penned his last poem--the verses "To
+Oliver Wendell Holmes:"
+
+    "The gift is thine the weary world to make
+    More cheerful for thy sake,
+    Soothing the ears its Miserere pains
+    With the old Hellenic strains."
+
+In a letter to one of the editors of the _Critic_ (August 29, 1892), Dr.
+Holmes wrote, concerning his birthday:
+
+    "I have received two poems in advance, and our dear friend Whittier,
+    whose heart is a cornucopia of blessings for his fellow-creatures,
+    has remembered me in the pages of the _Atlantic_, where we have
+    found ourselves side by side for so many years. Long may the sands
+    of his life keep running, for they come from the bed of Pactolus."
+
+The news of his friend's death was received by Dr. Holmes in Beverly,
+just as he was coming in from a drive along the shore. It was a heavy
+blow, coming as it did just upon the death of Lowell, Thomas Parsons,
+and George William Curtis. He remarked that his acquaintance with
+Whittier dated from the year of the founding of the _Atlantic Monthly_.
+He had frequently visited him at Oak Knoll. He was there last year, and
+the two old fellows walked and talked among the trees and had a good
+time together. When the Doctor was leaving, his friend loaded him down
+with fruit. It was on one of these recent visits that Dr. Holmes with
+characteristic keenness of perception, discovered the beautiful symmetry
+of the grand Norway spruce in front of the mansion on the wide sweep of
+lawn, and he laughingly named it "The Poet's Pagoda," and this name it
+has kept ever since.
+
+To return to "Elmfield," as the old Gove mansion is called. The
+old-fashioned house, with its upper balconies, heavy chimneys, and rich
+collection of historical relics, stands on a hill not far from the falls
+which gave the name to the village--Hampton Falls. The sight from
+Whittier's window commanded a little balcony, with a view of the distant
+blue sea. One day after another passed quietly away, he rising at
+seven, going across through a pine grove to the adjoining tavern for his
+breakfast, getting the mail at the little post-office, reading the
+papers, looking at the distant sails on the sea through a glass,
+conversing with friends or walking in the neighboring orchard, with its
+paths and rustic seats. The region is that where his Bachiler and Hussey
+ancestors both lived, as Mr. F. B. Sanborn tells us (Boston
+_Advertiser_, September 8, 1892). Daniel Webster's Bachiler ancestors
+also lived on a farm, a mile and a half from the Gove mansion; namely,
+where now stands the villa of Warren Brown. As Mr. Sanborn truthfully
+says, Whittier has been the local poet of this whole region of Essex and
+adjoining counties. "No poet of New England," he continues, "has lived
+so close to the actual habits of the people, in the present and the past
+centuries, as did Whittier; and his poems of locality will become as
+much a feature of New England literature as are those of Burns and Scott
+in their native country. This fidelity to homely fact and profound
+sentiment have made Whittier more than any other the patrial and
+religious poet of New Hampshire and Eastern Massachusetts. He has done
+in verse what Hawthorne did in prose. It was only the accident or
+accomplishment of verse which separated these two poets, and made one of
+them our most graceful and romantic prose-writer, while the other became
+our most spiritual and literal poet."
+
+The truth of these statements comes home to me with force since I made a
+week's itinerary through this Whittier ballad land a year ago, and saw
+how every mile of coast land was celebrated in storied verse by
+Whittier.
+
+On Wednesday, August 31, Mr. Whittier was taken ill. The malady was
+acute diarrhea, which by the Saturday following developed a new and
+alarming symptom, a remarkable irregularity of the heart's action,
+accompanied by partial paralysis of the left side, arms, and vocal
+organs. He remained conscious until Tuesday at three P. M., when the
+symptoms became markedly worse. He was surrounded by ministering
+relatives and friends, who gave him every loving attention, but all were
+powerless to stay the hand of death.
+
+When urged to take the nourishment prescribed by his physicians, he
+said: "I want water from Abby's (Miss Gove) nice well," and as it was
+given, remarked with a bright smile, "That's good--nothing better." Soon
+after, as his forehead was being bathed, he said, "That is all that can
+be done." To his attending physicians, Drs. Douglass and Howe, and
+nurse, he said: "I am worn out--thee have done what thee could--I thank
+thee." And as the end drew near the dying poet recognized his niece from
+Portland, and remarked in faltering words, "Love--to--the--world." These
+were his last words. He died at four-thirty on the morning of the
+seventh. At seven o'clock on Friday evening the silent form of the poet
+was brought to Amesbury, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. S. T. Pickard, and
+Mr. and Mrs. Cartland.
+
+On Saturday morning business was entirely suspended in Amesbury. The
+selectmen issued the following proclamation:--
+
+     "To the Citizens of Amesbury:--Our town has been saddened by the
+     death of its great poet and one of its noblest and best-loved
+     citizens. We feel that our country at large, and the civilized
+     world, mourns with us the death of the poet and liberty-loving
+     philanthropist, John G. Whittier.
+
+     "Sharing the sadness which must come to the wise and good
+     everywhere, we, the people of Amesbury, mourn the loss of a friend
+     and neighbor endeared to us by his lovable qualities and the purity
+     of his daily life in our midst.
+
+     "We revered him for his greatness, and loved him for himself.
+     Always identified with every good work in Amesbury, sustaining the
+     right and defending the oppressed, his life for more than half a
+     century has been to us a daily sermon.
+
+     "If it be true that
+
+          'The heart speaketh most when the life move,'
+
+     we can only add that such a life, with its fullness of years and
+     its crown of blessings, is a rich legacy to the community."
+
+[Illustration: THE GOVE HOUSE, HAMPTON FALLS, N. H., IN WHICH WHITTIER
+DIED.]
+
+At ten o'clock the public was admitted to the house, passing in a
+continuous line (as at the funeral of dear old Walt Whitman, his brother
+poet of Democracy, a few months before in Camden) through the humble
+little parlor of the Amesbury home. It was originally intended to hold
+the services in the Friends' meeting-house near by; but the dense fog
+clearing up and the bright sun coming out--as one beautifully said, "the
+mystery of death typified by the shifting and elusive shadows of the
+fog, and the glory and hopefulness of the resurrection by the bright
+rays of the sun"--it was decided to let the body rest in the house, and
+hold memorial services in the quiet garden in the rear of the house.
+The funeral arrangements were in charge of William Lloyd Garrison, Jr.,
+S. T. Pickard and Judge G. W. Cate, the tenant of the house. The
+atmosphere was one of peace and restfulness, and the simplicity of the
+life of the Friends was seen in all the arrangements. In the quaint
+parlor of the homestead lay all that was mortal of the poet, on whose
+face was an expression of supreme peace; his form was encircled by a
+delicate fringe of trailing fern. A most beautiful wreath from Dr.
+Oliver Wendell Holmes--eighty-four white roses, fringed with carnations
+and maidenhair ferns, one for each year of the poet's life,--was laid
+around the name-plate on the coffin. It was a touching tribute by the
+last one of that remarkable galaxy of poets that marked such a
+distinguished era in our American literature. Two crossed palms, with
+the Japan lilies Whittier loved so well, encircled by a broad white
+satin ribbon, were from Mrs. Daniel Lothrop. The fronds of the long
+palms encircled the face of the dead poet as it looked out from the
+large engraving between the windows of the parlor. Upon the end of the
+ribbon was delicately painted six lines from Whittier's "Andrew
+Rykman's Prayer:"
+
+    "Some sweet morning yet in God's
+    Dim æonian periods,
+    Joyful I shall wake to see
+    Those I love who rest in Thee,
+    And to them in Thee allied
+    Shall my soul be satisfied."
+
+Upon the accompanying card was this: "In memory of my husband's dear
+friend. This verse of 'Andrew Rykman's Prayer' was consolation in the
+hour of death to both him who wrote it, and to him who loved it.--Mrs.
+Daniel Lothrop."
+
+Another exquisite floral offering came with these lines:
+
+    "I know not where His islands lift
+      Their fronded palms in air;
+    I only know I cannot drift
+      Beyond His love and care."
+
+On the back of the card were the words "Oak Knoll."
+
+The alcove behind the casket was filled with floral tributes. Here was a
+large St. Andrew's cross of exquisite white roses upon a bed of ivy,
+from a very near and dear friend of Mr. Whittier's at Lexington, whose
+name is withheld. There was a ladder of hydrangeas, gladioli, carnations
+and snow-balls from Mrs. Albert Clarke of Amesbury, an ivy wreath from
+Sarah Orne Jewett, a sheaf of wheat from Mrs. Lizzie Cheney and the
+Misses Coffin of Lynn, a broken shaft of white carnations from Mr. and
+Mrs. J. Henry Hall of Amesbury. A massive wreath of Whittier's own
+much-loved pine tassels was hung above the portrait of his sister
+Elizabeth, the tribute of Mrs. Joseph A. Purington; the heavy green was
+relieved by a spray of bright, contrasting goldenrod. Mrs. Samuel
+Rowell, Jr., sent a basket of white roses and maidenhair. There was a
+beautiful spray of the passion flower from L. Kelcher, Hotel Winthrop,
+Boston, and an hour-glass of white carnations from Mr. J. R. Fogg. Many
+touching little clusters of flowers came from the children; and his
+neighbors sent a beautiful wreath of fringed gentian--Whittier's
+favorite flower. This came from the far Pacific Slope: "Lay one flower
+for me upon the bier of the beloved friend who rests. No purer soul
+ever passed from earth to Heaven, or bore with it greater love and
+blessing than does his.--Ina D. Coolbrith, Oakland, Cal."
+
+In the garden, and overlooked by the windows of the study where Mr.
+Whittier wrote and thought for so many years, was gathered to pay the
+last tributes of love and reverence to the dead poet, a large and
+notable assemblage: Gen. O. O. Howard, E. C. Stedman, Mrs. Alice Freeman
+Palmer, Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-Ward, Gail Hamilton, Lucy Larcom,
+Edna Dean Proctor, Horace E. Scudder, T. W. Higginson, ex-Governor
+Claflin, Parker Pillsbury, Francis H. Underwood, Edward L. Pierce,
+Robert S. Rantoul, Mrs. C. A. Dall, "Margaret Sidney," Harriet Prescott
+Spofford, Mrs. Endicott, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Jr., Frank J. Garrison,
+etc.
+
+And the sight was one never to be forgotten. Under the soft September
+sky, blue and cloudless, in the shade of pear and apple trees which
+Whittier himself had planted and tended and loved, were his relatives,
+friends, neighbors and men and women whose names are known wherever the
+English language is spoken.
+
+It scarcely seemed like a funeral, so unaffectedly natural and sincere
+was every spoken word and every act. And the entire absence of formality
+and stiffness deprived the occasion of that artificial gloom which is so
+often characteristic of funerals.
+
+Perhaps, too, the subtle influence of the balmy air and the beauties of
+the place helped to lift the pall that must have hung over many a heart.
+It was as if the friends of some dearly beloved man, who was going on a
+journey, had gathered to bid him God-speed--not as if they had come to
+bid him farewell.
+
+A hollow square was formed around a low platform, and near by was a
+table with a Bible upon it. Gentians, one of Whittier's favorite
+flowers, and goldenrod formed the only floral ornaments. Back of the
+seats stood a dense crowd that must have numbered thousands, almost
+filling the garden. Children climbed the trees and looked with open-eyed
+wonder on the scene. On an apple bough, his naked legs dangling in the
+air almost over the head of Edmund Clarence Stedman, was an urchin who
+might have inspired the "Barefoot Boy;" faces peered from many a tree,
+from the vine-clad arbor and from the window of a neighboring barn, down
+upon the crowd.
+
+The poet's relatives, and members of the Society of Friends from various
+places, occupied the seats forming the hollow square, an easy-chair
+being reserved for Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he was unable to be
+present.
+
+The Friends gave the exercises their peculiar complexion; first one and
+then another rising to eulogize their friend as the "Spirit moved them."
+Verses of Whittier were recited by "that lovely Quaker lady," Mrs.
+Gertrude Cartland, and by Mrs. James H. Chace. Mr. E. C. Stedman was the
+last speaker.
+
+He spoke of the personal loss he felt in the poet's death. "To know him
+was a consecration, to have his sympathy a benediction. His passing away
+was not so much a death as a translation. He is gone, and has not left
+his mantle! How could he? Why should he? No one can overestimate his
+artless art, his power, vigor and effect in his polemic efforts. No one
+put so much heart or so much religion into his writings. He was one of
+the great trio of New England poets, of whom there is only one now
+left. They are the vanishers of whom he spoke. He was a believer in the
+inward life, as a poet should be. He will be his own successor, and
+belongs to our time as well as to that earlier time to which he is
+linked by his work. We may say of him that the chariot swung low and he
+was translated, dividing the waters of truth, beauty, and religion, with
+his mantle. The last time I spoke at a memorial service was at Bayard
+Taylor's funeral. Taylor was Whittier's friend, and like Whittier he had
+a firm belief in immortality."
+
+It is to Mr. Stedman that Whittier dedicated in a few choice lines his
+latest volume of verse, "At Sundown," which the poet, as if prescient of
+his coming death, had had privately printed and circulated among a few
+friends a year before his fatal illness.
+
+The most picturesque and striking figure at Whittier's funeral was that
+of the venerable John W. Hutchinson, whose long gray hair fell over a
+broad white Rembrandt collar. He and his sister, Abby Hutchinson Patton,
+were life-long friends of Whittier, and their voices in the song they
+sang--"Close his eyes, his work is done"--were, "like the echoes of
+sweet bells from the far-away time of their youth, when they and
+Whittier were one in endeavor."
+
+And then the long procession was formed. In the family lot, in the
+Friends' section of the Union Cemetery, where are buried his father,
+mother, sisters and brother, John Greenleaf Whittier was laid to rest.
+
+The Boston _Journal_, in writing of Whittier's obsequies, gathered up
+this tender reminiscence:--
+
+    "We recall the incident of some ten years since, when Mr. Daniel
+    Lothrop, the late publisher, while visiting in California, used
+    Whittier's poem, 'Andrew Rykman's Prayer' to comfort the bereaved.
+    Mr. Lothrop had, as it were, been brought up on Mr. Whittier's
+    poems, there being in many ways a great similarity of tastes and
+    characteristics between them. Of late years there was a strong
+    friendship. The clergyman of a prominent Oakland church had died
+    suddenly in the pulpit some few weeks before, and at the large
+    memorial meeting Mr. Lothrop was asked without warning by the
+    chairman to recite this poem, as he had heard him repeat a few
+    lines from it during a consecration meeting. Mr. Lothrop ascended
+    the platform and gave the poem entire. There was a profound hush
+    throughout the vast assembly, like that following the instant when
+    the beloved pastor had suddenly fallen before their eyes. Many were
+    in tears, all agreeing that Whittier's strong, uplifting words
+    comforted them more than anything else that had been said. Rev. Dr.
+    Gordon, in the address at Mr. Lothrop's funeral in the Old South
+    Church, appropriately recited this poem for the late publisher, who
+    on his death-bed used this poem, as he had in health and strength."
+
+James G. Blaine telegraphed that he had "long regarded Whittier with
+affectionate veneration," and over the wire came from Frederick Douglas
+the words, "Emancipated millions will hold his memory sacred." Speaking
+of Mr. Blaine, a writer, "S. F. M.," in the Boston _Journal_, December
+18, 1891, tells of Mr. Blaine's presenting his, "S. F. M.'s," brother
+with a morocco-bound copy of the beautiful Mussey edition, and of Mr.
+Blaine's reading and re-reading aloud, one Sunday at their house in
+Charlestown, Mass., the poem "Among the Hills," which had then just
+been issued.
+
+Memorial services on the afternoon of the funeral were held in Danvers,
+Haverhill, Salem, Mass., and Vassalboro, Maine. The old Whittier grange
+at the cross roads in Haverhill was draped in mourning. The present
+owner of the birthplace is Mr. George E. Elliott, a retired wealthy
+gentleman of Haverhill; and it is hoped that at no distant day he may be
+induced to sell it to the town of Haverhill, who would sacredly keep
+this cherished spot marking the nativity of her distinguished son, so
+that all lovers of John G. Whittier's poetry may have an opportunity to
+see his early home.
+
+The day after the funeral between seventeen and eighteen hundred people
+visited the grave. And, as in the case of Walt Whitman's grave, each one
+wanted a leaf or flower as a memento, so that it was necessary in both
+cases to have the place of sepulture guarded by special watchmen, in
+order that anything green be left.
+
+The funeral of the poet was conducted as he himself wished. For in his
+will he wrote, "It is my wish that my funeral may be conducted in the
+plain and quiet way of the Society of Friends, with which I am connected
+not only by birthright, but also by a settled conviction of the truth of
+its principles and the importance of its testimonies." Mr. Whittier, by
+the way, in his will requests all who have letters of his to refrain
+from publishing them unless with the consent of his literary executor,
+Mr. S. T. Pickard.
+
+So beautifully ended a most beautiful life--beautiful because just and
+heroic in the defense of justice. As says of him James Herbert Morse:--
+
+    "Such was the man--no more than simple man,
+      Plain Quaker, with the Norman-Saxon glow;
+    But seeing beauty so, and justice so,
+      We love to think him the American."
+
+And as Lowell says:--
+
+    "Peaceful by birthright as a virgin lake,
+      The lily's anchorage, which no eyes behold
+    Save those of stars, yet for thy brother's sake
+      That lay in bonds thou blew'st a blast as bold
+    As that wherewith the heart of Roland brake,
+      Far heard through Pyrenean valleys cold!"
+
+The lines strong and resonant, of Stedman's "Ad Vatem," addressed to
+Whittier while living, might well have been uttered over his bier:--
+
+    "Whittier, the land that loves thee, she whose child
+    Thou art, and whose uplifted hands thou long
+    Hast staid with song availing like a prayer--
+    She feels a sudden pang who gave thee birth,
+    And gave to thee the lineaments supreme
+    Of her own freedom, that she could not make
+    Thy tissues all immortal, or, if to change,
+    To bloom through years coeval with her own;
+    So that no touch of age nor frost of time
+    Should wither thee, nor furrow thy dear face,
+    Nor fleck thy hair with silver. Ay, she feels
+    A double pang that thee, with each new year
+    Glad youth may not revisit, like the spring
+    That routs her northern winter and anew
+    Melts off the hoar snow from her puissant hills."
+
+Many pleasant anecdotes of the Quaker poet appeared shortly after his
+death. Col. T. W. Higginson, writing of the Amesbury home, said of
+Whittier's mother:--
+
+    "On one point only this blameless soul seemed to have a shadow of
+    solicitude, this being the new wonder of Spiritualism just dawning
+    on the world. I never went to the house that there did not come from
+    the gentle lady very soon a placid inquiry from behind her knitting
+    needles, 'Has thee any further information to give in regard to the
+    spiritual communications, as they call them?' But if I attempted to
+    treat seriously a matter which then, as now, puzzled most inquirers
+    by its perplexing details, there would come some keen thrust from
+    Elizabeth Whittier which would throw all serious solution further
+    off than ever.
+
+    "She was indeed a brilliant person, unsurpassed in my memory for the
+    light cavalry charges of wit; as unlike her mother and brother as if
+    she had been born into a different race. Instead of his regular
+    features, she had a wild, bird-like look, with prominent nose and
+    large liquid dark eyes, whose expression vibrated every instant
+    between melting softness and impetuous wit. There was nothing about
+    her that was not sweet and kindly, but you were constantly taxed to
+    keep up with her sallies and hold your own; while her graver brother
+    listened with delighted admiration and rubbed his hands over bits of
+    merry sarcasm which were utterly alien to his own vein. His manifold
+    visitors were touched off in living colors; two plump and rosy
+    Western girls among them, who had lately descended upon the
+    household beaming with eagerness to see the poet.
+
+    "They had announced themselves as the Cary sisters, who had lately
+    sent him their joint poems--verses, it will be remembered, crowded
+    with deaths and melodious dirges that seemed ludicrously
+    inconsistent with the blooming faces at the door. Mrs. Whittier met
+    them rather guardedly and explained that her son was out. 'But we
+    will come in and wait for him,' they smilingly replied. 'But he is
+    in Boston, and may not be home for a week,' said the prudent mother.
+    'No matter,' they said, in the true spirit of Western hospitality;
+    'we can stay till he returns.' There was no resource but to admit
+    them; and happily the poet came back next day, and there ensued a
+    life-long friendship, in which the mother fully shared."
+
+And another reminiscence appeared in the press, touching the poet's
+residence in Boston.
+
+When Mrs. Celia Thaxter was boarding at the little English-like inn on
+the sunny slope of Beacon Hill called Hotel Winthrop, Mr. Whittier went
+there one day to see her. Mrs. Thaxter liked the quiet place, with its
+ivied window and its glimpse of the strong, short, green-draped tower of
+St. John the Evangelist's, and she praised it to her old friend. That
+was some time in 1881, and in November of that year he joined his Oak
+Knoll cousins, Mrs. Woodman and her daughter and the Misses Johnson, at
+the Winthrop. The ladies of the family came in September, but Mr.
+Whittier did not join them until November. He said that he did not want
+to lose his vote in Amesbury.
+
+It was a winter full of pleasure to the poet. He was then not too feeble
+to go out evenings, and he spent many pleasant hours with friends like
+the Claflins and others. But the hours in the parlor of the hotel make
+the place historic, and give it a special interest and meaning for his
+future biographer. Mr. Whittier had room fourteen (the number of a
+sonnet's lines, twice seven, with luck for a poet), and the fire-escape
+made a little balcony for him on a corner toward St. John's. The
+landlord had a door cut through the thick old wall to the rooms
+adjoining, and these were the rooms of Mrs. Woodman and the rest. It is
+old Boston decidedly in that quarter. The brick of the houses is mellow
+old red, and there is nothing newfangled anywhere about. Mr. Whittier
+said he preferred coming here rather than to one of the big hotels,
+because there he was "overwhelmed with the service," and here it seemed
+"more like Amesbury," where people "are neighborly and drop in without
+knocking." He had "always been used to waiting upon himself," and he
+"liked being in a place where they would let him."
+
+It was his custom, mornings, to come down into the little reception-room
+on the street floor, and "sitting right in that chair where you're
+sitting," as the writer was told, he "used to read his letters and throw
+all the papers in a pile on the floor and go off and leave them." That
+little room was a great place of congregation for "the family," as the
+boarders who were there with Mr. Whittier liked to call themselves.
+
+The poet would sit on the sofa with a favored one on each side of him
+and the rest in a group about, "often on footstools or on the floor, as
+like as not," while he "told stories of war times." Gen. Stevens was
+there during one of the poet's long stays; he had been a classmate of
+Gen. Lee and of Jefferson Davis at West Point, and he and the abolition
+poet discussed these men and their times from the broader view of later
+days.
+
+"Once a friend, a lady who had some property in Virginia, wrote Mr.
+Whittier of having named a street in a new town for him, and of having
+set aside a portion of ground in his name. He replied with thanks,
+saying that he had that week received news of no less than three towns
+or streets being named for him with a gift of town lots, adding, 'If
+this sort of thing goes on much longer, I shall be land poor.'
+
+"During the winters he was at the Winthrop, Mr. Whittier's favorite way
+of getting about was in a herdic. They were 'not pretty,' but they 'knew
+the way to places.' Politicians used to go there to see him and try to
+get him to banquets. But his life-long avoidance of politics in the
+minor sense made him easily resist their wiles. 'I have seen Mr. ---- (a
+well-known name) come here and just about go down on his knees to get
+Mr. Whittier to speak or even to come to a banquet,' says the landlord
+(who is, by the way, an old-time character worthy of a novelist's pen),
+'but Mr. Whittier would just sit here--right in that chair you're
+in--and kind of smile to himself as if to say, "Oh! your talk don't
+amount to anything." Well, once Mr. ---- came here and staid and staid
+a-talking and persuading, and gave Mr. Whittier an earache if ever a man
+had one. But he didn't make anything by it, although he finally had to
+take a bed and stay all night.'"
+
+Mr. Charles Brainard visited Whittier soon after the publication of
+"Snow-Bound." Finding his house painted and improved, he remarked to
+him, "It is evident that poetry has ceased to be a drug in the market."
+
+"The next morning Mr. Whittier's answer came. It was in the winter, and,
+as the poet went up to the fire to warm his boots preparatory to putting
+them on, he said, 'Thee will have to excuse me, for I must go down to
+the office of the Collector.' Then, with a humorous gleam in his eye, he
+added, 'Since "Snow-Bound" was published, I have risen to the dignity of
+an income tax.'"
+
+To an Englishman who visited him not long before his death, Mr. Whittier
+expressed his surprise that his guest should know so much of his poetry
+by heart. "I wonder," he said, "thou shouldst burden thy memory with
+all that rhyme. It is not well to have too much of it: better get rid of
+it as soon as possible. Why, I can't remember any of it. I once went to
+hear a wonderful orator, and he wound up his speech with a poetical
+quotation, and I clapped with all my might. Some one touched me on the
+shoulder, and said. 'Do you know who wrote that?' I said, 'No, I don't;
+but it's good.' It seems I had written it myself. The fault is I have
+written far too much."
+
+Here is a story illustrating Whittier's kind-heartedness: A young lady,
+a neighbor, was asked to take tea at his house. "He had no servant at
+the moment, and, with the assistance of his guest, prepared the simple
+meal with his own hand. She contributed to the press for her support,
+and prepared a minute account of the affair, of which Mr. Whittier
+chanced to be advised, and sent off a remonstrance post haste. But when
+the young author pleaded the real need of the money which the little
+story was to bring her, and the harmlessness to its subject of its
+effective details, the former reason (for the latter would never have
+overcome his abhorrence of what he must have felt a vivisection)
+actually prevailed, and he permitted the publication with a benignant
+forbearance."
+
+The Hon. Nathan Crosby, LL. D., writes in the Essex Institute
+Collections for 1880.
+
+    "James F. Otis, nephew of the Hon. H. G. Otis, while reading law in
+    my office, found in some newspaper a piece of poetry which he said
+    he was told had been written by a shoemaker boy in Haverhill, and he
+    wished to go and find him. Upon his return he told me he found the
+    young man by the name of Whittier at work in his shoe shop, and,
+    making himself known to him, they spent the day together in
+    wandering over the hills on the shore of the Merrimack, and in
+    conversation upon literary matters. The next year he became an
+    editor. Mr. Whittier is not only a poet, but is himself a poem."
+
+Mr. Whittier, when interviewed some time ago as to his favorite works,
+replied: "Oh! really, I have none. Much that I have written I wish was
+as deep in the Red Sea as Pharaoh's chariot wheels. Much of the bread
+cast on the waters I wish had never returned. It is not fair to revive
+writings composed in the shadow of conditions that make every
+acceptable work impossible. In my early life I was not favored with good
+opportunities. Limited chances for education and a lack of books always
+stood in my way. When I began to write I had seen nothing, and virtually
+knew nothing of the world. Of course, things written then could not be
+worth much. In my father's house there were not a dozen books, and they
+were of a severe type. The only one that approached poetry was a rhymed
+history of King David, written by a contemporary of George Fox, the
+Quaker. There was one poor novel in the family. It belonged to an aunt.
+This I secured one day, but when I had read it about half through I was
+discovered and it was taken away from me."
+
+This was about the time when Judge Pickering, of Salem, and a party of
+ladies called at the farm-house to see him. "He was then an awkward boy
+of seventeen--as he used to tell the story--and was just then under the
+barn, looking for eggs. Hearing his name called, he came up with his hat
+full and found himself suddenly in the presence of people more elegant
+in appearance than any he had ever met. In telling the story, he added
+naïvely, 'They came to see the Quaker poet--and they saw him!' This must
+have been about the year 1824."
+
+Mr. T. W. Ball (in the Boston _Journal_, Dec. 18, 1891, weekly edition),
+the journalist, wrote of his sole interview in 1848 with Whittier, in a
+little editorial den at the junction of Spring Lane and Water Street
+with Devonshire Street (the building recently torn down), where Henry
+Wilson was then editing the Free-Soil paper (owned by him as well). "I
+was busy," says Mr. Ball, "getting up some local items one morning, when
+a gentleman of staid appearance, with a beaming countenance, a
+broad-brimmed fur hat--the old-fashioned fur hat, so different from the
+silk tile--and a brownish coat of formal cut, entered the room, and,
+after the usual courtesies of salutation, fell into a close chat with
+the 'Natick cobbler,' by which popular title the future Vice-President
+was then known. It was the summer season, and Wilson was resplendent in
+a brown linen coat and a flaming red-checked velvet waistcoat, which was
+much affected in those days. As the conversation between the two waxed
+interesting, I noticed that the visitor unbuttoned his vest for comfort,
+and possessed himself of an exchange paper which he converted into a
+fan. The interview closed, and the visitor, buttoning up his vest and
+donning his hat, turned to depart, when for the first time he appeared
+to take notice of my presence. With a rapid glance at Wilson, he said,
+'Henry, who is thy young friend?'
+
+"'Oh, that's William, my local reporter,' was the reply. 'Here, William,
+this is Mr. Whittier, the Quaker poet, that you have heard about; shake
+hands with him.' I timidly extended my hand, and the great man not only
+grasped it with a cordial grasp, but, patting me on the head with his
+other hand, said, 'My young friend, thee has chosen a noble calling.'"
+
+Mr. Whittier, in speaking of Longfellow's works a few years ago, said,
+"'Evangeline' is a favorite with me. I think it is one of the most
+beautiful of poems. Longfellow had an easy life and superior advantages
+of association and education, and so did Emerson. It was widely
+different with me, and I am very thankful for the kind esteem that
+people have given my writings. Before 'Evangeline' was written I had
+hunted up the history of the banishment of the Acadians, and had
+intended to write upon it myself, but I put it off, and Hawthorne got
+hold of the story and gave it to Longfellow. I am very glad he did, for
+he was just the one to write it. If I had attempted it I should have
+spoiled the artistic effect of the poem by my indignation at the
+treatment of the exiles by the Colonial Government, who had a very hard
+lot after coming to this country. Families were separated and scattered
+about, only a few of them being permitted to remain in any given
+locality. The children were bound out to the families in the localities
+in which they resided, and I wrote a poem upon finding in the records of
+Haverhill the indenture that bound an Acadian girl as a servant in one
+of the families in that neighborhood. Gathering the story of her death,
+I wrote 'Marguerite.'"
+
+In addition to what has been stated in this volume and elsewhere by me
+on the Barbara Frietchie ballad, are to be finally appended a few words,
+suggested by the one who sent the raw material of the ballad to
+Whittier, namely, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, who, soon after the
+poet's death, at her pretty home in Georgetown, D. C., recalled the
+circumstances as they occurred back in 1863. It seems that the story was
+told her by a neighbor of hers who was also a relative of Barbara--Mr.
+C. S. Ramsburg. Mrs. Southworth's son, who was present, remarked, "What
+a grand subject for a poem by Whittier, mother!"
+
+She thereupon sat down, and with tears in her eyes, wrote the incident
+out and sent it to Amesbury. Mr. Whittier replied as follows:--
+
+     "AMESBURY, 9mo. 8, 1863.
+
+     "MY DEAR MRS. SOUTHWORTH:--I heartily thank thee for thy very kind
+     letter and its inclosed "message." It ought to have fallen into
+     better hands, but I have just written out a little ballad of
+     "Barbara Frietchie," which will appear in the next _Atlantic_. If
+     it is good for anything thee deserves all the credit of it.
+
+     "With best wishes for thy health and happiness, I am most truly thy
+     friend,
+
+     "JOHN G. WHITTIER."
+
+It is said that Mr. Whittier expressed regret for having made a bonfire
+of nearly all the letters he had received from his correspondents for
+over half a century. It is to be hoped that his literary executor will
+be liberal-minded in allowing the publication of the most interesting of
+Whittier's own letters, for he put a good bit of his sister Elizabeth's
+wit and vivacity into his letters; and scarcely a day passed that one or
+more of these was not written, overflowing with kindly words and good
+humor, though these, it is true, could give no hint of that lambent
+gleam of the marvelous eyes, nor of that sudden compression of the upper
+lip with which he repressed a smile when he had flashed out a bit of
+humor.
+
+Whittier was not only quick in repartee, but quick and lithe in all his
+movements, and quick in his mental processes. His friend, Judge G. W.
+Cate, says he latterly read books very rapidly by inspection, turning
+the leaves and seizing the contents by intuition. The poet's
+imagination, continues Judge Cate, was wonderful. Years ago he may have
+read an accurate description of some remote place--Malta, Jerusalem, or
+some smaller town in the far East. He would then converse at any time as
+readily about such a place as if he had been there. It was this vivid
+remembrance of places, Whittier himself said, which made him not care so
+much to visit them in person. He was never a traveler, not having been
+farther from home than Philadelphia (half a century ago), and Washington
+somewhat later. He said that he should like to be in California or
+Florida for a winter, but the getting there appalled him, and so he sat
+contentedly in his Northern study, with its bright open fire, finding in
+its crumbling embers a compensatory dream of the _Morgenland_ with its
+palms, mirages and luxuriant blossomry. He followed with deep interest
+the toils and adventures of his friend Greely in the arctic regions, and
+rejoiced with all his neighbors when word came of his rescue. And at
+another time he said he "would rather shake hands with Stanley than with
+any other man in the world just then."
+
+The sincerest mourners at Whittier's funeral were women. One of the
+peculiarities of his life was the devotion and loving care given to him
+by noble women--sisters, mother, nieces, cousins and such poet friends
+as Lucy Larcom, Mrs. Spofford, Rose Terry Cooke, Sarah Orne Jewett,
+Celia Thaxter, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Mrs. Annie Fields. He was
+always an ardent defender of woman suffrage, and such advocates of that
+noble cause as Adelaide A. Claflin publicly expressed their sorrow on
+the death of their coadjutor and friend.
+
+He was not only liberal in politics, but also in religion, and while
+remaining from choice in the creedless church of his fathers, yet he had
+sympathies that allied him with the broad humanitarian movements of the
+times in religion. There was no shred of bigotry in his nature. Who ever
+heard of a persecuting Quaker? It is they who have always patiently
+suffered persecution. Whittier, indeed, belonged with the advance guard
+of the Friends, in spirit at least, and he said in a letter written
+shortly before his death, "For years I have been desirous of a movement
+for uniting all Christians, with no other creed or pledge than a simple
+recognition of Christ as our leader."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Whittier Club of Haverhill, an organization the poet had thoroughly
+enjoyed, not only because it represented the feeling of his native town
+toward him, but also from the constant attentions paid him by it, held a
+memorial service in Haverhill, October 7. It was a rare day of tribute
+and thanksgiving, and all who participated in it felt grateful for the
+honor allowed them. It was just a month from the day when the loved poet
+and former citizen passed from earth. Mr. George E. Elliott, the owner
+of Whittier's birthplace, very generously allowed the club to hold its
+meeting in the old homestead, and he furthered in every way their
+well-conceived plan by which the several rooms presented an appearance
+as near as possible to that of the poet's boyhood. The partition in the
+old kitchen, that had been put up of late years, was taken down,
+disclosing the array of ancient cupboards and queer little window; there
+was the kettle hanging on the crane in the wide fireplace, along whose
+hearth one almost expected to see "the apples sputtering in a row," as
+of yore. There were the iron fire-dogs and the antiquated chairs, the
+wainscoting untouched by the hand of Time, save to grow mellower of
+tint, and there was "the sagging beam," the uneven floor and the quaint
+staircase, all just as Whittier, the boy, saw and touched and lived
+amongst, all those impressible years of his life.
+
+It was a notable company gathered in that old homestead that beautiful
+October day--bidden there by the Whittier Club--not large in numbers, as
+the invitations were of necessity limited to the capacity of the old
+homestead. But they were mostly the poet's dear friends who came to do
+honor to his name. There was Lucy Larcom, William Lloyd Garrison, Jr.,
+Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney and "Margaret Sidney" (Mrs. D. Lothrop); there was
+Charles Carleton Coffin and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Garrison and Miss
+Sparhawk, whose father, Dr. Thomas Sparhawk of Amesbury, was one of the
+poet's life-long friends. There was the dear Quaker presence of Mrs.
+Purington, Mr. Whittier's cousin, and the members of his family at Oak
+Knoll, Mrs. Woodman, her daughter, Miss Phebe, and the Misses Johnson;
+there was Mr. S. T. Pickard of Portland, Maine, who married the poet's
+niece Lizzie, and who is Mr. Whittier's literary executor. And there
+were other relatives and friends and Haverhill citizens thronging the
+house, and listening outside the little many-paned windows to catch the
+echoes of the words being uttered within.
+
+The day was all that one could desire who looked for sympathy in Nature
+toward this her favorite child who has so interpreted her woods and
+fields, her autumn skies and the trembling line of river and coast. The
+old kitchen was filled with chairs, and on them, and crowded in the
+doorways and peeping in the windows, were the interested and reverent
+listeners. Mr. Charles Howe, the president of the club, presided with
+great grace and dignity; with rare tact culling from the large amount of
+what waited to be read and said, just such choice extracts and bits of
+reminiscence as would best serve the purpose of the hour. Selections
+from "Snow-Bound" were read by a member of the club in that room where
+"Snow-Bound" was lived, if one may so express it. And to the listeners
+there came a vision of wintry fields and whirling storm; of the little
+knot of friends drawn close to the friendly comforting fire on the
+hearth; in the midst the thoughtful sensitive boy who was to awaken the
+love and veneration of future generations all over his country.
+
+There were reminiscences of a visit to his birthplace paid by the poet
+some ten years since with Mr. S. T. Pickard, who told to the assembled
+company many amusing stories related by Mr. Whittier on that occasion.
+There was the quaint staircase down which the poet, when a baby, wrapped
+in a blanket, was rolled by his sister only two years older, who
+probably thought it the greatest kindness in the world to thus project
+her infant brother into space. There was the queer old cupboard where
+Mr. Whittier when a boy was dragged by his jacket collar by a tramp who
+had forcibly entered the house; and there he was compelled to stand
+while the unwelcome visitor searched high and low for any chance jug or
+bottle that would yield another supply to his already over-weighted
+condition. Seizing a jug from a dark corner, he ejected the cork without
+a glance at the contents, and took a long deep draught of whale oil used
+for filling lamps. The embryo poet took advantage of the confused
+spluttering that ensued, to make good his escape. Mr. Will Carleton
+recited with dramatic vigor "Barbara Frietchie," till the walls and
+rafters rang. Lucy Larcom read from the poet's writings, and Mr. William
+Lloyd Garrison, Jr. recited an original poem. A young English lady, who
+was visiting friends of Mr. Whittier's, read by request Tennyson's
+"Crossing the Bar," the Poet Laureate's death having just occurred.
+
+There were reminiscences by Dr. Fiske of Newburyport, who told several
+characteristic stories connected with Joshua Coffin, the "Yankee
+Schoolmaster," and life-long friend of the poet; and Charles Carleton
+Coffin, the historian, gave the account of his capture of the big key of
+the last slave prison in Richmond, and of his giving it to Mr. Whittier
+who returned it to him a year or so ago. At the close of his remarks,
+Mr. Carleton hung the key on the nail above the fireplace where, in
+Whittier's boyhood, the big bull's-eye watch used to hang. Fitting place
+was it for the silent symbol of agony and shame to the slave brother;
+and all who witnessed it hanging there, felt the heart beat to a newer
+and a keener sense of the debt we owe to him whose songs (as one who
+gave a reminiscence that day told us) influenced Abraham Lincoln to
+project the Emancipation Proclamation upon the American people. The
+beautiful poem of Mr. Whittier's, "My Psalm," was rendered with deep
+feeling by Mrs. Julia Houston West for whom, several years ago, the
+verses had been set to music. And to bring to a fitting close these
+memorial exercises, the assembled company of relatives and friends rose
+and sang one stanza of of "Auld Lang Syne."
+
+[Illustration:
+
+    Dr Holmes.
+
+    Beloved physician of an age of ail
+      When grave prescriptions fail
+    Thy songs have cheer and healing for us all
+      As David's had for Saul.
+
+    John G Whittier
+
+    Hampton Falls, NH
+    Aug 26 1892
+
+_The above fac-simile of the last verse written by Mr. Whittier, is
+kindly loaned us by the "Boston Journal." The following letter was sent
+with the verse_:
+
+     HAMPTON FALLS, _August_.
+
+     DEAR MR. WINGATE:
+
+     I have only time and strength to write a single verse expressive of
+     my love and admiration of my dear old friend, Dr. Holmes.
+
+     JOHN G. WHITTIER.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Note:  Although the Contents lists an Appendix, there was
+no actual appendix or page 375 in the scanned copy. Other copies of
+this book were found to have the same problem.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's John Greenleaf Whittier, by W. Sloane Kennedy
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of John Greenleaf Whittier, by W. Sloane Kennedy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: John Greenleaf Whittier
+       His Life, Genius, and Writings
+
+Author: W. Sloane Kennedy
+
+Release Date: August 24, 2011 [EBook #37191]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tor Martin Kristiansen, Carol Brown, Mary
+Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/front.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h1><span class="smcap">John Greenleaf Whittier</span></h1>
+
+<h3>His Life, Genius, and Writings</h3>
+
+<h2>BY W. SLOANE KENNEDY</h2>
+
+<h3>Author of a "Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," Etc.</h3>
+
+<h3>REVISED AND ENLARGED</h3>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>INTRODUCTION BY REV. S. F. SMITH, D.D.</i><br />
+Author of Hymn "America"</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">Such music as the woods and streams<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Sang in his ear, he sang aloud<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i19"><i>The Tent on the Beach</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">For all his quiet life flowed on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">As meadow streamlets flow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">Where fresher green reveals alo<br /></span>
+<span class="i12">The noiseless ways they go<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i20"><i>The Friend's Burial</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center">CHICAGO NEW YORK<br />
+THE WERNER COMPANY</p>
+
+<p class="center">COPYRIGHT 1892<br />
+<span class="smcap">By</span> D. LOTHROP COMPANY</p>
+
+<p class="center">COPYRIGHT 1895<br />
+<span class="smcap">By</span> THE WERNER COMPANY</p>
+
+<p class="center">John Greenleaf Whittier</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Who does not admire and love John Greenleaf Whittier? And who does not
+delight to do him honor? He was a man raised up by Providence to meet an
+exigency in human history, and an exigency in the experiences of the
+United States. And he met the exigency with distinguished success. He
+was a true exponent of New England life and the New England spirit. He
+drew his inspiration from the soil where he was born, from the
+necessities of the times, from the demands of human rights, from the
+love of God and of man. He was a unique man. We knew not his like before
+him. We shall see no other like him after him. He was the product of his
+age; and the age in which he lived belonged to him, and he to and in it.
+He was a unique literary man. He was so meek and retiring; he was so
+keenly sensitive to the wrongs done by man to man; he was so devoid of
+self-seeking; so pure and exalted in motive, and so sturdy a defender of
+the rights of the oppressed; he was so full of trust in God that we seem
+never to have seen his equal among men. His beautiful gentleness of
+character and his inflexible and fearless advocacy of the cause of
+righteousness&mdash;even when such advocacy involved persecution and
+personal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> harm and loss, a rare combination of qualities&mdash;remind us of
+the sentiment of Oliver Wendell Holmes,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The gentle are the strong."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>If ever in modern days the character of the apostle John has been
+reproduced among men it was in John G. Whittier. See with what sweetness
+and meekness the shy and loving Quaker moved through the ranks of
+society in times of peace and prosperity, and with what an adamantine
+boldness and bravery he stood up before the mob in Philadelphia when his
+types and manuscripts were scattered, his printing office burned and
+himself threatened with personal violence by the foes of human equality
+and freedom. Did he quail before the storm? Not he. Did he abandon his
+principles and retire from the arena? Oh, no; no more than did the
+apostle John&mdash;the apostle of love&mdash;forsake his Christian faith when the
+persecutors immersed him in boiling oil and exiled him to a desert
+island in the Ægean Sea.</p>
+
+<p>The poetry of Mr. Whittier is a complete autobiography. It is a
+reflection, as in a polished mirror, of himself. We miss only the
+accidents of dates and places, which are of merely external importance;
+but we find in his works, amply displayed, the portraiture of the man;
+even as the architect records himself and his thoughts in his plans, and
+builds his own soul into his edifices. Read the poetry of Mr. Whittier,
+and you have no need to ask what kind of man produced it. Behold the
+portrait: a thorough New England man, a son of its soil and a legitimate
+product of its institutions; a fruit of the simple education which was
+open to the people in the times of his youth and manhood;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> a
+philanthropist, loving all righteousness and all men, and scorning all
+oppression, injustice and iniquity; a stern advocate of human freedom,
+prepared to fight for it even "to the bitter end;" a bachelor, but
+having always a sweet and tender side for women; petted by society, but
+never tempted to swerve from the straight line of his principles;
+holding the faith of his fathers as a birthright and the result of his
+honest convictions, but with sympathies as broad as the universe and an
+appreciation of the privilege of private judgment on religious matters
+as the right and duty of all men; animated by a patriotism which took in
+his whole country, but a yearning for his own New England, its people,
+its scenery, its institutions and its honor; warmly attached to the
+friends whom he met along the pilgrimage of this life, but preserving to
+the last the memory and the love of the survivors whom he knew in his
+school days in the Haverhill Academy; living very much apart from his
+fellow-men, as he did in his latter days, on account of the increasing
+infirmities of his age, and absorbed in the world of his own thoughts,
+yet ever most affable, and as accessible as a most warm-hearted and
+cordial associate; every inch a man, as in stature, so also in soul, but
+exhibiting also the simplicity and the loving and confiding spirit of a
+child ("of such is the kingdom of heaven"); conscious of his human
+weakness and dependence on a higher Power, as he approached the goal of
+life, but relying on that higher Power with a sublime courage and a firm
+faith. How the man stands forth, like an orator on the stage, in the
+presence of throngs of admiring and reverent spectators! Unconsciously
+he sets forth in his works, whether they be prose or poetry, an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> example
+of the beauty of righteousness, the charm of philanthropy, the power and
+attractiveness of the broadest charity, the fervor of patriotism and the
+controlling force of love. The century which is about to close has been
+honored and made better, as well as gladder, by his presence in it. He
+has enriched its literature. He has elevated its ethics. He has breathed
+a divine life into its inspirations. He has warmed its heart.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier, like another Wordsworth, glorifies the scenes of common
+life, and hallows the landscapes of his New England homes. His verses
+speak in the dialect of the people, and deal with themes with which they
+are familiar. He lifts toil above its drudgery, and sanctifies, as with
+a sacred glow, the things with which men in common spheres chiefly have
+to do. He admired nature as he saw in it the landscapes which surrounded
+his several homes, the rolling green hills of Haverhill and Bradford,
+the mighty trees of Oak Knoll, the flowing stream and graceful curves of
+the Merrimack; the sober and quiet graces of Amesbury; and with his pen
+he stamped upon them immortality.</p>
+
+<p>The sun has set, but no night follows. The singer is gone, but his songs
+remain, and will long be a power among men far beyond the places adorned
+and honored by his personal presence. We love his poems which on account
+of their helpfulness the grateful world will long continue to read. How
+little he wrote&mdash;did he ever write anything&mdash;"which, dying, he could
+wish to blot?" and his life was a poem. The seal of Death is on his
+virtues, and the seal of universal approval is on his works.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">S. F. Smith.</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+<h3>Part I.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Life.</span></h3>
+
+<table width="75%">
+<tr><td align="right">I. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">Ancestry</span></a>
+</td><td align="right">9</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td>
+The Poet's Titles. Heredity. Spelling of the Name Whittier. Whittier
+Ancestors. Greenleaf Ancestors. The Husseys and Batchelders. Portrait of
+Whittier's Mother.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right">II. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">The Merrimack Valley</span> </a></td><td align="right">24</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Description of Essex County, Haverhill, Amesbury, Newburyport, Salisbury
+Beach, and the Isles of Shoals. Extracts from the "Supernaturalism of
+New England." The Spirit of the Age.
+</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td align="right">III. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">Boyhood</span> </a></td><td align="right">36</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Birthplace. Kenoza Lake. Whitman and Whittier. The Old Homestead.
+Members of the Household. Harriet Livermore and Lady Hester Stanhope.
+The Poet's School Days. "My Playmate." Ellwood and Burns. Old
+Stragglers. "Pilgrim's Progress." The Demon Fiddler. First Poem. William
+Lloyd Garrison and the <i>Free Press</i>. Haverhill Academy. Robert Dinsmore,
+the Quaint Farmer-Poet of Windham.
+</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td align="right">IV. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">Editor and Author: First Ventures</span> </a></td><td align="right">83</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Whittier as Editor of the <i>Boston Manufacturer</i>, the <i>Essex Gazette</i>,
+and the <i>New England Review</i>. First Volume, "Legends of New England."
+The Poet, J. G. C. Brainard. Ballad of "The Black Fox." Whittier's Views
+on the Poetical Resources of the New World. "Moll Pitcher."
+</td></tr>
+
+
+
+
+<tr><td align="right">V. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">Whittier the Reformer</span> </a></td><td align="right">97</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Identifies Himself with the Anti-Slavery Movement. Publication of his
+<i>Brochure</i>, "Justice and Expediency." Social Martyrdom. Prudence
+Crandall and her Battle with the Philistinism of Canterbury, Conn.
+Tailor Woolman and Saddler Lundy. Account of the Philadelphia Convention
+for the Formation of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Whittier's
+Account of the Convention. William Lloyd Garrison draws up the Famous
+Declaration of Principles. Samuel J. May Mobbed at East Haverhill.
+Whittier and George Thompson Mobbed at Concord, N. H. Story of the
+Landlord and the Flight by Night. The Poet's Account of the Mobbing of
+William Lloyd Garrison. Letters of John Quincy Adams. Harriet Martineau
+on Slavery. Attitude of Whittier toward the Quakers on the Slavery
+Question.
+</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td align="right">VI. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">Amesbury </span> </a></td><td align="right">123</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Removal to Amesbury. Description of the Town and of the Poet's
+Residence. The Study. Whittier Corresponding Editor of the <i>National
+Era</i>. Various Works Written, including "Stranger in Lowell,"
+"Supernaturalism of New England," "Songs of Labor," "Child-Life,"
+"Child-Life in Prose," "Introduction" to Woolman's Journal, and "Songs
+of Three Centuries" (Edited). Whittier College Established.
+</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td align="right">VII. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">Later Days</span> </a></td><td align="right">141</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Danvers. Oak Knoll. Summerings of the Poet at the Isles of Shoals and
+the Bearcamp House. <i>The Literary World</i> Tribute, and the Whittier
+Banquet at the Hotel Brunswick. The Whittier Club. Various Volumes of
+Poetry Published.
+</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td align="right">VIII. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">Personal</span> </a></td><td align="right">153</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Whittier's Personal Appearance Described by Frederika Bremer, Geo. W.
+Bungay, David A. Wasson, and others. Incident of his Kind-heartedness to
+a Stranger. Dom Pedro II. and Whittier at Mrs. John T. Sargent's
+Reception. Letter to Mrs. Sargent. Humor. Love of Children. Offices of
+Dignity and Honor.
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<h3>Part II.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Analysis of His Genius and Writings.</span></h3>
+
+<table width="75%">
+<tr><td align="right">I. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">The Man</span> </a></td><td align="right">169</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+The Moral in Whittier Predominates over the Æsthetic. Love of Freedom
+the Central Element of his Character. Freedom, Democracy, and Quakerism,
+links in one Chain. Quakerism Described; Freedom and the Inner Light;
+Quakerism is Pure Democracy or Christianity, and Pure Individualism, or
+Philosophical Idealism; it Resembles Transcendentalism; the Details of
+the Quaker Religion Considered; Quotations from William Penn, Mary
+Brook, and A. M. Powell; Objections to Quakerism; Beautiful Lives of the
+Quakers; Whittier's Attitude Toward the Religion of his Fathers. His
+Religious Development, Doubt, and Trust. Patriotism. Has Blood Militant
+in his Veins. A Representative American Poet. Summing Up.
+</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td align="right">II. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><span class="smcap">The Artist</span> </a></td><td align="right">196</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Little or no <i>Technique</i>. More Fancy than Imagination. The Artistic
+Quality of his Mind a Fusion of that of Wordsworth and Byron. His
+Bookish Lore. The Beauty and Melody of his Finest Ballads. His Strength
+and Nervous Energy. Culmination of his Genius. His Three Crazes. Letters
+to the <i>Nation</i>, and to the American Anti-Slavery Society. Illustrations
+of the Predominance of the Moral in his Nature. Taine Quoted.
+Pope-Night. His Over-religiousness. Love of Consecutive Rhymes. Minor
+Mannerisms. Originality.
+</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td align="right">III. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><span class="smcap">Poems Seriatim</span> </a></td><td align="right">217</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Mr. David A. Wasson's Classification of Epochs in the Poet's
+Development. The Author's Classification. Four Periods: 1st,
+<i>Introductory</i>; 2d, <i>Storm and Stress</i>; 3d, <i>Transition</i>; 4th,
+<i>Religious and Artistic Repose</i>. General Review of Earlier Productions.
+The Indian Poems. "Songs of Labor." The Ballad Decade. "Prophecy of
+Samuel Sewall." John Chadwick on "Skipper Ireson's Ride." The "Barbara
+Frietchie" Controversy. The Romance of the "Countess." Winter in Poetry.
+"Snow-Bound." "The Tent on the Beach." Various Poems.
+</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td align="right">IV. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">The King's Missive</span> </a></td><td align="right">254</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Joseph Besse Quoted. Story of the Quaker and the King of England. The
+Debate of Whittier and Dr. Geo. E. Ellis of Boston. Humorous Specimen of
+Quaker Rant from Mather's <i>Magnalia</i>. Terrible Sufferings of the
+Quakers.
+</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td align="right">V. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><span class="smcap">Poems by Groups</span> </a></td><td align="right">272</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+The Anti-Slavery Poems Reviewed. Poems Inspired by the Civil War. Hymns.
+Children's Poems: "Red Riding-Hood," "The Robin," etc. Oriental Poems
+and Paraphrases.
+</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td align="right">VI. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><span class="smcap">Prose Writings</span> </a></td><td align="right">279</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Much of his Prose of Historical or Sectarian Interest Only. Charming
+Nature- and Folk-Studies and Sketches. "Margaret Smith's Journal." "Old
+Portraits and Modern Sketches." "Literary Recreations and Miscellanies."
+Specimens of Whittier's Prose.
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<h3>Part III.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Twilight and Evening Bell.</span></h3>
+
+<table width="75%">
+<tr><td align="right">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><span class="smcap">Twilight and Evening Bell</span> </a></td><td align="right">301</td></tr>
+
+
+<tr><td></td><td>
+Whittier's death at Hampton Falls, N. H. Celebration of his birthdays.
+Funeral and memorial services. Personal reminiscences. Fac-simile of
+letter to Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<h3>APPENDIX.</h3>
+
+<table width="75%">
+<tr><td align="right">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td><span class="smcap">Bibliography</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="right">375</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's Note:  Although the Contents lists an Appendix, there was
+no actual appendix or page 375 in the scanned copy. Other copies of
+this book were found to have the same problem.]</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">Part I.</span></h2>
+
+<h3>LIFE.</h3>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>ANCESTRY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Hermit of Amesbury, the Wood-thrush of Essex, the Martial Quaker,
+the Poet of Freedom, the Poet of the Moral Sentiment,&mdash;such are some of
+the titles bestowed upon Whittier by his admirers. Let us call him the
+Preacher-Poet, for he has written scarcely a poem or an essay that does
+not breathe a moral sentiment or a religious aspiration. What effect
+this predetermination of character has had upon his artistic development
+shall be discussed in another place.</p>
+
+<p>The present chapter&mdash;which may be called the propylæum or vestibule of
+the biographical structure that follows&mdash;will deal with the poet's
+ancestry, and the information afforded by it, and the two chapters that
+succeed will afford unmistakable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> evidence of the truth that a poet, no
+less than a solar system or a loaf of bread, is the logical resultant of
+a line of antecedent forces and circumstances. The fine but infrangible
+threads of our destiny are spun and woven out of atom-fibres indelibly
+stamped with the previous owners' names. Their characters immingle in
+our own,&mdash;the affluence or the indigence of their intellects, the sugar
+or the nitre of their wit, the shifting sand or the unwedgeable iron of
+their moral natures.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The name Whittier is spelled in thirty-two different ways in the old
+records: a list of these different spellings is given in Daniel Bodwell
+Whittier's genealogy of the family. The common ancestor of the Whittiers
+is Thomas Whittier, who in the year 1638 came from Southampton, England,
+to New England, in the ship "Confidence," of London, John Dobson,
+master. It is recorded of Thomas Whittier, says his descendant, the
+poet, in a half facetious way, that the only noteworthy circumstance
+connected with his coming was that he brought with him a hive of bees.
+He was born in 1620. His mother was probably a sister of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> John and Henry
+Rolfe, with the former of whom he came to America. His name at that time
+was spelled "Whittle." He married Ruth Green, and lived at first in
+Salisbury, Mass. He seems afterward to have lived in Newbury. In 1650 he
+removed to Haverhill, where he was admitted freeman, May 23, 1666.</p>
+
+<p>It was customary in those days, says the historian of Haverhill, for the
+nearest neighbors to sleep in the garrisons at night, but Thomas
+Whittier refused to take shelter there with his family. "Relying upon
+the weapons of his faith, he left his own house unguarded, and
+unprotected with palisades, and carried with him no weapons of war. The
+Indians frequently visited him, and the family often heard them, in the
+stillness of the evening, whispering beneath the windows, and sometimes
+saw them peep in upon the little group of practical 'non-resistants.'
+Friend Whittier always treated them civilly and hospitably, and they
+ever retired without molesting him."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Thomas Whittier<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> died in
+Haverhill, November 28, 1696. His autograph appears in the probate
+records of Salem, Mass., as witness to a will of Samuel Gild. His widow
+died in July, 1710, and her eldest son John was appointed administrator
+of her estate. Thomas had ten children, of whom John became the ancestor
+of the most numerous branch of the Whittiers. Joseph, the brother of
+John, became the head of another branch of the family, and is the
+great-grandfather of our poet. Joseph married Mary, daughter of Joseph
+Peasley, of Haverhill, by whom he had nine children, among them Joseph,
+2d, the grandfather of the poet. Joseph, 2d, married Sarah Greenleaf of
+Newbury, by whom he had eleven children. The tenth child, John (the
+father of the poet), married Abigail Hussey, who was a daughter of
+Joseph Hussey, of Somersworth,&mdash;now Rollinsford,&mdash;N. H., a town on the
+Piscataqua River, which forms the southern part of the boundary line
+between New Hampshire and Maine. The mother of Abigail Hussey (the
+poet's mother) was Mercy Evans, of Berwick, Me. John Whittier, the
+father of the poet, died in Haverhill, June 30, 1830. His children were
+four in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> number: (1) Mary, born September 3, 1806, married Jacob
+Caldwell, of Haverhill, and died January 7, 1860; (2) John Greenleaf,
+the poet, born December 17, 1807, in Haverhill; (3) Matthew Franklin,
+born July 18, 1812, married Jane E. Vaughan; (4) Elizabeth Hussey, born
+December 7, 1815, died September 3, 1864. From this statement it will be
+seen that Matthew is the only surviving member of the family, besides
+the poet himself. Matthew resides in Boston, and has sons, daughters,
+and grandchildren.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>The name Whittier constantly appears in important documents signed by
+the chief citizens of Haverhill. The family was evidently respected and
+honored by the community. In 1669 a Whittier was chosen town-constable.
+It is recorded that in 1711 Thomas Whittier&mdash;probably a son of Thomas
+(1st)&mdash;was one of a militia company provided with snow-shoes in order
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> better to repel an anticipated attack of the Indians. But, in spite
+of civil honors, it is well known that, down to comparatively recent
+times, the family suffered considerable social persecution and slight on
+account of their religious belief. For example, when the citizens built
+a new meeting-house, in 1699, they peremptorily refused to allow the
+Quakers to worship in it, although petitioned to do so by Joseph Peasley
+and others, and although they were taxed for its support. It was not
+until 1774 that an act was passed by the State exempting dissenters from
+taxation for the support of what we may call the State religion. It is
+important to bear this in mind, if we would know all the influences that
+went to form the character of the poet.</p>
+
+<p>The poet's paternal grandmother was Sarah Greenleaf, of Newbury. The
+genealogist of the Greenleafs says: "From all that can be gathered it is
+believed that the ancestors of the Greenleaf family were Huguenots, who
+left France on account of their religious principles some time in the
+course of the sixteenth century, and settled in England. The name was
+probably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> translated from the French <i>Feuillevert</i>.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Edmund Greenleaf,
+the ancestor of the American Greenleafs, was born in the parish of
+Brixham, and county of Devonshire, near Torbay, in England, about the
+year 1600." He came to Newbury, Mass., in 1635. He was by trade a
+silk-dyer. Respecting the family coat-of-arms the genealogist gives, on
+page 116, the following interesting statement:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The Hon. William Greenleaf, once of Boston, and then of New Bedford,
+being in London about the year 1760, obtained from an office of heraldry
+a device, said to be the arms of the family, which he had painted, and
+the painting is now in the possession of his grand-daughter, Mrs.
+Ritchie, of Roxbury, Mass. The field is white (argent), bearing a
+chevron between three leaves (vert). The crest is a dove standing on a
+wreath of green and white, holding in its mouth three green leaves. The
+helmet is that of a warrior (visor down); a garter below, but no motto."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p><p>What more appropriate emblazonment for the escutcheon of our Martial
+Quaker poet than a warrior's helmet, and a dove holding in its mouth the
+emblem of peace!</p>
+
+<p>Jonathan Greenleaf, born in Newbury, in 1723, is described as possessing
+a remarkably kind and conciliatory disposition. "Even the tones of his
+voice were gentle and persuasive, and he was very frequently resorted to
+as a peacemaker between contending parties. His dress was remarkably
+uniform, usually in his later years being deep blue or drab. He seldom
+walked fast, his gait being a measured and moderate step. His manners
+were plain, unassuming, but very polite. He was very religious, and a
+strict Calvinist. Nothing but absolute necessity kept him from public
+worship on the Sabbath, and he was scarce ever known to omit regular
+morning and evening worship."</p>
+
+<p>Of Professor Simon Greenleaf, the Harvard Law Professor (1833-1845), the
+family genealogist says: "For the last thirty years of his life he was
+one of the most spiritually-minded of men, evidently intent on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> walking
+humbly with God, and doing good to the bodies and souls of his
+fellow-men; scarce ever writing a letter of friendship even, without
+breathing in it a prayer, or delivering in it some good message."
+Professor Greenleaf published some dozen works, both legal and
+religious. It is a curious fact that his son James married Mary
+Longfellow, a sister of the Cambridge poet, thus making Whittier and
+Longfellow distant kinsmen.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>Another English Greenleaf&mdash;contemporary with Edmund, being a silk-dyer
+as well as he, and in all probability a near kinsman&mdash;was a lieutenant
+under Oliver Cromwell, and served also under Richard Cromwell, and was
+in the army of the Protector under General Monk, at the time of the
+restoration of Charles II.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary to call the reader's attention to the significant
+fact, elicited by the foregoing researches, that, in tracing down two
+hereditary lines of the poet's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> paternal ancestors, we discover that for
+many generations those ancestors suffered religious persecution for
+loyalty to their religious convictions, and that many of them were
+remarkable for their sensitive piety.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Turn we now to the maternal ancestry of Whittier.</p>
+
+<p>In 1873 the poet wrote to Mr. D. B. Whittier, of Boston, as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"My mother was a descendant of Christopher Hussey, of Hampton, N. H.,
+who married a daughter of Rev. Stephen Bachelor, the first minister of
+that town.</p>
+
+<p>"Daniel Webster traces his ancestry to the same pair, so Joshua Coffin
+informed me. Colonel W. B. Greene, of Boston, is of the same family."<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>In the light of the preceding note, the following letter of Col. W. B.
+Greene explains itself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Jamaica Plain, Mass.</span>, Sept. 24, 1873.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. D. B. <span class="smcap">Whittier</span>, Danville, Vt.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,&mdash;Yours of September 20 is just received, and I reply to
+it at once.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> My grandfather, on my mother's side, was the Rev.
+William Batchelder, of Haverhill, Mass. In the year 1838 I had a
+conversation, on a matter of military business, with the Hon.
+Daniel Webster; and, to my astonishment, Mr. Webster treated me as
+a kinsman. My mother afterwards explained his conduct by telling me
+that one of Mr. W.'s female ancestors was a Batchelder. In 1838 or
+1839, or thereabouts, I met schoolmaster [Joshua] Coffin on a
+Mississippi steamboat, near Baton Rouge. The captain of the boat
+told me, confidentially, that Coffin was engaged in a dangerous
+mission respecting some slaves, and inquired whether my aid and
+countenance could be counted on in favor of Coffin, in case
+violence should be offered him. This he did because I was on the
+boat as a military man, and in uniform. When Coffin found he could
+count on me, he came and talked with me, and finally told me he had
+[once] been hired by Daniel Webster <i>to go to Ipswich</i>, and there
+look up Mr. W.'s ancestry. He spoke of Rev. Stephen Batchelder, of
+New Hampshire, and said that Daniel Webster, John G. Whittier, and
+myself were related<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> by Batchelder blood. I did not feel at all
+ashamed of my relatives. In 1841 or 1842 Mrs. Crosby, of Hallowell,
+Me., who had charge of my grandfather when he was a boy, and knew
+all about the family, told me that Daniel Webster was a Batchelder,
+that she had known his father intimately, and knew Daniel when he
+was a boy. At the time of my conversation with her, Aunt Crosby
+might have been anywhere from seventy-five to eighty-five years of
+age. When I was a boy, at (say) about the year 1827 or 1828, I used
+to go often to the house of J. G. Whittier's father, a little out
+of the village (now city) of Haverhill, Mass. There was a Mrs.
+Hussey in the family, who baked the best squash pies I ever ate,
+and knew how to make the pine floors shine like a looking-glass.</p>
+
+<p>"This is, I think, all the information, in answer to your request,
+that I am competent to give you.</p>
+
+<p class="right">"Yours respectfully,<br />
+"<span class="smcap">William Batchelder Greene</span>."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>In a note addressed to the New England Historical and Genealogical
+Society, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> poet says: "On my mother's side my grandfather was Joseph
+Hussey, of Somersworth, N. H.; married Mercy Evans, of Berwick, Me."</p>
+
+<p>Some of the genealogical links connecting the Husseys of Somersworth
+with those of Hampton have not yet been recovered. But this much is
+known of the family,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> that in 1630 Christopher Hussey came from
+Dorking, Surrey, England, to Lynn, Mass. He had married, in Holland,
+Theodate, the daughter of the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, a Puritan minister,
+who had fled to that country to avoid persecution in England. The author
+was told by a local antiquary in Hampton, N. H., that there is a
+tradition in the town that Stephen Bachiler would not let his daughter
+marry young Hussey unless he embraced the Puritan faith. His love was so
+great that he consented, and came with his bride to America, where two
+years later his father-in-law followed him. Stephen Bachiler came to
+Lynn in 1632, with six persons, his relatives and friends, who had
+belonged to his church in Holland, and with them he established a
+little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> independent church in Lynn. The progenitive faculty of this
+worthy divine must have been highly developed: he was married four
+times, and was dismissed from his church at Lynn on account of charges
+twice preferred against him by women of his congregation. The recorded
+dates show that both he and his son-in-law, Hussey, came to Hampton in
+the year 1639. The Hampton authorities had the previous year made Mr.
+Bachiler and Mr. Hussey each a grant of three hundred acres of land, to
+induce them to settle there. When and how the Husseys became Quakers is
+not known to the author. But in Savage's Genealogical Dictionary, II.
+507, it is recorded that as early as 1688 a certain John Hussey of
+Hampton was a preacher to the Quakers in Newcastle, Del. The mother of
+the poet was a devoted disciple of the Society of Friends. That she was
+a person of deep and tender religious nature is evident to one looking
+at the excellent oil-portrait of her which hangs in the little parlor at
+Amesbury. The head is inclined graciously to one side, and the face
+wears that expression of ineffable tranquillity which is always a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+witness to generations of Quaker ancestry. In the picture, her garments
+are of smooth and immaculate drab. The poet once remarked to the writer
+that one of the reasons why his mother removed to Amesbury, in 1840, was
+that she might be near the little Friends' "Meeting" in that town.</p>
+
+<p>Thus among the maternal as well as the paternal progenitors of our
+Quaker poet we find the religious nature predominant.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VALLEY OF THE MERRIMACK.</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the valley of the Merrimack John Greenleaf Whittier was born
+(December 17, 1807), and in the same region he has passed nearly his
+entire life, first in the town of Haverhill, and then in Amesbury, some
+nine miles distant. To strangers, the hilly old county of Essex wears a
+somewhat bleak and Scotian look; but it is fertile in poetical
+resources, and the tillers of its glebe are passionately attached to its
+blue hills and sunken dales, its silver rivers and winding roads,
+umbrageous towns and thrifty homes. Like Burns and Cowper, Whittier is
+distinctively a rustic poet, and he and Whitman are the most indigenous
+and patriotic of our singers. His idyllic poetry savors of the soil and
+is full of local allusions. It is, therefore, essential to the full
+enjoyment of his writings that one should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> get, at the outset, as vivid
+an idea as possible both of the Essex landscape and the Essex farmer.</p>
+
+<p>Whittier was born some three miles northeast of what is now the thriving
+little city of Haverhill. It was settled in 1640 by twelve men from
+Newbury and Ipswich. Its Indian name was Pentucket,&mdash;the appellation of
+a tribe once dwelling on its site, a tribe under the jurisdiction of
+Passaconaway, chief of the Pennacooks. The city is built partly on the
+river-terrace of the northern shore, and partly on the adjoining hills.
+It is celebrated in colonial history for the heroic exploit of Hannah
+Duston, who, when taken captive by a party of twenty savages at the time
+of the Haverhill massacre, killed and scalped them all, with the aid of
+her companion (also a woman), and returned in safety to the settlement.
+A handsome monument has recently been erected to her memory in the city
+square; it is a granite structure, with bronze bas-reliefs, and
+surmounted by a bronze statue of the heroine. In the public library of
+the city (founded in 1873) may be seen a fine bust of Whittier, by
+Powers. On February 17 and 18, 1882, almost the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> entire business portion
+of the city was destroyed by fire; eight acres were burned over, and
+$2,000,000 worth of property destroyed. Haverhill is eighteen miles east
+of Lowell, thirty-two miles northwest of Boston, and six miles northeast
+of Lawrence. The manufacture of boots and shoes gives employment to
+6,000 men. The population in 1870 was 13,092.</p>
+
+<p>Down to the sea, some seventeen miles away, winds the beautiful
+Merrimack, with the deep-shaded old town of Newburyport seated at its
+mouth. A little more than half way down lies Amesbury, just where the
+winding Powwow joins the Merrimack, but not before its nixies and
+river-horses have been compelled to put their shoulders to the wheels of
+several huge cotton mills that lift their forbidding bulk out of the
+very centre of the village. A horse-railroad connects Amesbury with
+Newburyport, six miles distant. At about half that distance the road
+crosses the Merrimack by way of Deer Island and connecting bridges. The
+sole house on this wild, rough island is the home of the Spoffords.</p>
+
+<p>As you near Newburyport, coming down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> from Amesbury, you see the river
+widened into an estuary, and bordered by wide and intensely green
+salt-meadows. Numerous large vessels lie at the wharves, a "gundelow,"
+with lateen sail, creeps slowly down the current; the draw of the
+railroad bridge is perhaps opening for the passage of a tug, and out at
+sea athwart the river's mouth&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Plum Island lies, like a whale aground,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A stone's toss over the narrow sound."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><i>Prophecy of Samuel Sewall.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Far off to the left lie Salisbury and Hampton beaches, celebrated by
+Whittier in his poems "Hampton Beach," "Snow-Bound," and "The Tent on
+the Beach":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Where Salisbury's level marshes spread<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where merry mowers, hale and strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The low green prairies of the sea."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><i>Snow-Bound.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Standing on the sand-ridge by the beach, you have before you the washing
+surf, and miles on miles of level sand, rimmed with creeping, silver
+water-lace, overhung here and there by thinnest powdery mist. Out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> at
+sea the waves are tossing their salt-threaded manes, or flinging the
+sunlight from their supple coats&mdash;(æonian roar; white-haired, demoniac
+shapes)&mdash;while at evening you see far away to the northeast the
+revolving light of the Isles of Shoals.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Quail and sandpiper and swallow and sparrow are here;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet sound their manifold notes, high and low, far and near;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chorus of musical waters, the rush of the breeze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Steady and strong from the south,&mdash;what glad voices are these!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So sings the poet of the Isles of Shoals, Celia Thaxter, who, it is
+said, was discovered and introduced to the world by Whittier,&mdash;her rocky
+home being still one of his favorite summer resorts.</p>
+
+<p>Landward, your gaze sweeps the beautiful salt-meadows and rests on the
+woods beyond, or reaches still farther to the steeples of Newburyport
+rising sculpturesquely in the pellucid atmosphere, and often at evening
+filling the air with faint silver hymns that chime with the liquid
+undertone of the pouring surf.</p>
+
+<p>The valley of the Merrimack with the surrounding region, is, or was
+until recently,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> full of legends of the marvellous and the supernatural,
+which, in this remote and isolated corner of the State, have come down
+in unbroken tradition from earlier times. One of the distinguishing
+peculiarities of Whittier's genius is his story-telling power, and since
+he has not only written many poems about the legends of his native
+province, but also published in his youth two small collections of those
+legends in prose form, it will be proper to give the reader a taste of
+them, both here and elsewhere in the volume, and thus assist him to an
+understanding of our poet's early environment.</p>
+
+<p>The following extracts from his "Supernaturalism of New England,"
+published in the year 1847, are germane to the subject in hand:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"One of my earliest recollections," he says, "is that of an old
+woman residing at Rocks Village, in Haverhill, about two miles from
+the place of my nativity, who for many years had borne the
+unenviable reputation of a witch. She certainly had the look of
+one,&mdash;a combination of form, voice,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> and features, which would have
+made the fortune of an English witch-finder in the days of Matthew
+Paris or the Sir John Podgers of Dickens, and insured her speedy
+conviction in King James' High Court of Justiciary. She was accused
+of divers ill-doings, such as preventing the cream in her
+neighbor's churn from becoming butter, and snuffing out candles at
+huskings and quilting parties. The poor old woman was at length so
+sadly annoyed by her unfortunate reputation, that she took the
+trouble to go before a Justice of the Peace, and made a solemn oath
+that she was a Christian woman and no witch."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Some forty years ago, on the banks of the pleasant little creek
+separating Berwick, in Maine, from Somersworth, in New Hampshire,
+within sight of my mother's home, dwelt a plain, sedate member of
+the Society of Friends, named Bantum. He passed, throughout a
+circle of several miles, as a conjurer and skilful adept in the art
+of magic. To him resorted farmers who had lost their cattle,
+matrons whose household gear, silver spoons, and table-linen had
+been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> stolen, and young maidens whose lovers were absent; and the
+quiet, meek-spirited old man received them all kindly, put on his
+huge, iron-rimmed spectacles, opened his 'conjuring book,' which my
+mother describes as a large clasped volume, in strange language and
+black-letter type, and after due reflection and consideration gave
+the required answers without money and without price. The curious
+old volume is still in possession of the conjurer's family.
+Apparently inconsistent as was this practice of the Black Art with
+the simplicity and truthfulness of his religious profession, I have
+not been able to learn that he was ever subjected to censure on
+account of it."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This incident reminds one of some verses in a poem of Whittier's
+entitled "Flowers in Winter":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A wizard of the Merrimack&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So old ancestral legends say&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could call green leaf and blossom back<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To frosted stem and spray.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The dry logs of the cottage wall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beneath his touch, put out their leaves;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The clay-bound swallow, at his call,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Played round the icy eaves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The settler saw his oaken flail<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Take bud, and bloom before his eyes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From frozen pools he saw the pale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sweet summer lilies rise.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The beechen platter sprouted wild,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The pipkin wore its old-time green;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cradle o'er the sleeping child<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Became a leafy screen."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In chapter second of the "Supernaturalism" we have a whimsical story
+about a certain "Aunt Morse," who lived in a town adjoining Amesbury:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"After the death of Aunt Morse no will was found, though it was
+understood before her decease that such a document was in the hands
+of Squire S., one of her neighbors. One cold winter evening, some
+weeks after her departure, Squire S. sat in his parlor, looking
+over his papers, when, hearing some one cough in a familiar way, he
+looked up, and saw before him a little crooked old woman, in an
+oil-nut colored woollen frock, blue and white tow and linen apron,
+and striped blanket, leaning her sharp, pinched face on one hand,
+while the other supported a short black tobacco pipe, at which she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+was puffing in the most vehement and spiteful manner conceivable.</p>
+
+<p>"The squire was a man of some nerve; but his first thought was to
+attempt an escape, from which he was deterred only by the
+consideration that any effort to that effect would necessarily
+bring him nearer to his unwelcome visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"'Aunt Morse,' he said at length, 'for the Lord's sake, get right
+back to the burying-ground! What on earth are you here for?'</p>
+
+<p>"The apparition took her pipe deliberately from her mouth, and
+informed him that she came to see justice done with her will; and
+that nobody need think of cheating her, dead or alive. Concluding
+her remark with a shrill emphasis, she replaced her pipe, and
+puffed away with renewed vigor. Upon the squire's promising to obey
+her request, she refilled her pipe, which she asked him to light,
+and then took her departure."</p>
+
+<p>"Elderly people in this region," says our author, "yet tell
+marvellous stories of General M., of Hampton, N. H., especially of
+his league with the devil, who used to visit him occasionally in
+the shape of a small man in a leathern dress. The general's house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+was once burned, in revenge, as it is said, by the fiend, whom the
+former had outwitted. He had agreed, it seems, to furnish the
+general with a boot full of gold and silver poured annually down
+the chimney. The shrewd Yankee cut off, on one occasion, the foot
+of the boot, and the devil kept pouring down the coin from the
+chimney's top, in a vain attempt to fill it, until the room was
+literally packed with the precious metal. When the general died, he
+was laid out, and put in a coffin, as usual; but, on the day of the
+funeral, it was whispered about that his body was missing; and the
+neighbors came to the charitable conclusion that the enemy had got
+his own at last."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It should be understood that the state of society which produced such
+superstitions and legends as the foregoing lingers now only in secluded
+corners of New England. The railroad, the newspaper, and the influx of
+foreign population, have combined to frighten away ghost, conjurer, and
+witch, or to drive them up into the mountainous districts. There are
+still plenty of quaint and picturesque old Puritan farmers; and their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+mythology is antique and rusty enough, to be sure. But the folk-lore of
+the early days,&mdash;where is it? Let the shriek of the steam-demon answer,
+or that powerful magician, the "Spirit of the Age," who, ten thousand
+times divided, and slyly hidden in plethoric leathern mail bags, daily
+rushes into the remotest nooks and corners of the land, there to enter
+into the nooks and corners of the mind of man. The "Spirit of the Age"
+has exorcised the spirits of the ingle and the forest.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>BOYHOOD.</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>WHITTIER'S BIRTHPLACE, NEAR HAVERHILL, MASS.</h3>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>No prettier, quieter, lovelier lake than Kenoza exists,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;its white and
+sparkling sand-rim&mdash;its southern hem of pine and maple, mirrored with
+spray and leaf in the glassy water&mdash;its graceful hill-sentinels round
+about, white with the orchard-bloom of spring, or tasselled with the
+corn of autumn&mdash;its long sweep of blue waters, broken here and there by
+picturesque headlands,&mdash;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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> 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 Laocoön in
+the folds of the serpent." The mysterious cart moved across the street,
+and disappeared at the margin of the pond.</p>
+
+<p>The two miles of road that separate Kenoza from the old Whittier
+homestead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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,"&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A universe of sky and snow."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Not that the time was winter, but that the locality explained the line
+so vividly,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"We minded that the sharpest ear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The buried brooklet could not hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The music of whose liquid lip<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had been to us companionship,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, in our lonely life, had grown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To have an almost human tone."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> about
+fourteen by fourteen feet, is partly wainscoted, has a fireplace and
+three windows.</p>
+
+<p>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,"&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> 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":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Shut in from all the world without,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We sat the clean-winged hearth about,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Content to let the north-wind roar<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In baffled rage at pane and door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While the red logs before us beat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The frost-line back with tropic heat;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ever, when a louder blast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shook beam and rafter as it passed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The merrier up its roaring draught<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The great throat of the chimney laughed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The house-dog on his paws outspread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Laid to the fire his drowsy head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cat's dark silhouette on the wall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, for the winter fireside meet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Between the andirons' straddling feet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mug of cider simmered slow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The apples sputtered in a row,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, close at hand, the basket stood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With nuts from brown October's wood."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10"><i>Snow-Bound.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>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 <i>Wanderjahre</i>,&mdash;how he ate moose and samp in trapper's hut and
+Indian camp on Memphremagog's wooded side, and danced beneath St.
+François' 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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>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:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>KITCHEN IN THE WHITTIER HOMESTEAD, HAVERHILL.</h3>
+
+<p>"<i>Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.</i>"&mdash;<span class="smcap">Snow-Bound.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"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,&mdash;one of those bandit-visages which
+Salvator has painted. With some difficulty, I gave him to
+understand my errand, when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In "Snow-Bound," too, we learn that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth Hussey Whittier&mdash;the younger sister and intimate literary
+companion of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> brother, the poet&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> circle of her
+intimate friends, I dedicate this slight memorial."</p>
+
+<p>Many readers of "Snow-Bound" have doubtless often wondered who the
+beautiful and mysterious young woman is who is sketched in such vigorous
+portraiture,&mdash;"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,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> the same who startled</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"On her desert throne<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The crazy Queen of Lebanon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With claims fantastic as her own."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> 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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A certain pard-like, treacherous grace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the lash,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And under low brows, black with night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rayed out at times a dangerous light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sharp heat-lightnings of her face<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Presaging ill to him whom Fate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Condemned to share her love or hate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A woman tropical, intense<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In thought and act, in soul and sense."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> 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,&mdash;that eccentric sister of the younger Pitt, who married a
+sheik of the mountains,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> 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 <i>aplomb</i> 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."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I, the urchin unto whom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In that smoked and dingy room,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the district gave thee rule<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er its ragged winter school,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou didst teach the mysteries<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of those weary A, B, C's,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> Where,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">to fill the every pause<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of thy wise and learned saws,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the cracked and crazy wall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Came the cradle-rock and squall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the goodman's voice, at strife<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his shrill and tipsy wife,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Luring us by stories old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a comic unction told,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More than by the eloquence<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of terse birchen arguments<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Doubtful gain, I fear), to look<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With complacence on a book!&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I,&mdash;the man of middle years,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In whose sable locks appears<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Many a warning fleck of gray,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Looking back to that far day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thy primal lessons, feel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grateful smiles my lips unseal," etc.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE, HAVERHILL, MASS.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>In "School Days" he gives us another and a pleasanter picture:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Still sits the school-house by the road,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A ragged beggar sunning;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Around it still the sumachs grow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And blackberry-vines are running.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Within, the master's desk is seen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Deep scarred by raps official;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The warping floor, the battered seats,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The jack-knife's carved initial;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The charcoal frescos on its wall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Its door's worn sill, betraying<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The feet that, creeping slow to school<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Went storming out to playing!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Long years ago a winter sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shone over it at setting;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lit up its western window-panes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And low eaves' icy fretting.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It touched the tangled golden curls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And brown eyes full of grieving,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of one who still her steps delayed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When all the school were leaving.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For near her stood the little boy<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her childish favor singled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His cap pulled low upon a face<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where pride and shame were mingled.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Pushing with restless feet the snow<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To right and left, he lingered;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As restlessly her tiny hands<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The blue-checked apron fingered.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He saw her lift her eyes; he felt<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The soft hand's light caressing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heard the tremble of her voice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As if a fault confessing.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'I'm sorry that I spelt the word:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I hate to go above you,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Because,'&mdash;the brown eyes lower fell,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Because, you see, I love you!'"<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>It is probable that "My Playmate" is in memory of this same sweet little
+lady:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O playmate in the golden time!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our mossy seat is green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its fringing violets blossom yet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The old trees o'er it lean.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The winds so sweet with birch and fern<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A sweeter memory blow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there in spring the veeries sing<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The song of long ago.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And still the pines of Ramoth Wood<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Are moaning like the sea,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The moaning of the sea of change<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Between myself and thee!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Elsewhere in the poem we are told that the little maiden went away
+forever to the South:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"She lives where all the golden year<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her summer roses blow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The dusky children of the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Before her come and go.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There haply with her jewelled hands<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She smooths her silken gown,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No more the homespun lap wherein<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I shook the walnuts down."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>We also learn from the poem that he was the boy "who fed her father's
+kine." What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> a pretty little romance!&mdash;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":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I hear again thy low replies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I feel thy aim within my own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And timidly again uprise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fringed lids of hazel eyes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With soft brown tresses overblown.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of moonlit wave and willowy way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And smiles and tones more dear than they!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"One harmless novel, mostly hid<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From younger eyes, a book forbid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And poetry (or good or bad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A single book was all we had),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A stranger to the heathen Nine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wars of David and the Jews."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Knowing, as we do, the great influence exerted upon our mental
+development by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> 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."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p><p>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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Awake, awake, O arm o' th' Lord, awake!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thy sword up take;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cast what would thine forgetful of thee make,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Into the lake.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Awake, I pray, O mighty Jah! awake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Make all the world before thy presence quake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not only earth, but heaven also shake."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Another poem, entitled "A Song of the Mercies and Deliverances of the
+Lord," begins thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Had not the Lord been on our side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">May Israel now say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We were not able to abide<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The trials of that day:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When men did up against us rise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With fury, rage, and spite,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hoping to catch us by surprise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or run us down by night."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>An opponent's poetry is lashed by Ellwood in such beautiful stanzas as
+the following:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"So <i>flat</i>, so <i>dull</i>, so <i>rough</i>, so <i>void of grace</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where <i>symphony</i> and <i>cadence</i> have no place;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So full of <i>chasmes</i> stuck with <i>prosie pegs</i>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whereon his <i>tired</i> Muse might rest her legs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Not having wings) and take new breath, that then<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She might with much adoe hop on again."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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,&mdash;as respects
+the swing of rhythm and rhyme at least. Indeed, we shall presently find
+him contributing to the <i>Haverhill Gazette</i> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> 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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"How oft that day, with fond delay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I sought the maple's shadow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sang with Burns the hours away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Forgetful of the meadow!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I heard the squirrels leaping,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The good dog listened while I read,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And wagged his tail in keeping."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> 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,&mdash;'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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"One&mdash;I think I see him now, grim, gaunt, and ghastly, working his way
+up to our door&mdash;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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+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!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;a Yankee Troubadour,&mdash;first and last minstrel of the valley
+of the Merrimack, encircled to my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> ballad,&mdash;'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.'"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Thou, too, O Parson B.,&mdash;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,&mdash;art by no means to be
+overlooked in the muster-roll of vagrant gentlemen possessing the
+<i>entrée</i> of our farm-house. Well do we remember with what grave and
+dignified courtesy he used to step over its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> 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."</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Among the books read by Whittier when a boy we must number the
+"Pilgrim's Progress" of Bunyan.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> 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 <i>stumping</i> it up
+and down in 'cotillions, jigs, strathspeys, and reels.'"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>So grew up the Quaker farmer's son, drinking eagerly in such knowledge
+as he could, and receiving those impressions of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> was
+slipped by the postman under the door of the office of the <i>Free Press</i>,
+in Newburyport,&mdash;a short-lived paper, then recently started by young
+William Lloyd Garrison, and subscribed for by Farmer Whittier.</p>
+
+<p>The poem is the first ever published by the poet, and is his earliest
+known production.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The manuscript of it is now in the possession of
+Whittier's kinsman, Mr. S. T. Pickard, associate editor of the <i>Portland
+Transcript</i>, in which journal it was republished November 27, 1880:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">THE DEITY.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">The Prophet stood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the high mount and saw the tempest-cloud<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pour the fierce whirlwind from its reservoir<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of congregated gloom. The mountain oak<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Torn from the earth heaved high its roots where once<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its branches waved. The fir-tree's shapely form<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smote by the tempest lashed the mountain side;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, calm in conscious purity, the seer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beheld the awful devastation, for<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Eternal Spirit moved not in the storm.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The tempest ceased. The caverned earthquake burst<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forth from its prison, and the mountain rocked<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even to its base: The topmost crags were thrown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With fearful crashing down its shuddering slopes.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unawed the Prophet saw and heard: He felt<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not in the earthquake moved the God of Heaven.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The murmur died away, and from the height,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Torn by the storm and shattered by the shock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose far and clear a pyramid of flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mighty and vast! The startled mountain deer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shrank from its glare and cowered beneath the shade:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wild fowl shrieked; yet even then the seer<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Untrembling stood and marked the fearful glow&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For Israel's God came not within the flame.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The fiery beacon sank. A still small voice<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now caught the Prophet's ear. Its awful tone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unlike to human sound, at once conveyed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deep awe and reverence to his pious heart.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then bowed the holy man; his face he veiled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Within his mantle, and in meekness owned<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The presence of his God, discovered not in<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The storm, the earthquake, or the mighty flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in the still small whisper to his soul.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> 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 <i>very next issue</i> of his paper?</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> to the <i>Free Press</i>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> [Garrison] commenced in
+boyhood. My father was a subscriber to his first paper, the <i>Free
+Press</i>, 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 <i>Journal of the Times</i>, 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 <i>Liberator</i>, and was for a quarter of a century
+associated with Garrison in anti-slavery labors.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>In the year of his <i>début</i> 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 <i>Haverhill Gazette</i>. Many of them were in the
+Scotch dialect: it would be interesting to see a few of these; but
+unfortunately no file of the <i>Gazette</i> for those years can be found. A
+friendly rival in the writing of Scotch poems<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> 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":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Poor innocent and hapless Sparrow!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why should my moul-board gie thee sorrow?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This day thou'll chirp, and mourn the morrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Wi' anxious breast;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The plough has turned the mould'ring furrow<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Deep o'er thy nest!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Just i' the middle o' the hill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy nest was placed wi' curious skill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There I espied thy little bill<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Beneath the shade.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In that sweet bower, secure frae ill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thine eggs were laid.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Five corns o' maize had there been drappit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' through the stalks thy head was pappit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The drawing nowt could na be stappit<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">I quickly foun',<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Syne frae thy cozie nest thou happit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Wild fluttering roun'.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The sklentin stane beguiled the sheer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In vain I tried the plough to steer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A wee bit stumpie i' the rear<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Cam 'tween my legs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An' to the jee-side gart me veer<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">An' crush thine eggs."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>The following elegiac stanza, written by honest Robert on the occasion
+of the death of his wife, is irresistibly ludicrous:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"No more may I the Spring Brook trace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No more with sorrow view the place<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where Mary's wash-tub stood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No more may wander there alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lean upon the mossy stone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where once she piled her wood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'T was there she bleached her linen cloth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By yonder bass-wood tree;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From that sweet stream she made her broth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her pudding and her tea."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier says that the last time he saw Robert, "Threescore years
+and ten," to use his own words,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">'Hung o'er his back,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bent him like a muckle pack,'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+simple as a child, and betraying neither in look nor manner that he was
+accustomed to</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Feed on thoughts which voluntary move<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Harmonious numbers.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>EDITOR AND AUTHOR: FIRST VENTURES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The winter of 1828-29 was passed by Whittier in Boston. He once with
+characteristic modesty told the writer that he drifted into journalism
+that winter, as editor of the <i>American Manufacturer</i>, in the following
+way: He had gone to Boston to study and read. He undertook the writing
+for the <i>Manufacturer</i> not because he had much liking for questions of
+tariff and finance, but because his own finances would thereby be
+improved. Mr. Whittier's chief personal trait is extreme shyness and
+distrust of himself, and he deprecated the idea that he had any special
+power as a writer at the time of which we are speaking, saying that he
+had to study up his subjects before writing. But undoubtedly he must
+have wielded a vigorous pen, and been known to possess a cool and
+careful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> head, or he would not have been invited to assume the
+editorship of such a paper. He himself admitted, in the course of the
+conversation, that at that time he had political ambitions, and made a
+study of political economy and civil politics.</p>
+
+<p>In 1830 we find Whittier at Haverhill again. In March of that year he
+was occupying the position of editor of the <i>Essex Gazette</i>, and "issued
+proposals to publish a 'History of Haverhill,' in one volume of two
+hundred pages, duodecimo, price eighty-seven and one-half cents per
+copy. 'If the material swelled the volume above two hundred pages, the
+price was to be one dollar per copy.'" But the limited encouragement
+offered, and the amount of work required to compile the volume, led the
+young editor to abandon the project. Whittier was editor of this
+<i>Gazette</i> for six months,&mdash;from January 1 to July 10, 1830. On May 4,
+1836, after he had returned from Philadelphia, he resumed the editorship
+of the journal, retaining the position until December 17 of the same
+year.</p>
+
+<p>He left the <i>Gazette</i> at the time of his first connection with it, to go
+to Hartford<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> for the purpose of editing the <i>New England Weekly Review</i>
+of that city. His first acquaintance with this Connecticut periodical
+had been made while attending the Academy at Haverhill. While there he
+happened to see a copy of the <i>Review</i>, then edited by George D.
+Prentice. He was pleased with its sprightly and breezy tone, and sent it
+several articles. Great was his astonishment on finding that they were
+accepted and published with editorial commendation. He sent numerous
+other contributions during the same year.</p>
+
+<p>One day in 1830, he was at work in the field, when a letter was brought
+to him from the publishers of the Hartford paper, in which they said
+that they had been asked by Mr. Prentice to request him to edit the
+paper during the absence of Mr. Prentice in Kentucky, whither he had
+gone to write a campaign life of Henry Clay. "I could not have been more
+utterly astonished," said Mr. Whittier once, "if I had been told that I
+was appointed prime minister to the great Khan of Tartary."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier was at this time a member<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> of the National Republican
+party. He afterward belonged to the anti-slavery Liberty party, a
+faction of the Abolitionists which had separated from the Garrison band.
+In 1855 Mr. Whittier acted with the Free Democratic party. In the
+conversation alluded to a moment ago, the poet laughingly remarked that
+the proprietors of the paper had never seen him when he went to Hartford
+in 1830 to take charge of their periodical. They were much surprised at
+his youth. But at the first meeting he discreetly kept silence, letting
+them do most of the talking. Here most assuredly, if never again, his
+Quaker doctrine of silence stood him in good stead; since, if we may
+believe him, he was most wofully deficient in a knowledge of the
+intricacies of the political situation of the time.</p>
+
+<p>Whittier was twenty-four years old when he published his first volume.
+It is a thin little book entitled "Legends of New England" (Hartford:
+Hanmer and Phelps, 1831), and is a medley of prose and verse. The style
+is juvenile and extravagantly rhetorical, and the subject-matter is far
+from being massive with thought. The libretto has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> been suppressed by
+its author, and it would be ungracious as well as unjust to criticise it
+at any length, or quote more than a single morsel of its verses, which
+are inferior to the prose. But one may be pardoned for giving two or
+three specimens of the prose stories, for they are intrinsically
+interesting. In the preface we have a striking passage, which may be
+commended to those who accuse Whittier of hatred of the Puritan fathers,
+and undue partiality toward the Quakers. He says: "I have in many
+instances alluded to the superstition and bigotry of our ancestors, the
+rare and bold race who laid the foundation of this republic; but no one
+can accuse me of having done injustice to their memories. A son of New
+England, and proud of my birthplace, I would not willingly cast dishonor
+upon its founders. My feelings in this respect have already been
+expressed in language which I shall be pardoned, I trust, for
+introducing in this place:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh!&mdash;never may a son of thine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where'er his wandering steps incline,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forget the sky which bent above<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His childhood like a dream of love,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stream beneath the green hill flowing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The broad-armed tree above it growing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The clear breeze through the foliage blowing;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or hear unmoved the taunt of scorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Breathed o'er the brave New England born;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or mark the stranger's jaguar hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Disturb the ashes of thy dead&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The buried glory of a land<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose soil with noble blood is red,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sanctified in every part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor feel resentment, like a brand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unsheathing from his fiery heart!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The flow of language in these prose pieces is smooth and easy, and the
+narratives are in the same vein and style as the "Twice Told Tales," or
+Irving's stories, only they are very much weaker than these, and more
+extravagant and melodramatic in tone. "The Midnight Attack" describes
+the adventure of Captain Harmon and thirty Eastern rangers on the banks
+of the Kennebec River in June, 1722. A party of sleeping Indians are
+surprised by them and all shot dead by one volley of balls. An idea of
+the style of the piece will be obtained from the following paragraphs.
+The men are waiting for the signal of Harmon:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"'Fire!' he at length exclaimed, as the sight of his piece
+interposed full and distinct between his eye and the wild
+scalp-lock of the Indian. 'Fire, and rush on!'</p>
+
+<p>"The sharp voice of thirty rifles thrilled through the heart of the
+forest. There was a groan&mdash;a smothered cry&mdash;a wild and convulsive
+movement among the sleeping Indians; and all again was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"The rangers sprang forward with their clubbed muskets and hunting
+knives; but their work was done. The red men had gone to their
+audit before the Great Spirit; and no sound was heard among them
+save the gurgling of the hot blood from their lifeless bosoms."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was one of the superstitions of the New England colonists that the
+rattlesnake had the power of charming or fascinating human beings.
+Whittier's story, "The Rattlesnake Hunter," is based upon this fact. An
+old man with meagre and wasted form is represented as devoting his life
+to the extermination of the reptiles among the hills and mountains of
+Vermont, the inspiring motive of his action being the death<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> of his
+young and beautiful wife, many years previously, from the bite of a
+rattlesnake.</p>
+
+<p>"The Human Sacrifice" relates the escape of a young white girl from the
+hands of the Matchit-Moodus, an Indian tribe formerly dwelling where
+East Haddam now stands. The Indians are frightened from their purpose of
+sacrificing the girl by a rumbling noise proceeding from a high hill
+near by. In his note on the story Mr. Whittier says: "There is a story
+prevalent in the neighborhood, that a man from England, a kind of
+astrologer or necromancer, undertook to rid the place of the troublesome
+noises. He told them that the sound proceeded from a carbuncle&mdash;a
+precious gem, <i>growing in the bowels of the rock</i>. He hired an old
+blacksmith shop, and worked for some time with closed doors, and at
+night. All at once the necromancer departed, and the strange noises
+ceased. It was supposed he had found the precious gem, and had fled with
+it to his native land." This story of the carbuncle reminds us of
+Hawthorne's story on the same subject.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The following remarks are prefixed to the poem, "The Unquiet Sleeper":
+"Some fifty or sixty years since an inhabitant of &mdash;&mdash;, N. H., was found
+dead at a little distance from his dwelling, which he left in the
+morning in perfect health. There is a story prevalent among the people
+of the neighborhood that, on the evening of the day on which he was
+found dead, strange cries are annually heard to issue from his grave! I
+have conversed with some who really supposed they had heard them in the
+dead of the night, rising fearfully on the autumn wind. They represented
+the sounds to be of a most appalling and unearthly nature."</p>
+
+<p>"The Spectre Ship" is the versification of a legend related in Mather's
+"Magnalia Christi." A ship sailed from Salem, having on board "a young
+man of strange and wild appearance, and a girl still younger, and of
+surpassing beauty. She was deadly pale, and trembled even while she
+leaned on the arm of her companion." They were supposed by some to be
+demons. The vessel was lost, and of course soon reappeared as a
+spectre-ship.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier's next work was the editing, in 1832, of the "Remains" of
+his gifted friend, J. G. C. Brainard. Students of Whittier's poems know
+that for many years the genius and writings of Brainard exercised a
+potent influence on his mind. Brainard undoubtedly possessed genius. He
+was at one time editor of the <i>Connecticut Mirror</i>. He died young, and
+his work can be considered as hardly more than a promise of future
+excellence. Whittier, in his Introduction to the "Remains," shows a nice
+sense of justice, and a delicate reserve in his eulogistic estimate of
+his dead brother-poet and friend. That he did not falsely attribute to
+him a rare genius will be evident to those who read the following
+portion of Brainard's spirited ballad of "The Black Fox":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'How cold, how beautiful, how bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The cloudless heaven above us shines;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But 'tis a howling winter's night,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Twould freeze the very forest pines.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'The winds are up while mortals sleep;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The stars look forth while eyes are shut;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bolted snow lies drifted deep<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Around our poor and lonely hut.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'With silent step and listening ear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With bow and arrow, dog and gun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll mark his track, for his prowl we hear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Now is our time&mdash;come on, come on.'<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O'er many a fence, through many a wood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Following the dog's bewildered scent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In anxious haste and earnest mood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Indian and the white man went.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The gun is cock'd, the bow is bent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The dog stands with uplifted paw;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ball and arrow swift are sent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Aim'd at the prowler's very jaw.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;The ball, to kill that fox, is run<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Not in a mould by mortals made!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The arrow which that fox should shun<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was never shap'd from earthly reed!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The Indian Druids of the wood<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Know where the fatal arrows grow&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They spring not by the summer flood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They pierce not through the winter snow!"<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+<p>Whittier's Introduction to Brainard's poems reveals a mind matured by
+much reading and thought. We hardly recognize in the author and editor
+of Hartford the shy girlish boy we so recently left on the farm at
+Haverhill. There has evidently been a good deal of midnight oil burned
+since then.</p>
+
+<p>The following sentiments respecting the resources and the proper field
+of the American poet show that thus early had Whittier taken the manly
+and patriotic resolution to find in his native land the chief sources of
+poetic inspiration: "It has been often said that the New World is
+deficient in the elements of poetry and romance; that its bards must of
+necessity linger over the classic ruins of other lands; and draw their
+sketches of character from foreign sources, and paint Nature under the
+soft beauty of an Eastern sky. On the contrary, New England is full of
+romance; and her writers would do well to follow the example of
+Brainard. The great forest which our fathers penetrated, the red men,
+their struggle and their disappearance, the powwow and the war-dance,
+the savage inroad and the English sally, the tale of superstition and
+the scenes of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> witchcraft,&mdash;all these are rich materials of poetry. We
+have, indeed, no classic vale of Tempe, no haunted Parnassus, no temple
+gray with years, and hallowed by the gorgeous pageantry of idol worship,
+no towers and castles over whose moonlight ruins gathers the green pall
+of the ivy; but we have mountains pillaring a sky as blue as that which
+bends over classic Olympus, streams as bright and beautiful as those of
+Greece and Italy, and forests richer and nobler than those which of old
+were haunted by sylph and dryad."</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to see here a foreshadowing of "Mogg Megone," "The Bridal of
+Pennacook," the "Supernaturalism of New England," and a hundred poems
+and ballads of Whittier's founded on native themes. The sentiments in
+the quotation just made remind one of Emerson's "Nature," the preface of
+Whitman to his first portentous quarto, "Leaves of Grass," and
+Wordsworth's essay on the nature of the poetic art. But however laudable
+was the Quaker poet's resolve to choose indigenous subjects, it cannot
+be said that either he or Bryant attained to more than an indigeneity of
+theme. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> form and style they are imitative. Emerson and Whitman are
+our only purely original poets.</p>
+
+<p>Whittier was editor of the <i>New England Weekly Review</i> for about
+eighteen months, at the end of which time he returned to the farm at
+Haverhill, and engaged in agricultural pursuits for the next five or six
+years. In 1831 or 1832 he published "Moll Pitcher," a tale of the Witch
+of Nahant. This youthful poem seems to have completely disappeared, and
+Mr. Whittier will no doubt be devoutly thankful that the writer has been
+unable to procure a copy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>WHITTIER THE REFORMER.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>"God said: 'Break thou these yokes; undo</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>These heavy burdens. I ordain</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>A work to last thy whole life through,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>A ministry of strife and pain.</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>'Forego thy dreams of lettered ease,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Put thou the scholar's promise by,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>The rights of man are more than these.'</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>He heard, and answered: 'Here am I!'"</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><span class="smcap">Whittier</span>, <i>Sumner</i>.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>On New Year's day of 1831 William Lloyd Garrison issued the first number
+of the <i>Liberator</i> from his little attic room, No. 6 Merchants' Hall,
+Boston. Its clear bugle-notes sounded the onset of reform and the
+death-knell of slavery. It called for the buckling on of moral armor.
+Its words were the touchstone of wills, the shibboleth of souls. Cowards
+and time-servers quickly ranged themselves on one side, and heroes on
+the other. Before young Whittier,&mdash;editor, <i>littérateur</i>, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> poet,&mdash;a
+career full of brilliant promise had opened up at Hartford. But through
+the high chambers of his soul the voice of duty rang in solemn and
+imperative tones. He heard and obeyed. The cost was counted, and his
+resolution taken. Upon his brow he placed the lustrous fire-wreath of
+the martyr, well assured of his power to endure unflinchingly to the end
+its sharpest pains. It was the most momentous act of his life; it formed
+the keystone in the arch of his destinies.</p>
+
+<p>The first decided anti-slavery step taken by him was the publication of
+his fiery philippic, "Justice and Expediency." About this time also he
+began the writing of his stirring anti-slavery poems, many of them full
+of pathos, fierce invective, cutting irony and satire,&mdash;stirring the
+blood like a trumpet-call, giving impulse and enthusiasm to the despised
+and half-despairing Abolitionists of that day, and becoming a part of
+the very religion of thousands of households throughout the land.</p>
+
+<p>It is almost impossible for those who were not participants in the
+anti-slavery conflict, or who have not read histories<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> and memoirs of
+the struggle, to realize the deep opprobrium that attached to the word
+"Abolitionist." To avow one's self such meant in many cases suspicion,
+ostracism, hunger, blows, and sometimes death. It meant, in short,
+self-renunciation and social martyrdom. All this Whittier gladly took
+upon himself; and he knew that it was a long struggle upon which he was
+entering. As he says in one of his poems, he was</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Called from dream and song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thank God! so early to a strife so long,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, ere it closed, the black, abundant hair<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On manhood's temples."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>That the martyrdom was a severe one to all who took up the cross goes
+without saying. Mr. Whittier remarked to the writer that it was at some
+sacrifice of his ambition and plans for the future that he decided to
+throw in his lot with the opponents of slavery. He knew that it meant
+the annihilation of his hopes of literary preferment, and the exclusion
+of his articles from the pages of magazines and newspapers. "For twenty
+years," said he, "my name would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> have injured the circulation of any of
+the literary or political journals of the country."</p>
+
+<p>When Whittier joined the ranks of the despised faction, Garrison had
+been imprisoned and fined in Baltimore for his arraignment of the slave
+traffic; Benjamin Lundy had been driven from the same city by threats of
+imprisonment and personal outrage; Prudence Crandall was waging her
+battle with the Philistinism of Canterbury, Conn.; and the Legislature
+of Georgia had offered a reward of five thousand dollars for "the
+arrest, prosecution, and trial to conviction under the laws of the
+State, of the editor or publisher of a certain paper called <i>The
+Liberator</i>, published in the town of Boston, and State of
+Massachusetts."</p>
+
+<p>But it is not within the province of this biography to give an
+exhaustive <i>résumé</i> of the anti-slavery conflict, but only to speak of
+such of its episodes as were especially participated in by Mr. Whittier.
+How tailor John Woolman became a life-long itinerant preacher of his
+mild Quaker gospel of freedom; how honest saddler Lundy left his leather
+hammering, and walked his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> ten thousand miles, carrying his types and
+column-rules with him, and printing his "Genius of Universal
+Emancipation" as he went; in what way and to what extent the labors and
+writings of Lucretia Mott, Samuel J. May, Lydia Maria Child, George
+Thompson, James G. Birney, and Gerrit Smith helped on the noble
+cause,&mdash;to all these things only allusion can be made. For a full
+account of those perilous times one must go to the pages of Henry
+Wilson's "History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," and to the
+fascinating "Recollections" of Samuel J. May. Let us now return to
+Whittier and consider his own writings, labors, and adventures in the
+service of the cause.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the spring of 1833 that he published at his own expense
+"Justice and Expediency; or, Slavery Considered with a view to its
+Rightful and Effectual Remedy, Abolition." [Haverhill: C. P. Thayer and
+Co.] It is a polemical paper, full of exclamation points and italicized
+and capitalized sentences. The hyperbole speaks well for the author's
+heart, but betrays his juvenility. He shrieks like a temperance lecturer
+or a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> stump politician. The pamphlet, however, shows diligent and
+systematic study of the entire literature of the subject. Every
+statement is fortified by quotation or reference. He enumerates six
+reasons why the African Colonization Society's schemes were unworthy of
+good men's support, and buttresses up his theses by citations from the
+official literature of his opponents. A thorough familiarity with
+slavery in other lands and times is also manifested. As a specimen of
+the style of the book the following will serve:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"But, it may be said that the miserable victims of the System have
+our sympathies.</p>
+
+<p>"Sympathy!&mdash;the sympathy of the Priest and the Levite, looking on,
+and acknowledging, but holding itself aloof from mortal suffering.
+Can such hollow sympathy reach the broken of heart, and does the
+blessing of those who are ready to perish answer it? Does it hold
+back the lash from the slave, or sweeten his bitter bread?</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my heart is sick&mdash;my very soul is weary of this sympathy&mdash;this
+heartless mockery of feeling....<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;let the <span class="smcap">Truth</span> on this subject&mdash;undisguised, naked, terrible as
+it is, stand out before us. Let us no longer seek to cover it&mdash;let
+us no longer strive to forget it&mdash;let us no more dare to palliate
+it."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In his sketch of Nathaniel P. Rogers, the anti-slavery editor, Whittier
+remarks incidentally that the voice of Rogers was one of the few which
+greeted him with words of encouragement and sympathy at the time of the
+publication of his "Justice and Expediency."<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>On the fourth day of December, 1833, the Philadelphia Convention for the
+formation of the American Anti-slavery Society held its first sitting;
+Beriah Green, President, Lewis Tappan and John G. Whittier, Secretaries.
+This assembly, if not so famous as that which framed the Declaration of
+Independence in the same city some two generations previously, was at
+any rate as worthy of fame and respect as its illustrious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> predecessor.
+A deep solemnity and high consecration filled the heart of every man and
+woman in that little band. Heart answered unto heart in glowing
+sympathy. They did their work like men inspired. Perfect unanimity
+prevailed. They were too eagerly engaged to adjourn for dinner, and
+"baskets of crackers and pitchers of cold water supplied all the bodily
+refreshment." Among those who were present and spoke was Lucretia Mott,
+"a beautiful and graceful woman," says Whittier, "in the prime of life,
+with a face beneath her plain cap as finely intellectual as that of
+Madame Roland." She "offered some wise and valuable suggestions, in a
+clear sweet voice, the charm of which I have never forgotten."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>A committee, of which Whittier was a member, with William Lloyd Garrison
+as chairman, was appointed to draw up a Declaration of Principles.
+Garrison sat up all night, in the small attic of a colored man, to draft
+this Declaration. The two other members of the committee, calling in the
+gray dawn of a December day, found him putting the last touches to this
+famous paper, while his lamp burned on unheeded into the daylight. His
+draft was accepted almost without amendment by the Convention, and,
+after it had been engrossed on parchment, was signed by the sixty-two
+members present.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER AT MIDDLE LIFE.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> for February, 1874, Mr. Whittier has given an
+interesting account of the Convention. Some of his pictures are so
+graphic that they shall here be given in his own words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In the gray twilight of a chill day of late November, forty years
+ago, a dear friend of mine residing in Boston, made his appearance
+at the old farm-house in East Haverhill. He had been deputed by the
+Abolitionists of the city, William L. Garrison, Samuel E. Sewall,
+and others, to inform me of my appointment as a delegate to the
+Convention about to be held in Philadelphia for the formation of an
+American Anti-slavery Society; and to urge upon me the necessity of
+my attendance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Few words of persuasion, however, were needed. I was unused to
+travelling; my life had been spent on a secluded farm; and the
+journey, mostly by stage-coach, at that time was really a
+formidable one. Moreover the few abolitionists were everywhere
+spoken against, their persons threatened, and, in some instances, a
+price set on their heads by Southern legislators. Pennsylvania was
+on the borders of slavery, and it needed small effort of
+imagination to picture to oneself the breaking up of the Convention
+and maltreatment of its members. This latter consideration I do not
+think weighed much with me, although I was better prepared for
+serious danger than for anything like personal indignity. I had
+read Governor Trumbull's description of the tarring and feathering
+of his hero MacFingal, when after the application of the melted
+tar, the feather-bed was ripped open and shaken over him, until</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Not Maia's son with wings for ears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such plumes about his visage wears,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor Milton's six-winged angel gathers<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such superfluity of feathers,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and I confess I was quite unwilling to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> undergo a martyrdom which
+my best friends could scarcely refrain from laughing at. But a
+summons like that of Garrison's bugle-blast could scarcely be
+unheeded by one who, from birth and education, held fast the
+traditions of that earlier abolitionism which, under the lead of
+Benezet and Woolman, had effaced from the Society of Friends every
+vestige of slaveholding. I had thrown myself, with a young man's
+fervid enthusiasm, into a movement which commended itself to my
+reason and conscience, to my love of country, and my sense of duty
+to God and my fellow-men. My first venture in authorship was the
+publication, at my own expense, in the spring of 1833, of a
+pamphlet entitled 'Justice and Expediency,'<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> on the moral and
+political evils of slavery, and the duty of emancipation. Under
+such circumstances, I could not hesitate, but prepared at once for
+my journey. It was necessary that I should start on the morrow, and
+the intervening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> time, with a small allowance for sleep, was spent
+in providing for the care of the farm and homestead during my
+absence."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier proceeds to tell of his journey to the Quaker City, and of
+the organization and work of the Convention. The following pen-portraits
+are too valuable to be omitted:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Looking over the assembly, I noticed that it was mainly composed
+of comparatively young men, some in middle age, and a few beyond
+that period. They were nearly all plainly dressed, with a view to
+comfort rather than elegance. Many of the faces turned toward me
+wore a look of expectancy and suppressed enthusiasm; all had the
+earnestness which might be expected of men engaged in an enterprise
+beset with difficulty, and perhaps with peril. The fine
+intellectual head of Garrison, prematurely bald, was conspicuous;
+the sunny-faced young man at his side, in whom all the beatitudes
+seemed to find expression, was Samuel J. May, mingling in his veins
+the best blood of the Sewalls and Quincys;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> a man so exceptionally
+pure and large-hearted, so genial, tender, and loving, that he
+could be faithful to truth and duty without making an enemy.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The de'il wad look into his face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And swear he could na wrang him.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>That tall, gaunt, swarthy man, erect, eagle-faced, upon whose
+somewhat martial figure the Quaker coat seemed a little out of
+place, was Lindley Coates, known in all Eastern Pennsylvania as a
+stern enemy of slavery; that slight, eager man, intensely alive in
+every feature and gesture, was Thomas Shipley, who for thirty years
+had been the protector of the free colored people of Philadelphia,
+and whose name was whispered reverently in the slave cabins of
+Maryland as the friend of the black man,&mdash;one of a class peculiar
+to old Quakerism, who, in doing what they felt to be duty, and
+walking as the Light within guided them, knew no fear and shrank
+from no sacrifice. Braver men the world has not known. Beside him,
+differing in creed but united with him in works of love and
+charity, sat Thomas Whitson, of the Hicksite school of Friends,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+fresh from his farm in Lancaster County, dressed in plainest
+homespun, his tall form surmounted by a shock of unkempt hair, the
+odd obliquity of his vision contrasting strongly with the clearness
+and directness of his spiritual insight. Elizur Wright, the young
+professor of a Western college, who had lost his place by his bold
+advocacy of freedom, with a look of sharp concentration, in keeping
+with an intellect keen as a Damascus blade, closely watched the
+proceedings through his spectacles, opening his mouth only to speak
+directly to the purpose.... In front of me, awakening pleasant
+associations of the old homestead in Merrimack valley, sat my first
+school-teacher, Joshua Coffin, the learned and worthy antiquarian
+and historian of Newbury. A few spectators, mostly of the Hicksite
+division of Friends, were present in broad-brims and plain bonnets,
+among them Esther Moore and Lucretia Mott."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The year 1834 was passed by Whittier quietly on the farm at East
+Haverhill. In April of this year the first anti-slavery society was
+organized in Haverhill, with John<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> G. Whittier as corresponding
+secretary. Not long after a female anti-slavery society was organized in
+the same town. The pro-slavery feeling in Haverhill was as bitter as in
+other places.</p>
+
+<p>One Sabbath afternoon in August, 1835, the Rev. Samuel J. May occupied
+the pulpit of the First Parish Society in Haverhill, and in the evening
+attempted to give an anti-slavery lecture in the Christian Union Chapel,
+having been invited to do so by Mr. Whittier. In his "Recollections of
+the Anti-Slavery Conflict" (p. 152), Mr. May says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I had spoken about fifteen minutes when the most hideous outcries and
+yells, from a crowd of men who had surrounded the house, startled us,
+and then came heavy missiles against the doors and blinds of the
+windows. I persisted in speaking for a few minutes, hoping the blinds
+and doors were strong enough to stand the siege. But presently a heavy
+stone broke through one of the blinds, shattered a pane of glass, and
+fell upon the head of a lady sitting near the centre of the hall. She
+uttered a shriek, and fell bleeding into the arms of her sister.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> The
+panic-stricken audience rose <i>en masse</i>, and began a rush for the
+doors."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr. May succeeded in quieting the fears of the audience, and himself
+escaped through the crowd of infuriated ruffians without by walking
+between two ladies, one of them the sister of Mr. Whittier and the other
+the daughter of a wealthy and determined citizen of the place, who, it
+was well known, would take summary vengeance for any disrespect shown to
+his daughter. It was well that the audience dispersed when it did, since
+a loaded cannon was being drawn to the spot by the furious mob.</p>
+
+<p>This year, 1835, was a year of mobs. On the very same evening that Mr.
+May was mobbed in Haverhill, Mr. Whittier and his English friend, the
+orator George Thompson, were treated in a similar manner in Concord, N.
+H. Whether an account of the Concord mob has been elsewhere published or
+not the author cannot say, but the story given here is as he had it from
+the lips of Mr. Whittier himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! we had a dreadful night of it," he said. The inhabitants had heard
+that an Abolition meeting was to be held in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> town, and that the arch
+anarchist, George Thompson, was to speak. So on that Sabbath evening
+they were on the alert, an angry mob some five hundred strong. Mr.
+Whittier, knowing nothing of their state of mind, started down the
+street with a friend: the mob surrounded them, thinking that he was
+Thompson. His friend explained to them that he was Mr. Whittier. "Oh!"
+they exclaimed, "so you are the one who is with Thompson, are you?" and
+forthwith they began to assail the two men with sticks and stones. Mr.
+Whittier said that both he and his friend were hurt, but escaped with
+their lives by taking refuge in the house of a friend named Kent, who
+was not an Abolitionist himself, but was a man of honor and bravery. He
+barred his door, and told the mob that they should have Whittier only
+over his dead body.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the evening Mr. Whittier learned that the house in
+which Thompson was staying was surrounded by the mob. Becoming anxious,
+he borrowed a hat, sallied out among the crowd, and succeeded in
+reaching his friend. The noise and violence of the mob increased; a
+cannon was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> brought, and at one time the little band in the house feared
+they might suffer violence. "We did not much fear death," said Mr.
+Whittier, "but we did dread gross personal indignities."</p>
+
+<p>It was fortunately a bright moonlight night, suitable for travelling,
+and about one o'clock the two friends escaped by driving off rapidly in
+their horse and buggy. They did not know the road to Haverhill, but were
+directed by their friends with all possible minuteness. Three miles
+away, also, there was the house of an anti-slavery man, and they
+obtained further directions there. Some time after sunrise they stopped
+at a wayside inn to bait their horse, and get a bite of breakfast for
+themselves. While they were at table the landlord said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"They've been having a h&mdash;l of a time down at Haverhill."</p>
+
+<p>"How is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, one of them d&mdash;d Abolitionists was lecturin' there; he had been
+invited to the town by a young fellow named Whittier; but they made it
+pretty hot for him, and I guess neither he nor Whittier will be in a
+hurry to repeat the thing."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What kind of a fellow is this Whittier?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's an ignorant sort of fellow; he don't know much."</p>
+
+<p>"And who is this Thompson they're talking about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he's a man sent over here by the British to make trouble in our
+government."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As the two friends were stepping into the buggy, Mr. Whittier, with one
+foot on the step, turned and said to the host, who was standing by with
+several tavern loafers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"You've been talking about Thompson and Whittier. This is Mr. Thompson,
+and I am Whittier. Good morning."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"And jumping into the buggy," said the poet, with a twinkle in his eye,
+"we whipped up, and stood not on the order of our going." As for the
+host he stood with open mouth, being absolutely tongue-tied with
+astonishment. "And for all I know," said the narrator, "he's standing
+there still with his mouth open."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson was secreted at the Whittier farm-house in Haverhill for
+two weeks after this affair.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Some two months after the disgraceful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> scenes just described occurred
+the mobbing of William Lloyd Garrison in Boston. He had gone in the
+evening to deliver a lecture before the Female Anti-Slavery Society. A
+furious mob of "gentlemen of property and standing" surrounded the
+building. Mr. Garrison took refuge in a carpenter's shop in the rear of
+the hall, but was violently seized, let down from a window by a rope,
+and dragged by the mob to the City Hall. Mr. Whittier was staying at the
+house of Rev. Samuel J. May. His sister had gone to the lecture, and Mr.
+Whittier, on hearing of the disturbance, had fears for her safety, and
+went out to seek her. He said to the writer that when he reached the
+City Hall he saw before him the best dressed mob imaginable. Presently
+he heard a cry, "They've got him!" After a short, sharp scuffle Garrison
+was got into a carriage by the police, and taken to the Leverett Street
+jail, as the only place where he could be safe that night in Boston. Mr.
+Whittier and Mr. May immediately went down to the jail to see him.
+Garrison said that he could not say, with Paul, that he was dwelling in
+his own hired house, and so he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> could not ask them to stay all night
+with him! His coat was not entirely gone, but was pretty badly torn. He
+was at first a good deal agitated by the affair, but when they left him
+he had become calm and assured. On the same evening, the mob threatened
+to make an attack upon Mr. May's house. Mr. Whittier got his sister
+Elizabeth safely bestowed for the night in the dwelling of another
+friend. He and Mr. May passed a sleepless night, and at one time half
+thought that, for safety's sake, they should have stayed in the jail
+with Garrison. However, they were not molested.</p>
+
+<p>It is a remarkable testimony to the esteem in which Mr. Whittier must
+have been held by the citizens of Haverhill that, notwithstanding their
+bitter hatred of Abolitionism, they elected him their representative to
+the State Legislature in 1835, and again in 1836. In 1837 he declined
+re-election. In the legislative documents for 1835 he figures as a
+member of the standing committee on engrossed bills. His name does not
+appear in the State records for 1836: it was undoubtedly owing to his
+secretarial duties, mentioned below, that he was unable to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> take his
+seat as a member of the Legislature in the second year of his election.</p>
+
+<p>In 1836 Whittier published "Mogg Megone," a poem on an episode in Indian
+life. It will be reviewed, with the rest of his poems, in the second
+part of this volume. In the same year he was appointed Secretary of the
+American Anti-Slavery Society, and removed to Philadelphia. In 1838-39,
+while in that city, he edited a paper which he named the <i>Pennsylvania
+Freeman</i>. It had formerly been edited by Benjamin Lundy, under the title
+of the <i>National Enquirer</i>. The office of the <i>Pennsylvania Freeman</i> was
+in 1838 sacked and burned by a mob. It was about the same time that
+Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia was burned to the ground by the
+citizens, on the very day after its dedication. Mr. Whittier had read an
+original poem on that occasion. The hall had been built at considerable
+sacrifice by the lovers of freedom, in order that one place at least
+might be open for free discussion. And it was just in order that it
+might not be used thus that it was burned by the guilty-thoughted mob.
+The keys had been given to the mayor, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> neither he nor the police
+interfered to prevent the atrocious deed.</p>
+
+<p>In 1837 Mr. Whittier edited, and wrote a preface for, the "Letters of
+John Quincy Adams to his Constituents." These stirring letters of Mr.
+Adams were called forth by the attacks that had been made on him by
+members of Congress for defending the right of negroes to petition the
+Government. Mr. Whittier, in his introductory remarks, speaks of the
+"Letters" as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Their sarcasm is Junius-like, cold, keen, unsparing. In boldness,
+directness, and eloquent appeal, they will bear comparison with
+O'Connell's celebrated letters to the Reformers of Great
+Britain.... It will be seen that, in the great struggle for and
+against the Right of Petition, an account of which is given in the
+following pages, their author stood in a great measure alone, and
+unsupported by his northern colleagues. On 'his gray, discrowned
+head' the entire fury of slaveholding arrogance and wrath was
+expended. He stood alone,&mdash;beating back, with his aged and single
+arm, the tide which would have borne down and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> overwhelmed a less
+sturdy and determined spirit."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In the same year (1837) Mr. Whittier edited a pamphlet called "Views of
+Slavery and Emancipation," taken from Harriet Martineau's "Society in
+America." The whole subject of slavery is canvassed by Miss Martineau in
+the most searching and judicial manner.</p>
+
+<p>In closing this account of our author's anti-slavery labors, we may
+bestow a word on the attitude assumed toward the Abolition movement by
+the Quakers as a sect. Through the labors of John Woolman, Benjamin
+Lundy, Anthony Benezet, and others, they had early been brought to see
+the wickedness of slaveholding, and in 1780 had succeeded in entirely
+ridding their denomination of the wrong. They not only emancipated their
+slaves, but remunerated them for their past services. Indeed, their
+record in this respect is unique for its fine ideal devotion to exact
+justice. They were the first religious body in the world to remove the
+pollution of slavery from their midst. But the cautious, acquisitive,
+peace-loving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> Quakers seemed content to rest here, satisfied with having
+cleared their own skirts of wrong. They could not see the good side of
+the Abolition movement. They were scandalized by the violence and
+fanaticism of many Abolitionists. Mr. Whittier felt aggrieved by this
+attitude of the Friends, but did not on that account break with the
+denomination, or abandon the religion of his fathers. In 1868 he wrote
+as follows to the <i>New Bedford Standard</i>, which had spoken of him in an
+article on Thomas A. Greene: "My object in referring to the article in
+the paper was mainly to correct a statement regarding myself, viz.: That
+in consequence of the opposition of the Society of Friends to the
+anti-slavery movement, I did not for years attend their meetings. This
+is not true. From my youth up, whenever my health permitted, I have been
+a constant attendant of our meetings for religious worship. <i>This</i> is
+true, however, that after our meeting-houses were denied by the yearly
+meeting for anti-slavery purposes, I did not feel it in my way, for some
+years, to attend the annual meeting at Newport. From a feeling of duty I
+protested against that decision when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> it was made, but was given to
+understand pretty distinctly that there was no 'weight' in my words. It
+was a hard day for reformers; some stifled their convictions; others,
+not adding patience to their faith, allowed themselves to be worried out
+of the Society. Abolitionists holding office were very generally
+'dropped out,' and the ark of the church staggered on with no profane
+anti-slavery hands upon it."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>AMESBURY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>After the sacking and burning of the office of the <i>Pennsylvania
+Freeman</i>, Whittier returned to Haverhill, and soon after (in 1840) he
+sold the old farm and removed with his mother to Amesbury, a small town
+some nine miles nearer the sea than Haverhill. It is a rural town of
+over three thousand inhabitants, and contains nothing of note except the
+poet Whittier. The business of the place is the manufacture of woollen
+and cotton goods, and of carriages. The landscape is rugged and
+picturesque. The town covers a sloping hillside that stretches down to
+the Merrimack. Across this river rises a high hill, crowned with
+orchards and meadows. In summer time a sweet and quiet air reigns in the
+place. There are old vine-covered houses, grassy lawns, cool crofts, and
+sunken orchards; bees are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> humming, birds singing, and here and there
+through the trees slender columns of blue wood-smoke float upward in
+airy evanescence. Mr. Whittier's residence is on Friend Street, and not
+far beyond, on the same street, or rather in the delta formed by the
+meeting of two streets, stands the Friends' Meeting-House, where the
+poet has been an attendant nearly all his life:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And holy day, and solemn psalm;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For me, the silent reverence where<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My brethren gather, slow and calm."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This old meeting-house is alluded to by the poet in "Abram Morrison," a
+fine humorous poem published in "The King's Missive" (1881). We there
+read how&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"On calm and fair First Days<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rattled down our one-horse chaise<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the blossomed apple-boughs<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the old, brown meeting-house."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whittier's house is a plain, white-painted structure, standing at the
+corner of two streets, and having in front of it numerous forest trees,
+chiefly maple. Since 1876 the poet has passed only a part of each year
+at Amesbury, his other home being Oak Knoll in Danvers, where he resides
+with distant relatives.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>THE WHITTIER HOUSE, AMESBURY, MASS.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The study at Amesbury of course possesses great interest for us as the
+place where most of the poet's finest lyrics have been written. It is a
+very cosey little study, and is entered by one door from within and
+another from without. The upper half of the outer door is of glass. This
+door is at the end of the left-hand porch shown in the view on page 125.
+The two windows in the study look out upon a long strip of yard in the
+rear of the house,&mdash;very pretty and quiet, and filled with pear-trees
+and other trees and vines. Upon one side of the room are shelves holding
+five or six hundred well-used volumes. Among them are to be noticed
+Charles Reade's novels and the poems of Robert Browning. A side-shelf is
+completely filled with a small blue and gold edition of the poets. On
+the walls hang oil paintings of views on the Merrimack River and other
+Essex County scenes, including Mr. Whittier's birthplace. In one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> corner
+is a handsome writing-desk, littered with papers and letters. Upon the
+hearth of the Franklin stove, high andirons smile a fireside welcome
+from their burnished brass knobs. Indeed, everything in the room is as
+neat and cosey as the wax cell of a honey-bee. And over all is shed the
+genial glow of the gentlest, tenderest nature in all the land.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>In the autumn of 1844 was written "The Stranger in Lowell," a series of
+light sketches suggested by personal experiences. The style of these
+essays reminds one of that of "Twice Told Tales," but it is not so pure.
+The thought is developed too rhetorically, and the essays betray the
+limitations attending the life of a recluse. But these sketches are
+interesting as exhibitions of the growth of the author toward this
+peculiar form of essay-writing, and are valuable on that account.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>In 1847 James G. Birney's anti-slavery paper, <i>The Philanthropist</i>,
+published in Cincinnati, was merged with the <i>National Era</i>, of
+Washington, D. C., with Dr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> Gamaliel Bailey as managing editor, and
+John G. Whittier as associate or corresponding editor. Dr. Bailey had
+previously helped edit <i>The Philanthropist</i>. Both papers were treated to
+mobocratic attacks. The <i>Era</i> became an important organ of the Abolition
+party in Washington. To it Mr. Whittier contributed his "Old Portraits
+and Modern Sketches" as well as other reform papers.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>In the same year (1847) our author published his "Supernaturalism of New
+England." [New York and London: Wiley and Putnam.] This pleasant little
+volume shows a marked advance upon Whittier's previous prose work. In
+its nine chapters he has preserved a number of oral legends and
+interesting superstitions of the farmer-folk of the Merrimack region.
+Parts of the work have been quoted elsewhere in this volume. One of the
+chapters closes with the following fine passage:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The witches of Father Baxter and 'the Black Man' of Cotton Mather
+have vanished; belief in them is no longer possible on the part of
+sane men. But this mysterious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> universe, through which, half veiled
+in its own shadow, our dim little planet is wheeling, with its
+star-worlds and thought-wearying spaces, remains. Nature's mighty
+miracle is still over and around us; and hence awe, wonder, and
+reverence remain to be the inheritance of humanity: still are there
+beautiful repentances and holy death-beds, and still over the
+soul's darkness and confusion rises star-like the great idea of
+duty. By higher and better influences than the poor spectres of
+superstition man must henceforth be taught to reverence the
+Invisible, and, in the consciousness of his own weakness and sin
+and sorrow, to lean with childlike trust on the wisdom and mercy of
+an overruling Providence."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1849 Mr. Whittier collected and published his anti-slavery poems,
+under the title "Voices of Freedom." The year 1850 marks a new era in
+his poetical career. He published at that time his "Songs of Labor,"&mdash;a
+volume which showed that his mind had become calmed by time, and was now
+capable of interesting itself in other than reform subjects.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There is not much of outward incident and circumstance to record of the
+quiet poetical years passed since 1840 at Amesbury and Danvers. Almost
+every year or two a new volume of poems has been issued, each one
+establishing on a firmer foundation the Quaker Poet's reputation as a
+creator of sweet and melodious lyrical poetry.</p>
+
+<p>In 1868 an institution called "Whittier College" was opened at Salem,
+Henry County, Iowa. It was founded in honor of the poet, and is
+conducted in accordance with the principles of the Society of Friends.</p>
+
+<p>In 1871 Whittier edited "Child-Life: A Collection of Poems," by various
+home and foreign authors. In the same year he edited, with a long
+introduction, the "Journal of John Woolman."</p>
+
+<p>The name John Woolman is not widely known to persons of the present
+generation; and yet, as Whittier says, it was this humble Quaker
+reformer of New Jersey who did more than any one else to inspire all the
+great modern movements for the emancipation of slaves, first in the West
+Indies, then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> in the United States, and in Russia. Warner Mifflin, Jean
+Pierre Brissot, Thomas Clarkson, Stephen Grellet, William Allen, and
+Benjamin Lundy,&mdash;all these philanthropists owed much of their impulse to
+labor for the freedom of the slave to humble John Woolman. His journal
+or autobiography was highly praised by Charles Lamb, Edward Irving,
+Crabb Robinson, and others. "The style is that of a man unlettered, but
+with natural refinement and delicate sense of fitness, the purity of
+whose heart enters into his language."</p>
+
+<p>Woolman was born in Northampton, West Jersey, in 1720. One day, in the
+year 1742, while clerk in a store in the village of Mount Holly,
+township of Northampton, N. J., he was asked by his employer to make out
+the bill of sale of a negro. He drew up the instrument, but his
+conscience was awakened, and some years after he began his life-work as
+a pedestrian anti-slavery preacher. He refused to ride in, or have
+letters sent him by, the stage-coaches, because of the cruelty exercised
+toward the horses by the drivers. Neither would he accept hospitality
+from those who kept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> slaves, always paying either the owners or the
+slaves for his entertainment. Woolman was most gentle and kind in his
+appeals to slave-owners, and rarely met with any violent remonstrance.
+Much of his work was within the limits of his own sect, and Mr.
+Whittier's introduction gives a valuable and succinct historical
+<i>résumé</i> of the steps taken by the Friends to rid their sect of the
+stigma of slaveholding.</p>
+
+<p>Mount Holly, in Woolman's day, says Whittier, "was almost entirely a
+settlement of Friends. A very few of the old houses with their quaint
+stoops or porches are left. That occupied by John Woolman was a small,
+plain, two-story structure, with two windows in each story in front, a
+four-barred fence enclosing the grounds, with the trees he planted and
+loved to cultivate. The house was not painted, but whitewashed. The name
+of the place is derived from the highest hill in the county, rising two
+hundred feet above the sea, and commanding a view of a rich and level
+country of cleared farms and woodlands."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Very amusing is the picture given by Mr. Whittier of the eccentric
+Benjamin Lay, once a member of the Society of Friends in England, and
+afterward an inhabitant for some time of the West Indies, whence he was
+driven away on account of the violence and extravagance of his
+denunciations of slavery. He was a contemporary of Woolman. He lived in
+a cave near Philadelphia, as a sort of Jonah or Elijah, prophesying woe
+against the city on account of its participation in the crime of
+slavery. He wore clothes made of vegetable fibre, and ate only vegetable
+food. "Issuing from his cave, on his mission of preaching 'deliverance
+to the captive,' he was in the habit of visiting the various meetings
+for worship and bearing his testimony against slaveholders, greatly to
+their disgust and indignation. On one occasion he entered the Market
+Street Meeting, and a leading Friend requested some one to take him out.
+A burly blacksmith volunteered to do it, leading him to the gate and
+thrusting him out with such force that he fell into the gutter of the
+street. There he lay until the meeting closed, telling the bystanders
+that he did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> not feel free to rise himself. 'Let those who cast me here
+raise me up. It is their business, not mine.'</p>
+
+<p>"His personal appearance was in remarkable keeping with his eccentric
+life. A figure only four and a half feet high, hunch-backed, with
+projecting chest, legs small and uneven, arms longer than his legs; a
+huge head, showing only beneath the enormous white hat large, solemn
+eyes and a prominent nose; the rest of his face covered with a snowy
+semicircle of beard falling low on his breast,&mdash;a figure to recall the
+old legends of troll, brownie, and kobold. Such was the irrepressible
+prophet who troubled the Israel of slaveholding Quakerism, clinging like
+a rough chestnut-burr to the skirts of its respectability, and settling
+like a pertinacious gad-fly on the sore places of its conscience.</p>
+
+<p>"On one occasion, while the annual meeting was in session at Burlington,
+N. J., in the midst of the solemn silence of the great assembly, the
+unwelcome figure of Benjamin Lay, wrapped in his long white overcoat,
+was seen passing up the aisle. Stopping midway, he exclaimed, 'You
+slaveholders!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> Why don't you throw off your Quaker coats as I do mine,
+and show yourselves as you are?' Casting off as he spoke his outer
+garment, he disclosed to the astonished assembly a military coat
+underneath, and a sword dangling at his heels. Holding in one hand a
+large book, he drew his sword with the other. 'In the sight of God,' he
+cried, 'you are as guilty as if you stabbed your slaves to the heart, as
+I do this book!' suiting the action to the word, and piercing a small
+bladder filled with the juice of poke-weed (<i>phytolacca decandra</i>),
+which he had concealed between the covers, and sprinkling as with fresh
+blood those who sat near him."</p>
+
+<p>There is something overwhelmingly ludicrous about this bladder of
+poke-weed juice! And what a subject for a painter!&mdash;the portentous,
+white-bearded dwarf standing there in the midst of the church, in act to
+plunge his gigantic sword tragically into the innermost bowels of the
+crimson poke-juice bladder, and from all parts of the house the
+converging looks of the broad-brimmed and shovel-bonneted Quakers!</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier further says that "Lay was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> well acquainted with Dr.
+Franklin, who sometimes visited him. Among other schemes of reform he
+entertained the idea of converting all mankind to Christianity. This was
+to be done by three witnesses,&mdash;himself, Michael Lovell, and Abel Noble,
+assisted by Dr. Franklin. But, on their first meeting at the doctor's
+house, the three 'chosen vessels' got into a violent controversy on
+points of doctrine, and separated in ill-humor. The philosopher, who had
+been an amused listener, advised the three sages to give up the project
+of converting the world until they had learned to tolerate each other."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>In 1873 Mr. Whittier edited "Child-Life in Prose." It is a collection of
+pretty stories, chiefly about the childhood of various eminent persons.
+One of the stories is by the editor, and is about "A Fish that I Didn't
+Catch."</p>
+
+<p>In 1875 appeared "Songs of Three Centuries." The poet's design in this
+work was (to use his own words) "to gather up in a comparatively small
+volume, easily accessible to all classes of readers, the wisest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+thoughts, rarest fancies, and devoutest hymns of the metrical authors of
+the last three centuries." He says, "The selections I have made
+indicate, in a general way, my preferences." It is a choice collection,
+rich in lyrical masterpieces.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>LATER DAYS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>About a mile westward from the village of Danvers, Mass., a grassy road,
+named Summer Street, branches off to the right and north. It is a
+pleasant, winding road, bordered by picturesque old stone fences and
+lined with barberry and raspberry bushes and gnarled old apple-trees. On
+either side are cultivated fields. Oak Knoll, the winter residence of
+Whittier, is the second house on the left, some half a mile up the road.</p>
+
+<p>This fine old estate had been occupied for half a century by a man of
+wealth and taste. About the year 1875 it passed into the hands of Col.
+Edmund Johnson, of Boston, whose wife was Whittier's cousin.</p>
+
+<p>It was planned that the poet should be a member of the household; rooms
+were set apart and arranged for him, and he gave the estate its present
+name.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is a spot full of traditions, and well suited to any poet's
+residence, most of all for one so versed in New England legends. It is
+the very spot once occupied by the Rev. George Burroughs, a clergyman
+who was hung for witchcraft in 1692, on the charge, among other things,
+of "having performed feats of extraordinary physical strength." He could
+hold out a gun seven feet long, tradition says, by putting his finger in
+the muzzle, and could lift a barrel of molasses in the same way by the
+bung-hole. For acts like these&mdash;deemed unclerical, at least, if not
+unnatural&mdash;he was convicted and hanged; and a well on the premises of
+Oak Knoll is still known as the "witch well."</p>
+
+<p>Here, in the home of relatives, the poet has lived since 1876. A
+lovelier and more poetical place it would be difficult to imagine. The
+extensive, carefully kept grounds, and the antique elegance of the
+house, give to the estate the air of an old English manor, or
+gentleman's country hall. The house is approached by a long,
+upward-sweeping lawn, diversified with stately forest trees, clumps of
+evergreens and shrubs and flowers. Down across the road stands a large
+and handsome barn, which is as neat as paint and care can make it. In
+front of the house the eye ranges downward over an extensive landscape,
+as far as to the town of Peabody, in the direction of Salem. Indeed, on
+every side of the estate there are broad and distant views of the blue
+hills of Essex and Middlesex.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>VIEW FROM THE PORCH AT OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, MASS.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the summer, as you ascend the carriage-road that winds through the
+grounds, your eye is captured by the rare beauty of the scene. Yonder is
+a tall living wall of verdure, with an archway cut through it. To the
+left the grounds sweep gently down to a deep ravine, where a little
+rivulet, named Beaver Brook, creeps leisurely out and winds seaward
+through green and marish meadows. It is in this portion of the grounds
+that the fine oak-trees grow which give to the place its name. Here,
+too, is a large grove of pines, with numerous seats within it. There are
+trees and trees at Oak Knoll,&mdash;smooth and shapely hickories, glistering
+chestnuts with cool foliage, maples, birches, and the purple beech. Add
+to the picture the rural accessories of bee-haunted clover-fields, apple
+and pear orchards, and beds of tempting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> strawberries. The house is of
+wood, salmon-colored, with tall porches on each side, up-propped by
+stately Doric columns. In front, with wide sweep of closely cropped
+grass intervening, is the magnificent Norway spruce that Oliver Wendell
+Holmes, a year or two before Mr. Whittier's death, on one of those
+periodical visits to his brother poet that so delighted their two souls,
+named "The Poets' Pagoda." A luxuriant vine clusters about the eaves of
+the house. On the long porch a mocking-bird and a canary-bird fill the
+green silence with gushes of melody, and near at hand, in his study in
+the wing of the building, sits one with a singing pen and listens to
+their song. To their song and to the murmur of the tall pines by his
+window he listens, then looks into his heart and writes,&mdash;this
+sweet-souled magician,&mdash;and craftily imprisons between the covers of his
+books, echoes of bird and tree music, bits of blue sky, glimpses of
+green landscape, winding rivers, and idyls of the snow,&mdash;all suffused
+and interfused with a glowing atmosphere of human and divine love, such
+as the poet found in this home of his choosing at Oak Knoll. It will not
+perhaps be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> intruding upon the privacies of home to say that the members
+of the cultured household at Oak Knoll ever, found in their happy
+circle, their highest pleasure in ministering to all needs, social or
+otherwise, of their loved cousin the poet. Three sisters dispense the
+hospitalities of the house, and a young daughter of Mrs. Woodman's adds
+the charm of girlhood to the family life.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Readers of Whittier, who know how deeply his writings are tinged with
+the scenery, legendary lore and folk-life of his native Merrimack
+Valley, will not wonder that a certain <i>Heimweh</i>, or home-sickness,
+draws him northward, when</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"Flows amain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The surge of summer's beauty."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Pours the deluge of the heat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Broad northward o'er the land."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It is but one hour's ride by cars from Danvers to Amesbury; and part of
+the time in the latter place, and part of the time at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> the Isles of
+Shoals, and in the beautiful lake and mountain region of New Hampshire,
+Mr. Whittier passes the warm season. For many years it was his custom to
+spend a portion of each summer at the Bearcamp River House, in West
+Ossipee, N. H., some thirty miles north of Lake Winnipiseogee. The hotel
+was situated on a slight eminence, commanding a view of towering "Mount
+Israel" and of "Whittier Mountain," named after the poet. It is a region
+full of noble prospects, being just in the out-skirts of the White
+Mountain group. Several of the poems of Whittier were inspired by this
+scenery, notably "Among the Hills," "Sunset on the Bearcamp," and "The
+Seeking of the Waterfall." In the first of these we read how&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Above his broad lake Ossipee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Once more the sunshine wearing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stooped, tracing on that silver shield<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His grim armorial bearing."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Sunset on the Bearcamp" contains a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> stanza considered by some to be one
+of the poet's finest:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Touched by a light that hath no name,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A glory never sung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aloft on sky and mountain wall<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Are God's great pictures hung.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How changed the summits vast and old!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No longer granite-browed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They melt in rosy mist; the rock<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is softer than the cloud;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The valley holds its breath; no leaf<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of all its elms is twirled:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The silence of eternity<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Seems falling on the world."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The Bearcamp River House (now no more) was a hostelry whose site,
+antique hospitality, and eminent guests were every whit as worthy to be
+embalmed in lasting verse as were those of the Wayside Inn of Sudbury.
+Before the red, crackling flames of its huge fireplace such literary
+characters as Whittier, Gail Hamilton, Lucy Larcom, and Hiram Rich used
+to gather on chill summer evenings for the kind of talks that only a
+wood fire can inspire. The Quaker poet is a charming conversationalist,
+and can <i>tell</i> a story as capitally as he can write one.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> He has a
+goodly <i>répertoire</i> of ghost tales and legends of the marvellous. One of
+his best stories is about a scene that took place in Independence Hall
+in Philadelphia, when the court remanded a negro to slavery. The poet
+says that an old sailor who was present became so infuriated by the
+spectacle that he made the air blue with oaths uttered in seven
+different languages.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>December 17, 1877, was the poet's seventieth birthday, and the occasion
+was celebrated in a twofold manner, namely, by a Whittier Tribute in the
+<i>Literary World</i>, and by a Whittier Banquet given at the Hotel
+Brunswick, in Boston, by Messrs. H. O. Houghton and Co., the publishers
+of Whittier's works. The <i>Literary World</i> tribute contained poems by
+Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Bayard Taylor, E. C. Stedman, O. W. Holmes,
+William Lloyd Garrison, and others. Mr. Longfellow's poem, "The Three
+Silences," is one of unusual beauty.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">THE THREE SILENCES OF MOLINOS.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Three Silences there are: the first of speech,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The second of desire, the third of thought;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With dreams and visions, was the first to teach.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These Silences, commingling each with each<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Made up the perfect Silence, that he sought<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And prayed for, and wherein at times he caught<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Mysterious sounds from realms beyond our reach.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O thou, whose daily life anticipates<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The life to come, and in whose thought and word<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The spiritual world preponderates,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hermit of Amesbury! thou too hast heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Voices and melodies from beyond the gates,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And speakest only when thy soul is stirred!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There were letters from the poet Bryant, the historian George Bancroft,
+Colonel T. W. Higginson, and Mrs. H. B. Stowe; and there was a pleasant
+description of the Danvers home by Charles B. Rice. Mr. Whittier's
+"Response" was published in the January number of the paper:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Beside that milestone where the level sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Nigh unto setting, sheds his last, low rays<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On word and work irrevocably done,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I hear, O friends! your words of cheer and praise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Half doubtful if myself or otherwise.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like him who, in the old Arabian joke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A beggar slept and crowned Caliph woke."<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>The anniversary of the founding of the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> happening to
+be synchronous with Whittier's birthday, the publishers determined to
+make a double festival of the occasion. The gathering at the Hotel
+Brunswick was a brilliant one, and the invitations were not limited by
+any clique or any sectional lines.</p>
+
+<p>In this same month the admirers of Mr. Whittier in Haverhill,
+Newburyport, and neighboring towns, formed a Whittier Club, its annual
+meetings to be held on December 17.</p>
+
+<p>The ladies of Amesbury presented to the poet on his birthday a richly
+finished Russia-leather portfolio, containing fourteen beautiful
+sketches in water-colors of scenes in and about Amesbury, by a talented
+Amesbury artist. The subjects of the sketches are those scenes which he
+has immortalized in his poems, and include his home, birthplace, the old
+school-house, old Quaker Meeting-House, Rivermouth Rocks, etc. The
+portfolio was presented to him at Oak Knoll, accompanied by a basket of
+exquisite flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Since taking up his residence in Danvers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> the poet has published "The
+Vision of Echard, and Other Poems,"&mdash;including the beautiful ballad,
+"The Witch of Wenham,"&mdash;and "The King's Missive, and Other Poems."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>PERSONAL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>As a boy, Whittier grew up slender, delicate, and shy, with dark hair
+and dark eyes; his nature silent and brooding, gentle, compassionate,
+religious, and sensitive to the beauty of the external world. He is of
+the nervous temperament, and his health has never been robust. Indeed,
+in later life the state of his health has often been precarious, and his
+plans for work have been at the mercy of his nerves. As a young man, and
+crowned Laureate of Freedom, Whittier must have presented a striking
+appearance, with his raven hair, and glittering black eyes flashing with
+the inspiration of a great cause. Mr. J. Miller McKim, a member with
+Whittier of the famous Anti-Slavery Convention held in Philadelphia in
+1833, thus describes the poet:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"He wore a dark frock-coat with standing collar, which, with his
+thin hair, dark and sometimes flashing eyes, and black
+whiskers,&mdash;not large, but noticeable in those unhirsute days,&mdash;gave
+him, to my then unpractised eye, quite as much of a military as a
+Quaker aspect. His broad, square forehead and well-cut features,
+aided by his incipient reputation as a poet, made him quite a
+noticeable feature in the convention."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Frederika Bremer, in her "Sketches of American Homes," gives an outline
+portrait of Whittier as he appeared when forty years of age:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"He has a good exterior, a figure slender and tall, a beautiful head
+with refined features, black eyes full of fire, dark complexion, a fine
+smile, and lively but very nervous manner. Both soul and spirit have
+overstrained the nervous cords and wasted the body. He belongs to those
+natures who would advance with firmness and joy to martyrdom in a good
+cause, and yet who are never comfortable in society, and who look as if
+they would run out of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> door every moment. He lives with his mother
+and sister in a country-house to which I have promised to go. I feel
+that I should enjoy myself with Whittier, and could make him feel at
+ease with me. I know from my own experience what this nervous
+bashfulness, caused by the over-exertion of the brain, requires, and how
+persons who suffer therefrom ought to be met and treated."</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>George W. Bungay, in his "Crayon Sketches" of distinguished Americans,
+published in 1852, gives the following picture of Whittier: "His
+temperament is nervous-bilious; [he] is tall, slender and straight
+as an Indian; has a superb head; his brow looks like a white cloud
+under his raven hair; eyes large, black as sloes, and glowing with
+expression,&mdash; ... those star-like eyes dashing under such a magnificent
+forehead."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>A writer in the <i>Democratic Review</i> for August, 1845, speaks of "the
+fine intellectual beauty of his expression, the blending brightness and
+softness of the clear dark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> eye, the union of manly firmness and courage
+with womanly sweetness and tenderness alike in countenance and
+character."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Mr. David A. Wasson says that Whittier is of the Saracenic or Hebrew
+prophet type: "The high cranium, so lofty, especially in the dome,&mdash;the
+slight and symmetrical backward slope of the <i>whole</i> head,&mdash;the powerful
+level brows, and beneath these the dark, deep eyes, so full of shadowed
+fire,&mdash;the Arabian complexion,&mdash;the sharp-cut, intense lines of the
+face,&mdash;the light, tall, erect stature,&mdash;the quick, axial poise of the
+movement,"&mdash;all these traits reveal the fiery Semitic prophet.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The long backward and upward slope of the head, alluded to by Mr.
+Wasson, is very striking. It is the head of Walter Scott or of Emerson.
+Whittier is now an old man, somewhat hard of hearing, and with the fixed
+sadness of time upon his pleasant face. But ever and anon, as you
+converse with him, his countenance is irradiated by a sudden smile,
+sweet and strange and full of benignity,&mdash;like a waft of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> perfume from a
+bed of white violets, or a glint of rich sunlight on an April day. His
+is one of those Emersonian natures that everybody loves at first sight.
+The very mole under the right eye seems somehow the birth-mark or
+sign-manual of kindliness. The quaint grammatical solecisms of the
+Quaker and the New England farmer&mdash;the "thee's" and the omission of the
+<i>g</i>'s from present participles and other words ending in
+"ing"&mdash;give to the poet's conversation a certain slight piquancy and
+picturesqueness.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> About half-past nine every morning, when at
+Amesbury, Mr. Whittier walks down for the mail and the news, and perhaps
+has a chat with some neighbor on the street, or with the country editor
+who is setting up in type his own editorials while he grimly rolls his
+quid of tobacco in his cheek. In the spring and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> early summer the poet's
+dress will be after this fashion: black coat and vest, gray pantaloons,
+cinnamon-colored overcoat, drab tile hat, and perhaps a small gray
+tippet around his neck. As he walks, he salutes those whom he meets with
+a little jerky bow. A forty years' residence in Amesbury has made him
+acquainted with almost everybody, and he might, therefore, very properly
+be somewhat economical of exertion in his salutations. But his abrupt
+bow is really the expression of that unbending rectitude and noble pride
+in individual freedom that made him the reformer and the poet of
+liberty. As a single instance of Whittier's kind-heartedness, take the
+following incident, narrated by an anonymous writer in the <i>Literary
+World</i> for December, 1877: "When I was a young man trying to get an
+education, I went about the country peddling sewing-silk to help myself
+through college; and one Saturday night found me at Amesbury, a stranger
+and without a lodging-place. It happened that the first house at which I
+called was Whittier's, and he himself came to the door. On hearing my
+request he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> said he was very sorry that he could not keep me, but it was
+quarterly meeting and his house was full. He, however, took the trouble
+to show me to a neighbor's, where he left me; but that did not seem to
+wholly suit his idea of hospitality, for in the course of the evening he
+made his appearance, saying that it had occurred to him that he could
+sleep on a lounge, and give up his own bed to me,&mdash;which it is, perhaps,
+needless to say, was not allowed. But this was not all. The next morning
+he came again, with the suggestion that I might perhaps like to attend
+meeting, inviting me to go with him; and he gave me a seat next to
+himself. The meeting lasted an hour, during which there was not a word
+spoken by any one. We all sat in silence that length of time, then all
+arose, shook hands and dispersed; and I remember it as one of the best
+meetings I ever attended."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Dom Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil, is a reader of Mr. Whittier's poems,
+and an ardent admirer of his genius. He has exchanged letters with him,
+both in regard to poetry and to the emancipation of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> slaves.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> When
+his Majesty was in this country, in 1876, he expressed a wish to meet
+Mr. Whittier, and on Wednesday evening, June 14, a little reception was
+arranged by Mrs. John T. Sargent at her Chestnut Street home, a few
+prominent persons having been invited to be present. "When the Emperor
+arrived, the other guests had already assembled. Sending up his card,
+his Majesty followed it with the quickness of an enthusiastic
+school-boy; and his first question, after somewhat hastily paying his
+greetings, was for Mr. Whittier. The poet stepped forward to meet his
+imperial admirer, who would fain have caught him in his arms and
+embraced him warmly, with all the enthusiasm of the Latin race. The
+diffident Friend seemed somewhat abashed at so demonstrative a greeting,
+but with a cordial grasp of the hand drew Dom Pedro to the sofa, where
+the two chatted easily and with the familiarity of old friends.</p>
+
+<p>"The rest of the company allowed them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> to enjoy their <i>tête-à-tête</i> for
+some half hour, when they ventured to interrupt it, and the Emperor
+joined very heartily in a general conversation."</p>
+
+<p>As the Emperor was driving away, he was seen standing erect in his open
+barouche, and "waving his hat, with a seeming hurrah, at the house which
+held his venerable friend."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>As a specimen of Mr. Whittier's genial and winning epistolary style, it
+is permissible to quote here a letter of his, addressed to Mrs. John T.
+Sargent, and included by her in her sketches of the Radical Club:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Amesbury</span>, Wednesday Eve.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear Mrs. Sargent,</span>&mdash;Few stronger inducements could be held out
+to me than that in thy invitation to meet Lucretia Mott and Mary
+Carpenter. But I do not see that I can possibly go to Boston this
+week. None the less do I thank thee, my dear friend, in thinking of
+me in connection with their visit.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My love to Lucretia Mott, and tell her I have never forgotten the
+kind welcome and generous sympathy she gave the young abolitionist
+at a time when he found small favor with his 'orthodox' brethren.
+What a change she and I have lived to see! I hope to meet Miss
+Carpenter before she leaves us. For this, and for all thy kindness
+in times past, believe me gratefully thy friend,</p>
+
+<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">John G. Whittier</span>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The modesty and shyness of the poet have already been more than once
+alluded to. They form his most distinctive personal or constitutional
+peculiarity. It is unnecessary to quote from his writings to illustrate
+what is patent to everybody who reads his books, or knows anything about
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The poet's personal friends know well that he has a good deal of genial,
+mellow humorousness in his nature. To get an idea of it, read his
+charming prose sketches of home and rural life, and such poems as the
+whimsical, enigmatical "Demon of the Study," as well as "The Pumpkin,"
+"To My<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> Old Schoolmaster," and the "Double-Headed Snake of Newbury."
+These poems almost equal Holmes's for rich and <i>riant</i> humor.</p>
+
+<p>It is not so well known as it ought to be that the author of
+"Snow-Bound" has as deep a love of children as had Longfellow. Before
+the Bearcamp House was burned to the ground in 1880, Mr. Whittier used
+sometimes to come up from Amesbury with a whole bevy of little misses
+about him, and at the hotel the wee folk hailed him as one of those dear
+old fellows whom they always love at sight. It is said that Edward
+Lear&mdash;the friend of Tennyson, and author of "Nonsense Verses" for
+children&mdash;used to make a hobby-horse of himself in the castles of
+Europe, and treat his little friends to a gallop over the carpet on his
+back. If Mr. Whittier never got quite so far as this in juvenile
+equestrianism, he has at least equally endeared himself to the children
+who have had the good fortune to look into his loving eyes and enjoy the
+sunshine of his smile. When sitting by the fireside, or stretched at
+ease on the fragrant hay in the barn or field, or walking among the
+hills,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> nothing pleases him better than to have an audience of young
+folks eagerly listening to one of his stories. If they are engaged in a
+game of archery, he will take a hand in the sport, and no one is better
+pleased than he to hit the white. His unfailing kindness in answering
+the many letters addressed to him by young literary aspirants, or by
+others who desire his advice and help, is something admirable: no one
+knows how to win hearts better than he.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>To these notes of personal traits it only remains to add a list of the
+offices of dignity and honor which have been held by Mr. Whittier.
+Besides his various editorial, secretarial, and legislative positions,
+he served as Overseer of Harvard College from 1858 to 1863. He was a
+member of the Electoral College in 1860 and in 1864. The degree of
+Master of Arts was bestowed upon him by Harvard College in 1860, and the
+same degree by Haverford College in the same year. He was elected a
+resident member of the American Philosophical Society in 1864, but never
+accepted the honor, notwithstanding the fact that his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> name appeared for
+two or three years on the Society's roll. In 1871 he was made a Fellow
+of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p>
+<h2><span class="smcap">Part II.</span></h2>
+
+<h3>ANALYSIS OF HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MAN.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>"Not by the page word-painted</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Let life be banned or sainted:</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Deeper than written scroll</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>The colors of the soul."</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><span class="smcap">My Triumph.</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>To analyze and describe the <i>poetry</i> of Whittier is a comparatively easy
+task, for it is all essentially lyrical or descriptive, and is
+resolvable into a few simple elements. His poetry is not profound; but
+it is sweet and melodious,&mdash;now flashing with the fire of freedom and
+choked with passionate indignation, and now purling and rippling through
+the tranquil meadows of legend and song. Such a poem as Emerson's
+"Sphinx," groaning with its weight of mystical meaning, Whittier never
+wrote, nor could write. Neither is he dramatic, nor skilled in the
+subtile harmonies of rhythm and metre. As an artist he is easily
+comprehensible.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> But to fathom the <i>man</i>,&mdash;to drop one's plummet into
+the infinite depths of the human mind, to peer about with one's little
+candle among the dusty phantoms and spent forces of the past, and
+through the endlessly crossing and interblending meshes trace
+confidently up all the greater and the finer hereditary influences that
+have moulded a human character,&mdash;and then discover and weigh the
+post-natal forces that have acted upon that character through a long and
+varied life,&mdash;this is a very difficult task, and demands in him who
+would undertake it a union of historic imagination with caution and
+modesty.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The moral in Whittier predominates over the æsthetic, the reformer over
+the artist. "I am a man, and I feel that I am above all else a man."
+What is the great central element in our poet's character, if it is not
+that deep, never-smouldering moral fervor, that unquenchable love of
+freedom, that&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hate of tyranny intense,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And hearty in its vehemence,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>which, mixed with the beauty and melody of his soul, gives to his pages
+a delicate glow as of gold-hot iron; which crowns him the Laureate of
+Freedom in his day, and imparts to his utterances the manly ring of the
+prose of Milton and Hugo and the poetry of Byron, Swinburne, and
+Whitman,&mdash;all poets of freedom like himself?</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus7.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>Handwriting: John G. Whittier</h3>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And what is love of freedom but the mainspring of Democracy? And what is
+Democracy but the rallying-cry of the age, the one word of the present,
+the one word of the future, the word of all words, and the white,
+electric beacon-light of modern life?</p>
+
+<p>At the apex of modern Democracy stands Jesus of Nazareth; at its base
+stand the poets and heroes of freedom of the past hundred years.
+Christian Democracy has had its revolutions, its religious ferments and
+revolts, and its emancipations of slaves. Quakerism is one of its
+outcomes. Democracy produced George Fox; George Fox produced Quakerism;
+Quakerism produced Whittier; Whittier helped destroy slavery. He could
+not help doing so, for with slavery both Democracy and Quakerism are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+incompatible. Whittier fought slavery as a Quaker, he has lived as a
+Quaker, and written as a Quaker; he has never fully emancipated himself
+from the shackles of the sect. To understand him, therefore, we must
+understand his religion.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The principles of the sect are all summed up in the phrases <i>Freedom</i>
+and the <i>Inner Light</i>. Historically considered, Quakerism is a product
+of the ferment that followed the civil war in England two centuries ago.
+Considered abstractly, or as a congeries of principles, it has a
+sociological and a philosophical root, both of these running back into
+the great tap-root, love of freedom, whose iron-tough, writhen fibres
+enwrap the dark foundation rocks of human nature itself.</p>
+
+<p>Sociologically speaking, Quakerism is pure democracy, an exaltation of
+the majesty of the individual and of the mass of the people. It is the
+pure precipitate of Christianity. It is a protest against the hypocrisy,
+formalism, tyranny, of priestcraft, king-craft, and aristocracy.</p>
+
+<p>Philosophically, its theory of the Inner<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> Light is identical with the
+doctrine of idealism or innate ideas, held by Descartes, Fichte,
+Schelling, Cousin. It means individualism, a return to the primal
+sanities of the soul. "I think, therefore I am." My thinking soul is the
+ultimate source of ideas and truth. In that serene holy of holies
+full-grown ideas leap into being,&mdash;subjective, <i>a priori</i>, needing no
+sense-perception for their genesis.</p>
+
+<p>But Transcendentalism differed from Quakerism in this: the former held
+that the illumination of the mind was a natural process; but Quakerism
+maintains that it is a supernatural process, the work of the "Holy
+Ghost." And herein Quakerism is inferior to Transcendentalism. But it is
+superior to it in that it does not believe in the infallibility of
+individual intuitions, but considers the true criterion of truth to be
+the universal reason, the "consensus of the competent." Yet the great
+danger that pertains to all moonshiny, or subjective, systems of
+philosophy is that their individualism will spindle out into wild
+extravagances of theory, and foolish eccentricities of manner and dress;
+and we shall find that, practically, Quakerism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> has as Quixotic a record
+as Transcendentalism. To say that both systems have performed noble and
+indispensable service in the development of mind is but to utter a
+truism.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>We may now consider a little more closely the peculiarities of doctrine
+and life which characterize the Friends. The doctrine of the Inner
+Light, or pure spirituality, resulted in such tenets as these: the
+freedom of conscience; the soul the fountain of all truth, worthlessness
+of tradition and unsanctified learning; the conscience or voice within
+the judge of the Bible or Written Word; disbelief in witchcraft, ghosts,
+and other superstitions; love of friends and enemies, the potency of
+moral suasion, moral ideas, and as a consequence the wickedness of war,
+and a belief in human progress as the result of peaceable industry;
+universal enfranchisement, every man and woman may be enlightened by the
+Inner Light,&mdash;hence equality of privilege, no distinction between clergy
+or laity or between sex and sex,&mdash;the right of woman to develop her
+entire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> nature as she sees fit. In the principles which define the
+attitude of the Quaker toward social conventions, we find a queer jumble
+of the doctrines of primitive Christianity with the ideas of individual
+independence innate in the Germanic mind, and especially in the popular
+mind.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> The Christian gospel of love forbids the Quakers to
+countenance war, capital punishment, imprisonment for debt, slavery,
+suppressment of the right of free speech and the right of petition.
+Their doctrine of equality in virtue of spiritual illumination forbids
+them to remove their hats in presence of any human being, even a king;
+leads them to avoid the use of the plural "you," as savoring of
+man-worship, and to refuse to employ a hired priesthood. Their doctrine
+of pure spirituality is inconsistent with sacerdotal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> rites and
+mummeries, such as baptism, the eucharist, forms of common prayer, etc.
+Music, poetry, painting, and dancing also have a worldly savor and tend
+to distract the mind from its spiritual life. So do rich and gaudy
+robes: we must therefore have simplicity of dress. Hear William Penn on
+this subject:<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a>&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I say, if sin brought the first coat, poor Adam's offspring have little
+reason to be proud or curious in their clothes.... It is all one as if a
+man who had lost his nose by a scandalous distemper, should take pains
+to set out a false one, in such shape and splendor as should give the
+greater occasion for all to gaze upon him; as if he would tell them he
+had lost his nose, for fear they would think he had not. But would a
+wise man be in love with a false nose, though ever so rich, and however
+finely made?"</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>A natural corollary of the Friends' doctrine of inward supernatural
+illumination is their habit of silent worship, or silent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> waiting.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>
+It is probable that this feature of their religious gatherings has done
+much to cultivate that peculiar tranquillity of demeanor which
+distinguishes them.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> They meet the burdens, bereavements, and
+disappointments of life with a placid equanimity in strong antithesis to
+the often passionate grief and rebellion of other classes of religious
+people. Finally, we may add to the list of their characteristics their
+great moral sincerity. "With calm resoluteness they tell you your faults
+face to face, and without exciting your ill-will."</p>
+
+<p>The objections to the Quakerism of our day are that it is retractile,
+stationary, negative; it is selfish, narrow, ascetic, tame; it has no
+iron in its blood; it rarely adds anything to the world's thought. The
+Quakers are a hopelessly antiquated sect,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> a dying branch almost wholly
+severed from connection with the living forces of the tree of modern
+society. There are, it is true, a goodly number of liberal Quakers, who,
+in discarding the peculiar costume of the time of Charles II., which
+many of them even yet wear, have also thrown off the intellectual
+mummy-robes of the sect. Many adopt the tenets of Unitarianism, or make
+that religious body the stepping-stone to complete emancipation from an
+obsolete system of thought. But the mass of them are immovable. They
+have been characterized substantially in the following words by Mr. A.
+M. Powell, himself a Quaker by birth, and an unwilling witness to the
+faults of a system of doctrines in which he sees much to admire:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In its merely sectarian aspect, Quakerism is as uninteresting, narrow,
+timid, selfish, and conservative as is mere sectarianism under any other
+name. The Quakers have little comprehension of the meaning of Quakerism
+beyond a blind observance of the peculiarities of dress and speech and
+the formality of the Meeting. They cling to the now meaningless protests
+of the past.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> They are inaccessible to new conceptions of truth. They
+have dishonored the important fundamental principle [of the Inner Light]
+and tarnished the Society's good name by subordinating it to narrow
+views of religion, to commercial selfishness, and to the prevalent
+palsying conservatism of the outside world."<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>In all that is said in these pages by way of criticism of the Quakers,
+reference is had solely to their doctrines as a system of thought. Of
+their sweet and beautiful <i>lives</i> it is hardly necessary to speak at
+length. Volumes might be filled with instances of their large-hearted
+benevolence and personal self-sacrifice in care for others. The
+loveliness of their lives is like a beautiful perfume in the society in
+which they move. As you see the Quaker women of Philadelphia, with their
+pure, tranquil faces, and plain, immaculate dress, moving about among
+the greedy and vile-mannered non-Quaker <i>canaille</i> of that democratic
+city, they seem like Christian and Faithful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> amid the crowds of Vanity
+Fair. Their faces are like a benediction, and you thank heaven for them.
+The liberal Friends in America have many great and noble names on their
+roll of honor. And surely a sect that has produced such characters as
+Lucretia Mott, John Bright, and John G. Whittier, must win our
+intellectual respect. But it is only because these persons, like Milton,
+were in most respects above their sect that we admire them. There are
+proofs manifold, however, throughout the prose and poetry of Whittier
+that he has nominally remained within the pale of Quakerism all his
+days. Doubtless such a course was essential to the very existence in him
+of poetic inspiration. His genius is wholly lyrical. A song or lyric is
+the outgushing of pure emotion. Especially in the case of the religious
+and ethical lyrist is faith life, and doubt death. Doubt, in Whittier's
+case, would have meant the cessation of his songs. To break away
+entirely from the faith of his fathers would have chilled his
+inspiration. He has not, it is true, escaped the conflict with doubt. As
+we shall see, no man has had a severer struggle to reconcile his faith
+with the terror and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> mystery of life. But, although his religious views
+have been liberalized by science, yet he has never ceased to retain a
+hearty sympathy with, and belief in, the Quaker principles of the Inner
+Light, silent waiting, etc.</p>
+
+<p>That he has remained within the pale of Quakerism has been an injury to
+him as well as a help. It makes him obtrude his sectarianism too
+frequently, especially in his prose writings. By the very nature of the
+creed, he must either be blind to its faults, or constantly put on the
+defensive against the least assault, from whatever quarter it may come.
+When he dons the garb of the sectary, he naturally becomes weakened, and
+loses his chief charm. We see then that he is a man hampered by a creed
+which forbids a catholic sympathy with human nature. He is shut up in
+the narrow field of sectarian morals and religion. He cannot, for
+example, enter, by historical imagination, into poetical sympathy with
+the gorgeous ritual and dreamy beauty of a European cathedral service.
+And yet so pure, gentle, and sweet is his nature that it is hard to
+censure him for this peculiarity. It is regret rather than censure that
+we feel, regret that he has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> been so bound by circumstances that
+prevented his breaking wholly away from hampering limitations, and to be
+always, what he so often is, the strong and sweet-voiced spokesman of
+the heart of humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Let us hear his gentle confessions of faith. In the autobiographical
+poem, "My Namesake," we read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"He worshipped as his fathers did,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And kept the faith of childish days,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, howsoe'er he strayed or slid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He loved the good old ways.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The simple tastes, the kindly traits,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The tranquil air, and gentle speech,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The silence of the soul that waits<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For more than man to teach."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In "The Meeting" he has given us an "Apologia pro Vita Sua,"&mdash;a defence
+of his religious habits. He says he is accustomed to meet with the
+Friends twice a week in the little "Meeting" at Amesbury, chiefly for
+two reasons: first, because in the silent, unadorned house, with
+"pine-laid floor," his religious communings are not distracted by
+outward things as they would be if he worshipped always amid the
+solitudes of nature; and, secondly, he finds in "The Meeting" a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+heart-solace in the memories of dear ones passed away, who once sat by
+his side there. He says, in reference to the Quaker service:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I ask no organ's soulless breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To drone the themes of life and death,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No altar candle-lit by day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No ornate wordsman's rhetoric-play,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No cool philosophy to teach<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its bland audacities of speech,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No pulpit hammered by the fist<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of loud-asserting dogmatist."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In "Memories" he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thine the Genevan's sternest creed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While answers to my spirit's need<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Derby dalesman's simple truth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And holy day and solemn psalm;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For me, the silent reverence where<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My brethren gather slow and calm."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There are two epochs in the religious or philosophical development of
+Whittier. The first&mdash;that of simple piety unclouded by doubt, the epoch
+of unhesitating acceptance of the popular mythology&mdash;seems to have
+lasted until about 1850, or the period of early Darwinism and
+Spencerianism,&mdash;the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> most momentous epoch in the religious history of
+the world. This pivotal point is very well marked by the publication, in
+1853, of "The Chapel of the Hermits" and "Questions of Life." It is now
+that harrowing doubt begins, and restless striving to retain the faith
+amid new conditions and a vastly widened mental horizon.
+Transcendentalism, too, had just passed the noon meridian of its
+splendor. Emerson had written many of his exquisite philosophical poems,
+and Parker had blown his clear bugle-call to a higher religious life. It
+is evident that Whittier was&mdash;as, indeed, he could not help
+being&mdash;profoundly moved by the new spirit of the times.</p>
+
+<p>With Transcendentalism he must have had large sympathy, owing to the
+similarity of its principles to those of Quakerism. And that he was
+profoundly agitated by the revelations of science his poetry shows. In
+"My Soul and I" (a poem remarkable for its searching subjective
+analysis), and in the poem "Follen," he had given expression to
+religious doubt, over which, as always in his case, faith was
+triumphant. But it is in "The Chapel of the Hermits"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> and succeeding
+poems that he first gave free and full utterance to the doubt and
+struggle of soul that was not his alone, but which was felt by all
+around him. In respect of doubt "My Soul and I" and "Questions of Life"
+resemble "Faust," as well as Tennyson's "Two Voices" and the "In
+Memoriam."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Life's mystery wrapped him like a cloud;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He heard far voices mock his own,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sweep of wings unseen, the loud,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Long roll of waves unknown.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The arrows of his straining sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like lost guides calling left and right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Perplexed his doubtful age.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Like childhood, listening for the sound<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of its dropped pebbles in the well,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All vainly down the dark profound<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His brief-lined plummet fell."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><i>My Namesake</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The "Questions of Life" are such as these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I am: but little more I know!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whence came I? Whither do I go?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A centred self, which feels and is;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A cry between the silences."<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"This conscious life,&mdash;is it the same<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which thrills the universal frame?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Do bird and blossom feel, like me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Life's many-folded mystery,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wonder which it is <i>To Be</i>?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or stand I severed and distinct,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Nature's chain of life unlinked?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Such questions as these he confesses himself unable to answer. He
+shrinks back terrified from the task. He will not dare to trifle with
+their bitter logic. He will take refuge in faith; he will trust the
+Unseen; let us cease foolish questioning, and live wisely and well our
+present lives. He comes out of the struggle purified and chastened,
+still holding by his faith in God and virtue. A good deal of the old
+Quakerism is gone,&mdash;the belief in hell, in the Messianic and atonement
+machinery, in local and special avatars, etc. Again and again, in his
+later poems, he asserts the humanity of Christ and the co-equal divinity
+of all men: see "Miriam," for example. His opinion about hell he
+embodies in the sweet little poem, "The Minister's Daughter," published
+in "The King's Missive." In short, his religion is a simple and
+trustful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> theism. But there is no evidence that he has ever incorporated
+into his mind the principles of the development-science,&mdash;the evolution
+of man, the correlation of forces, the development of the universe
+through its own inner divine potency; or, in fine, any of the
+unteleological, unanthropomorphic explanations of things which are
+necessitated by science, and admitted by advanced thinkers, both in and
+out of the Churches.</p>
+
+<p>As witnesses to his trustful attitude, we may select such a cluster of
+stanzas as this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through present wrong, the eternal right;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, step by step, since time began,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I see the steady gain of man;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That all of good the past hath had<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Remains to make our own time glad,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our common daily life divine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And every land a Palestine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Through the harsh noises of our day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A low, sweet prelude finds its way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A light is breaking calm and clear."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10"><i>Chapel of the Hermits</i><br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yet, in the maddening maze of things,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And tossed by storm and flood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To one fixed stake my spirit clings;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I know that God is good!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I know not where His islands lift<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their fronded palms in air;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I only know I cannot drift<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beyond His love and care."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10"><i>The Eternal Goodness.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When on my day of life the night is falling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And in the winds from unsunned spaces blown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I hear far voices out of darkness calling<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My feet to paths unknown,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Leave not its tenant when its walls decay;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O love divine, O Helper ever present,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Be Thou my strength and stay!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16"><i>At Last.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Dear Lord and Father of mankind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Forgive our foolish ways!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reclothe us in our rightful mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In purer lives thy service find,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In deeper reverence, praise."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10"><i>The Brewing of Soma.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But Whittier is as remarkable for his faith in man as for his faith in
+God. He is in the highest degree patriotic, American. He loves America
+because it is the land of freedom.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> It has been charged against him that
+he is no true American poet, but a Quaker poet. The American, it is
+said, is eager, aggressive, high-spirited, combative; the Quaker,
+subdued and phlegmatic. The American is loud and boastful and daring and
+reckless; the Quaker, cautious, timid, secretive, and frugal. This is
+undoubtedly true of the classes as types, but it is far from being true
+of Whittier personally. He has blood militant in him. He comes of
+Puritan as well as Quaker stock. The Greenleafs and the Batchelders were
+not Quakers. The reader will perhaps remember the Lieutenant Greenleaf,
+already mentioned, who fought through the entire Civil War in
+England.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> But his writings alone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> furnish ample proof of his martial
+spirit. The man and the Quaker struggle within him for the mastery; and
+the man is, on the whole, triumphant. Whenever his Quakerism permits, he
+stands out a normal man and a genuine American. As Lowell says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And reveals the live Man still supreme and erect<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>If anybody will take the trouble to glance over the complete works of
+Whittier, he or she will find that one of the predominant
+characteristics of his writings is their indigenous quality, their
+national spirit. Indeed, this is almost too notorious to need mention.
+He, if any one, merits the proud title of "A Representative American
+Poet." His whole soul is on fire with love of country.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> As in the case
+of Whitman, his country is his bride, and upon it he has showered all
+the affectional wealth of his nature. The Quaker may be too obtrusive in
+his prose writings, but it is not so in the greater and better portion
+of his poetry. When the rush and glow of genuine poetical inspiration
+seize him, he invariably rises in spirit far above the weltering and
+eddying dust-clouds of faction and sect into the serene atmosphere of
+genuine patriotism. Read his "Last Walk in Autumn," where he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Home of my heart! to me more fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The painted, shingly town-house where<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The freeman's vote for Freedom falls!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Read his "Eve of Election":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Not lightly fall<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Beyond recall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The written scrolls a breath can float;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The crowning fact,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The kingliest act<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Or take "After Election," a poem that cannot be read without a thrill of
+the nerves and a leaping of the heart. You have concentrated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> in that
+wild lyric burst the purest essence of democratic patriotism,&mdash;the
+trembling anxiety and yearning of a mother-heart. It is a poem
+celebrating a victory of peace with all the fiery energy of a war-ode (a
+significant fact that the advocates of gory war, as a source of poetic
+inspiration, would do well to ponder):&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The day's sharp strife is ended now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our work is done, God knoweth how!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As on the thronged, unrestful town<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The patience of the moon looks down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wait to hear, beside the wire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The voices of its tongues of fire.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be strong, my heart, to know the worst!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hark!&mdash;there the Alleghanies spoke;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sound from lake and prairie broke,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That sunset gun of triumph rent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The silence of a continent!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">That signal from Nebraska sprung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This, from Nevada's mountain tongue!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is that thy answer, strong and free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O loyal heart of Tennessee?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What strange, glad voice is that which calls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">From Mississippi's fountain-head<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A sound as of the bison's tread!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There rustled freedom's Charter Oak!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cheer answers cheer from rise to set<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of sun. We have a country yet!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To sum up now our analysis of the poet's character. We have seen that
+the central trait of his mind is love of freedom. (Even his religion,
+which is so profound an element in his nature, and so all-pervasive in
+his writings, will be found, on a deep analysis, to be a yearning for
+freedom from the trappings of sense and time, in order to attain to a
+spiritual union with the Infinite.) This love of freedom, this hatred of
+oppression, intensified by persecution, both ancestral and personal,
+stimulated by contact with Puritan democracy, as well as by the New
+England Transcendental movement, and flowering out luxuriantly in the
+long struggle against slavery,&mdash;this noble sentiment, and that long
+self-sacrificing personal warfare in behalf of the oppressed, form the
+true glory of Whittier's character. Shy, timid, almost an invalid,
+having a nervous horror of mobs and personal indignities, he yet forgot
+himself in his love of Man, overcame and underwent,&mdash;suffered social
+martyrdom for a quarter of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> century, never flinching, never holding
+his peace for bread's sake or fame's sake, not stopping to count the
+cost, taking his life in his hand, and never ceasing to express his
+high-born soul in burning invective and scathing satire against the
+oppressor, or in words of lofty hope and cheer for the suffering
+idealist and lover of humanity, whoever and wherever he was. Whittier is
+a hero as well as a poet. He will be known to posterity by a few
+exquisite poems, but chiefly by his moral heroism and patriotism. As a
+thinker and a poet he belongs, with Bryant and Longfellow, to the
+pre-scientific age. The poetry of the future (of the new era of
+self-consciousness) will necessarily differ widely from that of the
+first half of this century. It will not be distinctively the poetry of
+Wordsworth, or Cowper, or Byron, or Longfellow, or Whittier. When the
+present materialistic and realistic temper of mind disappears from
+literature, and really noble ideal poetry returns, it will be vast in
+its scope and range, robust in its philosophy, unfettered by petty
+rhymes and classicisms, but powerfully rhythmic and harmonious. The
+writings of Shakspere, Goethe,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> Jean Paul, Hugo, Tennyson, Whitman, and
+Emerson are the magnificent proem to it. It will be built upon a
+scientific and religious cosmism. It will not discuss Apollo and Luna
+and Neptune, and the nymphs and muses, but will draw its imagery from
+the heaven-staining red-flames of the sun, the gulfs of space, the
+miracles of organic and inorganic life, and human society. It will draw
+its inspiration not more from the storied past than from the storied
+future foreseen by its prophetic eye. It will idealize human life and
+deify nature. It will fall in the era of imagination. (After it will
+come another age of criticism.) It will fall in the age of splendid
+democracies. And in that age men will look back with veneration, not so
+much, perhaps, to the scholar-poets as to the hero-poets, like Whittier,
+who put faith in the rights of man and woman, who did believe in divine
+democracy, and were not ashamed of it, but nursed it patiently through
+its puling infancy, well assured of its undying grandeur when it should
+come to man's estate.</p>
+
+<p>We subjoin fittingly to this chapter a characteristic letter of Mr.
+Whittier's, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> which he speaks lovingly of Robert Burns, that other
+poet of freedom and independence of thought for all men.</p>
+
+<p>At the Burns festival in Washington, 1869, the following letter from
+John G. Whittier was read:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Amesbury</span>, 1st month, 18th day, 1869.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I thank the club represented by thee for remembering
+me on the occasion of its annual festival. Though I have never been
+able to trace my ancestry to the Land o' Cakes, I have&mdash;and I know
+it is saying a great deal&mdash;a Scotchman's love for the poet whose
+fame deepens and broadens with years. The world has never known a
+truer singer. We may criticise his rustic verse and compare his
+brief and simple lyrics with the works of men of longer scrolls and
+loftier lyres; but after rendering to Wordsworth, Tennyson and
+Browning the homage which the intellect owes to genius, we turn to
+Burns, if not with awe and reverence, [yet] with a feeling of
+personal interest and affection. We admire others; we love him. As
+the day of his birth comes round, I take down his well-worn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> volume
+in grateful commemoration, and feel that I am communing with one
+whom living I could have loved as much for his true manhood and
+native nobility of soul as for those wonderful songs of his which
+shall sing themselves forever.</p>
+
+<p>"They know little of Burns who regard him as an aimless
+versifier&mdash;'the idle singer of an idle lay.' Pharisees in the
+Church, and oppressors in the State, knew better than this. They
+felt those immortal sarcasms which did not die with the utterer,
+but lived on to work out the divine commission of Providence. In
+the shout of enfranchised millions, as they lift the untitled
+Quaker of Rochdale into the British Cabinet, I seem to hear the
+voice of the Ayrshire poet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'For a' that and a' that,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It's comin' yet for a' that;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That man to man the world o'er<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall brothers be for a' that.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"With hearty sympathy and kind greetings for the Burns Club of
+Washington,</p>
+
+<p class="right">"I am, very truly, thy friend,<br />
+"<span class="smcap">John G. Whittier</span>."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ARTIST.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The title of this chapter is almost a misnomer; for the style, or
+technique, of the poet whose works we are considering is so very simple
+and unoriginal that he can hardly be said to have a distinctive style of
+his own,&mdash;unless a few persistent mannerisms establish a claim to it.
+His diction, however, is always pictorial, and glows with an intense
+Oriental fervor. Fused in this interior vital heat, his thoughts do not
+sink, like powerful Jinn, into the deep silence-sphere of the mind, to
+fetch thence sparkling treasures, rich and strange: rather, they run to
+and fro with lightning swiftness amid the million surface-pictures of
+the intellect; rearranging, recombining, and creatively blending its
+images, and finally pouring them out along the page to charm our fancy
+and feeling with old thoughts and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> scenes painted in fresh colors and
+from new points of view. There is more of fancy than of creative
+imagination in Whittier.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The artistic quality, or tone, of his mind is a fusion of that of
+Wordsworth and that of Byron. In his best ballads and other lyrics you
+have the moral sincerity of Wordsworth and the sweet Wordsworthian
+simplicity (with a difference); and in his reform poems you have the
+Byronic indignation, and scorn of Philistinism and its tyrannies. As a
+religious poet, he reveals the quiet piety and devoutness of Cowper; and
+his rural and folk poems show that he is a debtor to Burns.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>He has been a diligent reader,&mdash;"a close-browed miser of the scholar's
+gains,"&mdash;and his writings are full of bookish allusions. But, if the
+truth must be told, his doctor's gown does not often sit gracefully upon
+his shoulders. His readers soon learn to know that his strength lies in
+his moral nature, and in his power to tell a story melodiously, simply,
+and sweetly. Hence it is, doubtless, that they care little for his
+literary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> allusions,&mdash;think, perhaps, that they are rather awkwardly
+dragged in by the ears, and at any rate hasten by them impatiently that
+they may inhale anew the violet-freshness of the poet's own soul. What
+has just been said about bookish allusions does not apply to the
+beautiful historical ballads produced by Whittier in the mellow maturity
+of his powers. These fresh improvisations are as perfect works of art as
+the finest Greek marbles. In them Whittier at length succeeds in freeing
+himself completely from the shackles of didacticism. Such ballads as
+"The Witch's Daughter" and "Telling the Bees" are as absolutely
+faultless productions as Wordsworth's "We are Seven" and his "Lucy
+Gray," or as Uhland's "Des Sänger's Fluch," or William Blake's "Mary."
+There is in them the confident and unconscious ease that marks the work
+of the highest genius. A shower of lucid water-drops falls in no truer
+obedience to the law of perfect sphericity than flowed from the pen of
+the poet these delicate creations in obedience to the law of perfect
+spontaneity. Almost all of Whittier's lyrics have evidently been rapidly
+written, poured forth in the first glow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> of feeling, and not carefully
+amended and polished as were Longfellow's works. And herein he is at
+fault, as was Byron. But the delicate health of Whittier, and his
+toilsome early days, form an excuse for his deficiency in this respect.
+His later creations, the product of his leisure years, are full of pure
+and flawless music. They have no harmony or rhythmic volume of sound, as
+in Tennyson, Swinburne, Milton, and Shakspere; but they set themselves
+to simple melodious airs spontaneously. As you read them, your feet
+begin to tap time,&mdash;only the music is that of a good rural choir rather
+than that of an orchestra.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The thought of each poem is generally conveyed to the reader's
+understanding with the utmost lucidity. There is no mysticism, no
+obscurity. The story or thought unfolds itself naturally, and without
+fatigue to our minds. A great many poems are indeed spun out at too
+great length; but the central idea to be conveyed is rarely lost sight
+of.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>To the list of his virtues as an artist, it remains to add his frequent
+surprising<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> strength. This is naturally most marked in the anti-slavery
+poems. When he wrote these, he was in the flush of manhood, his soul at
+a white heat of moral indignation. He is occasionally nerved to almost
+super-human effort: it is the battle-axe of Richard thundering at the
+gates of Front de B[oe]uf. For nervous energy, there is nothing in the
+Hebrew prophets finer than such passages as these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Strike home, strong-hearted man!<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Down to the root<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><i>To Ronge.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Maddened by Earth's wrong and evil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Lord!' I cried in sudden ire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'From thy right hand, clothed with thunder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Shake the bolted fire!'"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10"><i>What the Voice Said.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No trick of priestcraft here!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Back, puny lordling! darest thou lay<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A hand on Elliott's bier?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beneath his feet he trod:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He knew the locust-swarm that cursed<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The harvest-fields of God.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"On these pale lips, the smothered thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Which England's millions feel,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A fierce and fearful splendor caught,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As from his forge the steel.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strong-armed as Thor,&mdash;a shower of fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His smitten anvil flung;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He gave them all a tongue!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><i>Elliott.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The blasphemy of wrong."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><i>The Rendition.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"All grim and soiled, and brown with tan,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I saw a Strong One, in his wrath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Smiting the godless shrines of man<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Along his path."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><i>The Reformer.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As Whittier has grown older, and the battles of his life have
+become (as he expressed it to the writer) like "a remembered
+dream," his genius has grown mellow and full of graciousness. His
+art culminated in "Home Ballads," "Snow-Bound," and "The Tent on
+the Beach." He has kept longer than most poets the lyric glow; only
+in his later poems it is "emotion remembered in tranquillity."</p>
+
+<p>If asked to name the finest poems of Whittier, would not the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>following instinctively recur to the mind: "Snow-Bound," "Maud
+Muller," "Barbara Frietchie," "The Witch's Daughter," "Telling the
+Bees," "Skipper Ireson's Ride," "King Volmer and Elsie," and "The
+Tent on the Beach"?</p>
+
+<p>To these one would like to add several exquisite hymns and short
+secular lyrics. But the poems mentioned would probably be regarded
+by most critics as Whittier's finest works of art. They merit this
+distinction certainly; and they furnish remarkable instances for
+those who desire to study the poet's greater versatility in the
+ballad line, as they are all good representatives of his
+wonderfully long range.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The foregoing remark must be our cue for beginning to pass in
+review the artistic deficiencies of Whittier. He has three crazes
+that have nearly ruined the mass of his poetry. They are the reform
+craze, the religious craze, and the rhyme craze. Of course, as a
+man, he could not have a superfluity of the first of these; but, as
+a poet, they have been a great injury to him. We need not deny that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>he has taken the manlier course in subordinating the artist to the
+reformer and preacher; but in estimating his poetic merits we ought
+to regard his work from an absolute point of view. Let us not be
+misunderstood. It is gladly and freely conceded that the theory
+that great poetry is not necessarily moral, and that the aim of
+poetry is only to please the senses, is a petty and shallow one,
+and that the true function of the great poet is also to bear
+witness to the ideal and noble, to the moral and religious. Let us
+heartily agree with Principal Shairp when he says that the true end
+of the poet "is to awaken men to the divine side of things; to bear
+witness to the beauty that clothes the outer world, the nobility
+that lies hid, often obscured, in human souls; to call forth
+sympathy for neglected truths, for noble but oppressed persons, for
+downtrodden causes, and to make men feel that through all outward
+beauty and all pure inward affection God himself is addressing
+them." We may admit all this, and yet find fault with the
+moralizations and homilies of Whittier. The poetry of Dante and
+Milton is full of ethical passion, and occasionally a little sermon
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>is wedged in; yet they do not treat us to endless broadsides of
+preaching, as Whittier does in his earlier poems, and in some of
+his later ones. But there is this distinction: the moral in Dante
+and Milton and Shakspere and Emerson is so garnitured with beauty
+that while our souls are ennobled our imaginations are gratified.
+But in many of Whittier's poems we have the bare skeleton of the
+moral, without the rounded contour and delicate tints of the living
+body of beauty. His reform poems have been called stump-speeches in
+verse. His anti-slavery poems are, with a few exceptions, devoid of
+beauty. They should have been written in the manner he himself
+commends in a review of Longfellow's "Evangeline": he should have
+depicted the truth strongly and attractively, and left to the
+reader the censure and the indignation. Mr. Whittier seems to know
+his peculiar limitations as well as his critics. He speaks of
+himself as one&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"Whose rhyme<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Beat often Labor's hurried time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and he has once or twice expressed himself in prose in a way that
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>seems to show that he recognizes the artistic mistake in the
+construction of his earlier poems. The omission of the moral
+<i>envoi</i> from so many of his maturer creations strengthens one in
+this surmise. In 1867 Whittier published the following letter in
+the New York <i>Nation</i>:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">To the Editor of the Nation:</span></p>
+
+<p>"I am very well aware that merely personal explanations are not
+likely to be as interesting to the public as to the parties
+concerned; but I am induced to notice what is either a
+misconception on thy part, or, as is most probable, a failure on my
+own to make myself clearly understood. In the review of 'The Tent
+on the Beach' in thy paper of last week, I confess I was not a
+little surprised to find myself represented as regretting my
+life-long and active participation in the great conflict which has
+ended in the emancipation of the slave, and that I had not devoted
+myself to merely literary pursuits. In the half-playful lines upon
+which this statement is founded, if I did not feel at liberty to
+boast of my anti-slavery labors and magnify my editorial
+profession, I certainly did not mean to underrate them, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> express
+the shadow of a regret that they had occupied so large a share of
+my time and thought. The simple fact is that I cannot be
+sufficiently thankful to the Divine Providence that so early called
+my attention to the great interests of humanity, saving me from the
+poor ambitions and miserable jealousies of a selfish pursuit of
+literary reputation. Up to a comparatively recent period my
+writings have been simply episodical, something apart from the real
+object and aim of my life; and whatever of favor they have found
+with the public has come to me as a grateful surprise rather than
+as an expected reward. As I have never staked all upon the chances
+of authorship, I have been spared the pain of disappointment and
+the temptation to envy those who, as men of letters, deservedly
+occupy a higher place in the popular estimation than I have ever
+aspired to.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">"Truly thy friend,<br />
+"<span class="smcap">John G. Whittier</span>.</p>
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Amesbury</span>, 9th, 3d mo., 1867."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>One is reminded by this letter that Wordsworth once said to Dr. Orville
+Dewey, of Boston, that, "although he was known to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> the world only as a
+poet, he had given twelve hours' thought to the condition and prospects
+of society for one to poetry." In a letter read at the third decade
+meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia, Mr.
+Whittier said: "I am not insensible to literary reputation; I love,
+perhaps too well, the praise and good-will of my fellow-men; but I set a
+higher value on my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of
+1833 than on the title-page of any book."</p>
+
+<p>In his earlier years our poet was wholly ignorant of the fact that an
+artist should love beauty for its own sake. The simple-hearted Quaker
+and Puritan farmer-youth thought it almost a sin to spend his time in
+the cultivation of the beautiful. In his dedication of the
+"Supernaturalism of New England" to his sister, he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And knowing how my life hath been<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A weary work of tongue and pen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A long, harsh strife with strong-willed men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thou wilt not chide my turning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To con, at times, an idle rhyme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To pluck a flower from childhood's clime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or listen, at Life's noon-day chime,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the sweet bells of Morning!"<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow!" we say at first. And yet there is something refreshing
+and noble in such a spirit. It is with difficulty that the Germanic mind
+can bring itself to the study of the beautiful as something of co-equal
+worth with the moral. Let us leave that, says the Teuton, to the nation
+whose word for love of art is "virtue." How Whittier would have abhorred
+in his youth and early manhood the following sentiment by one of the
+Latin race:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The arts require idle, delicate minds, not stoics, especially not
+Puritans, easily shocked by dissonance, inclined to sensuous pleasure,
+employing their long periods of leisure, their free reveries, in
+harmoniously arranging, and with no other object but enjoyment, forms,
+colors, and sounds." (Taine's <i>English Literature</i>, II. 332.)</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Or the following from the same work:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The Puritan destroys the artist, stiffens the man, fetters the writer,
+and leaves of artist, man, writer, only a sort of abstract being, the
+slave of a watchword. If a Milton springs up among them, it is because,
+by his wide curiosity, his travels, his comprehensive education, and by
+his independence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> of spirit, loftily adhered to even against the
+sectarians, Milton passes beyond sectarianism." (I. 397, 398.)</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Here is another passage from Whittier on this same subject. It is almost
+a pity to give it, since the author has apparently repudiated the
+sentiment by omitting the lines from his complete works. In the
+introduction to "Supernaturalism of New England" he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"If in some few instances, like Burns in view of his national thistle, I
+have&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Turned my weeding-hook aside,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And spared the symbol dear,'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I have been influenced by the comparatively innocent nature and simple
+poetic beauty of the traditions in question; yet not even for the sake
+of poetry and romance would I confirm in any mind a pernicious
+credulity, or seek to absolve myself from that stern duty which the true
+man owes to his generation, to expose error whenever and wherever he
+finds it."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>One more instance. In one of his sketches he is describing an old custom
+called "Pope Night," which has been kept up in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> Merrimack Valley in
+unbroken sequence from the time of the Guy Fawkes plot. The plot is
+commemorated by bonfires and effigies of the Pope and others, and
+Whittier quotes these lines of a song which is sung on the occasion:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Look here! from Rome<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Pope has come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That fiery serpent dire;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here's the Pope that we have got,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The old promoter of the plot;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll stick a pitchfork in his back,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And throw him in the fire."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier was so broad-minded in regard to all matters pertaining to
+true growth, and withal so conscientious a student of the best
+versification, that is, the most natural, that we soon find him
+striving, at least, to free himself from all these minor faults.</p>
+
+<p>Consequently his mannerisms more and more drop away. He is a born
+preacher. And presently we see in him a decided advance toward the
+delineation of what is simply true and beautiful, without the
+appreciable pause by the way, "to point a moral and adorn a tale." For a
+preacher is not a poet; and true poetic fire must be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> dimmed at once,
+and the divine afflatus be a lack-lustre thing, when appeals by pious
+exhortation are brought in to fill out rhyme and metre. Many of
+Whittier's purely religious poems are the most exquisite and beautiful
+ever written. The tender feeling, the warm-hearted trustfulness, and the
+reverent touch of his hymns speak directly to our hearts. The
+prayer-hymn at the close of "The Brewing of Soma" ("Dear Lord and Father
+of mankind," etc.), and such poems as "At Last" and "The Wish of
+To-day," are unsurpassed in sacred song. Some one has said that in
+Whittier's books we rarely meet with ideas expressed in such perfection
+and idiosyncrasy of manner that ever afterward the same ideas must recur
+to our minds in the words of this author and no other; that is to say,
+there are few dicta, few portable and universally-quoted passages in his
+writings. But exception must be made in favor of his best hymns. Their
+stanzas haunt the mind with their beauty, and you are obliged to learn
+them by heart before you can have peace. These purely religious
+productions show Whittier's work at high-water mark, and as long as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+English language is spoken, they will be employed by those who require a
+vehicle for thought, by which the true worship may be served. There is
+only one poet in the world whose works will not suffer by reading his
+entire poetical productions in consecutive perusal, and that is
+Shakspere. Poetry should be read solely for the refreshment and
+elevation of the mind, and only when one's mood requires it.
+Unquestionably, if so read, all mannerisms that Mr. Whittier might have
+been accused of at an early stage in his authorship would not appear so
+conspicuous.</p>
+
+<p>One of the mannerisms of our poet is his inclination toward the
+four-foot line with consecutive or alternate rhymes. Almost all of
+Burns's poetry is written as just described; and it is evident Mr.
+Whittier's ear was naturally inclined to it, from his early love for
+Burns, his patron saint, as it were, in those then untrodden fields. An
+ear educated by Tennyson, and the other Victorian poets, might be unable
+to grasp even the beauty of thought unless conveyed by their especial
+methods. One is pleased when rhymes are so masked, so subtly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+intertwined, and parted by intervening lines, that each shall seem like
+a delicate echo of that which preceded it,&mdash;the assonance just
+remembered, and no more.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>A minor mannerism of Whittier is his frequent use of the present
+participle in ing, with the verb <i>to be</i>; "is flowing," "is shining,"
+etc. The jingle of the <i>ing</i> evidently caught the poet's rhyme-loving
+ear, and sometimes it really has a very pretty effect. Certain it is he
+has used it with great skill, and given his readers insight into another
+of his versatile gifts.</p>
+
+<p>As to the originality of our poet there is this to be said: He has a
+distinctively national spirit or vision; he is democratic in his
+feelings, and treats of indigenous subjects. His vehicle, his poetic
+forms and handling, he has treated as minor subjects for thought. He is
+democratic, not so powerfully and broadly as Whitman, but more
+unaffectedly and sincerely. He has not the magnificent prophetic vision,
+or Vorstellungskraft, of Whitman, any more than he has the crushing
+mastodon-steps of Whitman's ponderous rhythm. But he has thrown himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
+with trembling ardor and patriotism, into the life of his country. It is
+this fresh, New-World spirit that entitles him to be called original: he
+is non-European. He has not travelled much, nor mingled in the seething
+currents of Western and Southern life; but his strong sympathy has gone
+forth over the entire land. He also reflects faithfully the quiet scenes
+of his own Merrimack Valley. From his descriptions of these scenes we
+receive the impression of freshness and originality; and we recognize a
+master hand that can so portray them as to make us see the same places,
+though only on the printed page.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>One regrets using a critical pen at all in discussing such a writer. It
+would be ungracious to call to a severe account one who places the most
+modest estimate upon his own work, and who has distinctly stated that,
+up to "about the year 1865, his writings were simply episodical,
+something apart from the real object and aim of [his] life." It is hard
+to criticise severely one who is unjust to himself through excess of
+diffident humility. In the exquisite Proem to his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> complete poems he
+would fain persuade us that he cannot breathe such notes as those of&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"The old melodious lays<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which softly melt the ages through,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The songs of Spenser's golden days,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But not so, O gentle minstrel of Essex! There are poems of thine which
+thousands prefer to the best of Spenser's or Sidney's, and which will
+continue to exist as long as beauty is its own excuse for being. Thou
+too hast been in Paradise, to fetch thence armfuls of dewy roses for our
+delight; not mounting thither by the "stairway of surprise," but along
+the common highway of daily duty and noble endeavor, unmindful of the
+dust and heat and chafing burdens, but singing aloud thy songs of lofty
+cheer, all magically intertwined with pictures of wayside flowers, and
+the homely beauty of lowliest things. And thou hast imparted to us the
+"groping of the keys of the heavenly harmonies," that no one who loves
+thy songs, ever loses from his life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>POEMS SERIATIM.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Among the three or four critical papers on Whittier that have up to this
+time been published, there is one that is marked by exceptional vigor;
+namely, the admirable philosophical analysis by Mr. David A. Wasson,
+published in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> for March, 1864. The author gladly
+acknowledges his indebtedness to this paper for several things,&mdash;chiefly
+for its keen <i>aperçu</i> into the nature of Whittier's genius, and the
+proper psychological grouping of his poems. Mr. Wasson's classification
+can hardly be improved upon in its general features. He divides the
+literary life of the poet into three epochs,&mdash;The Struggle for Life, The
+Culture Epoch, and The Epoch of Poetic Realism; and between each of
+these he places transitional periods. The lines of his classification,
+however, are too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> sharply drawn, and the epochs seem too minutely
+subdivided. Moreover, the present writer would add an introductory or
+preparatory period; in other respects it seems to him that the grouping
+is as correct as such mathematical measurements of a poet's development
+can be. Suppose we group and name the poet's mental epochs as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">First Period.&mdash;Introductory. 1830-1833.</span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>During this quiet, purely literary epoch, Whittier published
+"Legends of New England" and "Moll Pitcher," and edited the
+"Literary Remains of Brainard."</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Second Period.&mdash;Storm and Stress. 1833-1853.</span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The beginning of this period was marked by the publication of
+"Justice and Expediency," and during its continuance were written
+most of the anti-slavery productions, the Indian poems, many
+legendary lays and prose pieces, religious lyrics, and "Songs of
+Labor." The latter, being partially free from didacticism, leads
+naturally up to the third period.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Third Period.&mdash;Transition. 1853-1860</span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>This Mr. Wasson calls the epoch of culture and religious doubt, the
+central poems of which are "Chapel of the Hermits" and "Questions
+of Life." We now begin to see a love of art for art's sake, and
+there are fewer moral stump-speeches. The indignation of the
+reformer is giving place to the calm repose of the artist. And such
+ballads as "Mary Garvin" and "Maud Muller" form the introduction to
+the culminating (or fourth) epoch in the poet's creative life.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Fourth Period.&mdash;Religious and Artistic Repose.</span> 1860-</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>During this time have been written nearly all the author's great
+works, namely, his beautiful ballads, as well as "Snow-Bound" and
+"The Tent on the Beach." The literary style is now mature. The
+beautiful is sought for its own sake, both in nature and in lowly
+life. It is a season of trust and <i>naïve</i> simplicity.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The works produced during the Introductory period have already been
+discussed in the biographical portion of this volume.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Before passing rapidly in review some of the more important detached
+poems of the three latter periods (reserving a number of poems for
+consideration by groups), we must be allowed to offer a few criticisms
+on the earlier poems in general, meaning by this the ones published
+previous to the "Songs of Labor" in 1850. These earlier productions are
+to be commended chiefly for two things: (1) the subjects are drawn from
+original and native sources, and (2) the slavery poems are full of moral
+stamina and fiery indignation at oppression. There are single poems of
+great merit and beauty. But the style of most of them is unoriginal,
+being merely an echo of that of the English Lake School. Whittier's
+poetical development has been a steady growth. His genius matured late,
+and in his early poems there is little promise of the exquisite work of
+his riper years, unless it is a distinct indication of his rare power of
+telling a story in verse. It must be remembered that when Whittier began
+to write, American literature had yet to be created. There was not a
+single great American poem, with the exception of Bryant's
+"Thanatopsis."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> The prominent poets of that time&mdash;Percival, Brainard,
+Trumbull, Joel Barlow, Hillhouse, Pierpont, Dana, Sprague&mdash;are all
+forgotten now. The breath of immortality was not upon anything they
+wrote. A national literature is a thing of slow growth. Every writer is
+insensibly influenced by the intellectual tone of his neighbors and
+contemporaries. Judged in the light of his early disadvantages, and
+estimated by the standard of that time, Whittier's first essays are
+deserving of much credit, and they have had a distinct æsthetic and
+moral value in the development of American literature and the American
+character. But their deficiencies are very grave. There is a good deal
+of commonplace, and much extravagance of rhetoric. There are a great
+many "Lines" called forth by circumstances not at all poetical in their
+suggestions. Emotion and rhyme and commonplace incident are not enough
+to make a poem. One cannot embalm the memory of all one's friends in
+verse. In casting about for an explanation of the circumstance that our
+poet has so often chosen tame and uninspiring themes for his poems, we
+reach the conclusion that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> it is due to his solitary and uneventful
+life, and to the subdued and art-chilling atmosphere of his Quaker
+religion. You get, at any rate, no true impression of the intellectual
+breadth of the poet's mind from many of the productions of the period we
+are considering: the theme is too weak to support the poetical structure
+reared upon it. The poems and essays are written by one untoughened and
+unvitalized by varied and cheerful intercourse with men and affairs, a
+state of mind that was changed considerably as Mr. Whittier emerged from
+his semi-obscurity into a larger comprehension of his own powers.</p>
+
+<p>A minor fault of this period is the too frequent interruption of
+explanatory notes, that break and mar the free-flowing melody of
+versified thought. We find the same blemish in Longfellow's early work.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>At the opening of the complete poetical works of Whittier stand two long
+Indian poems, with their war-paint and blood&mdash;like scarlet maples at the
+entrance of an aboriginal forest. The first of these poems, "Mogg
+Megone," is every way inferior to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> the second, or "The Bridal of
+Pennacook." "Mogg Megone" was published in 1836, and "The Bridal of
+Pennacook" in 1848. Mr. Whittier half apologizes for retaining the
+former of these in his complete works. There is, amongst much that,
+eliminated, might not be missed, a certain fresh and realistic diction,
+or nomenclature. It is picturesque, in portions somewhat dramatic and
+thrilling, and now is valuable as a link between the early stage of his
+authorship and the advanced culture of later years. In style it is an
+echo of Scott's "Lady of the Lake" or "Marmion."</p>
+
+<p>In "The Bridal of Pennacook" we have an Indian idyl of unquestionable
+power and beauty, a descriptive poem full of the cool, mossy sweetness
+of mountain landscapes, and although too artificial and subjective for a
+poem of primitive life, yet saturated with the imagery of the wigwam and
+the forest. A favorite article of food with the Indians of Northern Ohio
+was dried bear's-meat dipped in maple syrup. There is a savor of the
+like ferity and sweetness in this poem. It is almost wholly free from
+the strongly-marked faults of "Mogg Megone,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> and (that test of all
+tests) it is pleasant reading. Its two cardinal defects are lack of
+simplicity of treatment, and tenuity or triviality of the subject, or
+plot. The story is sometimes lost sight of in a jungle of verbiage and
+description. In contrasting such a poem with "Hiawatha," we see the
+wisdom of Longfellow in choosing an antique vehicle, or rhythmic style.
+Aborigines have a dialect of their own; the sentences of an Indian brave
+being as abrupt and sharp as the wild screams of an eagle. The set
+speeches of the North American Indians are always full of divers stock
+metaphors about natural scenery, wild animals, totems, and spirits, and
+are so different from those of civilized life that an expert can
+instantly detect a forgery or an imitation, so that all incongruities
+that attribute the complex and refined emotions of civilized life to the
+savage, seriously mar the pleasure of the reader. The descriptions of
+natural scenery in these Indian legends of Mr. Whittier's are fine, as
+all such writing by his facile pen was ever felicitous. And by virtue of
+this descriptive power, these idyls will be held long in grateful
+remembrance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In plan the poem is like the "Decameron," the "Princess," the
+"Canterbury Tales," and "Tales of a Wayside Inn." The different portions
+are supposed to be related by five persons,&mdash;a lawyer, a clergyman, a
+merchant and his daughter, and the poet,&mdash;who are all sight-seeing in
+the White Mountains. The opening description, in blank verse, conveys a
+vague but not very powerful impression of sublimity. The musical
+nomenclature of the red aborigines is finely handled, and such words as
+Pennacook, Babboosuck, Contoocook, Bashaba, and Weetamoo chime out here
+and there along the pages with as silvery a sweetness as the Tuscan
+words in Macaulay's "Lays." At the wedding of Weetamoo we have&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Pike and perch from the Suncook taken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cranberries picked from the Squamscot bog,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog:<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And, drawn from that great stone vase which stands<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the river scooped by a spirit's hands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Garnished with spoons of shell and horn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The following stanza on the heroine, Weetamoo, is a fine one:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Child of the forest!&mdash;strong and free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Slight-robed, with loosely flowing hair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She swam the lake, or climbed the tree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Or struck the flying bird in air.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And, dazzling in the summer noon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The blade of her light oar threw off its shower of spray!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The "Song of Indian Women," at the close of "The Bridal of Pennacook,"
+is admirable for melody, weird and wild beauty, and naturalness. It is a
+lament for the lost Weetamoo, who, unfortunate in her married life, has
+committed suicide by sailing over the rapids in her canoe:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span><span class="i4">"The Dark Eye has left us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">The Spring-bird has flown;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">On the pathway of spirits<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">She wanders alone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Mat wonck kunna-monee!</i>&mdash;We hear it no more!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">O mighty Sowanna!<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Thy gateways unfold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">From thy wigwams of sunset<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Lift curtains of gold!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Mat wonck kunna-monee!</i>&mdash;We see her no more!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There are two minor Indian poems by Whittier that have the true ring;
+namely, the "Truce of Piscataqua" and "Funeral Tree of the Sokokis." The
+latter well-known poem is pitched in as high and solemn a key as
+Platen's "Grab im Busento," a poem similar in theme to Whittier's:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"They heave the stubborn trunk aside,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The firm roots from the earth divide,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rent beneath yawns dark and wide.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And there the fallen chief is laid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In tasselled garbs of skins arrayed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And girded with his wampum-braid."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16"><i>Whittier.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In der wogenleeren Höhlung wühlten sie empor die Erde,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Senkten tief hinein den Leichnam, mit der Rüstung auf dem Pferde.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deckten dann mit Erde wieder ihn und seine stolze Habe."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16"><i>Platen.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In the empty river-bottom hurriedly they dug the death-pit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Deep therein they sank the hero with his armor and his war-steed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Covered then with earth and darkness him and all his splendid trappings.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>When the reader, who has worked gloomily along through Whittier's
+anti-slavery and miscellaneous poems, reaches the "Songs of Labor," he
+feels at once the breath of a fresher spirit,&mdash;as a traveller who has
+been toiling for weary leagues through sandy deserts bares his brow with
+delight to the coolness and shade of a green forest through whose thick
+roof of leaves the garish sunlight scarcely sifts. We feel that in these
+poems a new departure has been made. The wrath of the reformer has
+expended itself, and the poet now returns, with mind elevated and more
+tensely keyed by his moral warfare, to the study of the beautiful in
+native themes and in homely life. "The Shipbuilders," "The Shoemakers,"
+"The Fishermen," and "The Huskers" are genuine songs; and more shame to
+the craftsmen celebrated if they do not get them set to music, and sing
+them while at their work. One cannot help feeling that Walt Whitman's
+call for some one to make songs for American laborers had already been
+met in a goodly degree by these spirited "Songs of Labor." What workman
+would not be glad to carol such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> stanzas as the following, if they were
+set to popular airs?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hurrah! the seaward breezes<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sweep down the bay amain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heave up, my lads, the anchor!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Run up the sail again!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leave to the lubber landsmen<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The rail-car and the steed:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stars of heaven shall guide us,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The breath of heaven shall speed."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><i>The Fishermen.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Ho! workers of the old time styled<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Gentle Craft of Leather!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Young brothers of the ancient guild,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stand forth once more together!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Call out again your long array,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the olden merry manner!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fling out your blazoned banner!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stone<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">How falls the polished hammer!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rap, rap! the measured sound has grown<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A quick and merry clamor.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now shape the sole! now deftly curl<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The glossy vamp around it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And bless the while the bright-eyed girl<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whose gentle fingers bound it!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><i>The Shoemakers.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The publication of "The Chapel of the Hermits" and "Questions of Life,"
+in 1853,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> marks (as has been said) the period of culture and of
+religious doubt,&mdash;doubt which ended in trust. In this period we have
+such genuine undidactic poems as "The Barefoot Boy."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Blessings on thee, little man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With thy turned-up pantaloons,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thy merry whistled tunes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With thy red lip, redder still<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kissed by strawberries on the hill;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the sunshine on thy face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Also, such fine poems as "Flowers in Winter" and "To My Old
+Schoolmaster;" as well as the excellent ballads, "Maud Muller,"
+"Kathleen," and "Mary Garvin."</p>
+
+<p>The period in Whittier's life from about 1858 to 1868 we may call the
+Ballad Decade,<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> for within this time were produced most of his
+immortal ballads. We say immortal, believing that if all else that he
+has written shall perish, his finest ballads will carry his name down to
+a remote posterity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> "The Tent on the Beach" is mainly a series of
+ballads; and "Snow-Bound," although not a ballad, is still a narrative
+poem closely allied to that species of poetry, the difference between a
+ballad and an idyl being that one is made to be sung and the other to be
+read: both narrate events as they occur, and leave to the reader all
+sentiment and reflection.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The finest ballads of Whittier have the power of keeping us in
+breathless suspense of interest until the <i>dénouement</i> or the
+catastrophe, as the case may be. The popularity of "Maud Muller" is well
+deserved. What a rich and mellow translucence it has! How it appeals to
+the universal heart! And yet "The Witch's Daughter" and "Telling the
+Bees" are more exquisite creations than "Maud Muller": they have a
+spontaneity, a subtle pathos, a sublimated sweetness of despair that
+take hold of the very heart-strings, and thus deal with deeper emotions
+than such light, objective ballads as "Maud Muller" and "Skipper
+Ireson's Ride." But the surface grace of the two latter have of course<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+made them the more popular, just as the "Scarlet Letter" finds greater
+favor with most people than does "The House of the Seven Gables,"
+although Hawthorne rightly thought the "Seven Gables" to be his finest
+and subtlest work.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Mark the Chaucerian freshness of the opening stanzas of "The Witch's
+Daughter":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"It was the pleasant harvest time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When cellar-bins are closely stowed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And garrets bend beneath their load,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And the old swallow-haunted barns&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through which the moted sunlight streams.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And winds blow freshly in, to shake<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The red plumes of the roosted cocks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the loose hay-mow's scented locks&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Are filled with summer's ripened stores,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Its odorous grass and barley sheaves,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From their low scaffolds to their eaves."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A companion ballad to "The Witch's Daughter" is "The Witch of Wenham," a
+poem almost equal to it in merit, and like it ending happily. These
+ballads do not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> quite attain the almost supernatural simplicity of
+Wordsworth's "Lucy Gray" and "We are Seven"; but they possess an equal
+interest, excited by the same poetical qualities. "Telling the Bees,"
+however, seems to the writer as purely Wordsworthian as anything
+Wordsworth ever wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>How the tears spring to the eyes in reading this immortal little poem!
+The bee-hives ranged in the garden, the sun "tangling his wings of fire
+in the trees," the dog whining low, the old man "with his cane to his
+chin,"&mdash;we all know the scene: its every feature appeals to our
+sympathies and associations.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"The Double-headed Snake of Newbury" is a whimsical story, in which the
+poet waxes right merry as he relates how&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Far and wide the tale was told,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a snowball growing while it rolled.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And it served, in the worthy minister's eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To paint the primitive serpent by.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Cotton Mather came galloping down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All the way to Newbury town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his eyes agog and his ears set wide,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And his marvellous inkhorn at his side;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stirring the while in the shallow pool<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of his brains for the lore he learned at school,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To garnish the story, with here a streak<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Latin, and there another of Greek:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the tales he heard and the notes he took,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Behold! are they not in his Wonder-Book?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A word about Whittier's "Prophecy of Samuel Sewall." It seems that old
+Judge Sewall made the prophecies of the Bible his favorite study. One of
+his ideas was that America was to be the site of the New Jerusalem.
+Toward the end of his book entitled "Phenomena Quædam Apocalyptica; ...
+or ... a Description of the New Heaven as it makes to those who stand
+upon the New Earth" (1697), he gives utterance to the triumphant
+prophecy that forms the subject of Whittier's poem. His language is so
+quaint that the reader will like to see the passage in Sewall's own
+words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"As long as Plum Island shall faithfully keep the commanded post,
+notwithstanding till the hectoring words and hard blows of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+the proud and boisterous ocean; as long as any salmon or sturgeon shall
+swim in the streams of Merrimac, or any perch or pickerel in Crane Pond;
+as long as the sea-fowl shall know the time of their coming, and not
+neglect seasonably to visit the places of their acquaintance; as long as
+any cattle shall be fed with the grass growing in the meadows, which do
+humbly bow down themselves before Turkey Hill; as long as any sheep
+shall walk upon Old-Town Hills, and shall from thence pleasantly look
+down upon the River Parker, and the fruitful marshes lying beneath; as
+long as any free and harmless doves shall find a white oak or other tree
+within the township, to perch, or feed, or build a careless nest upon,
+and shall voluntarily present themselves to perform the office of
+gleaners after barley-harvest; as long as Nature shall not grow old and
+dote, but shall constantly remember to give the rows of Indian corn
+their education by pairs; so long shall Christians be born there, and
+being first made meet, shall from thence be translated to be made
+partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Moses Coit Tyler, in his "History of American Literature," II., p.
+102 (note), says: "Whittier speaks of Newbury as Sewall's 'native
+town,' but Sewall was born at Horton, England. He also describes
+Sewall as an 'old man,' propped on his staff of age when he made
+this prophecy; but Sewall was then forty-five years old."</p>
+
+<p>There are two or three other ballads in which Whittier is said to have
+made historical blunders. It really does not seem of much importance
+whether he did or did not get the precise facts in each case. The
+important point is that he made beautiful ballads. But it will be right
+to give, in brief, the objections that have been brought against
+"Skipper Ireson's Ride" and "Barbara Frietchie." "The King's Missive"
+will be discussed in another place.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Apropos of Skipper Ireson, Mr. John W. Chadwick has spoken as follows in
+<i>Harper's Monthly</i> for July, 1874:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In one of the queerest corners of the town [Marblehead], there stands a
+house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> as modest as the Lee house was magnificent. So long as he lived
+it was the home of 'Old Flood Oirson,' whose name and fame have gone
+farther and fared worse than any other fact or fancy connected with his
+native town. Plain, honest folk don't know about poetic license, and I
+have often heard the poet's conduct in the matter of Skipper Ireson's
+ride characterized with profane severity. He unwittingly departed from
+the truth in various particulars. The wreck did not, as the ballad
+recites, contain any of 'his own town's-people.' Moreover, four of those
+it did contain <i>were</i> saved by a whale-boat from Provincetown. It was
+off Cape Cod, and not in Chaleur Bay, that the wreck was deserted; and
+the desertion was in this wise: It was in the night that the wreck was
+discovered. In the darkness and the heavy sea it was impossible to give
+assistance. When the skipper went below, he ordered the watch to lie by
+the wreck till 'dorning'; but the watch wilfully disobeyed, and
+afterward, to shield themselves, laid all the blame upon the skipper.
+Then came the tarring and feathering. The women, whose <i>rôle</i> in the
+ballad is so striking,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> had nothing to do with it. The vehicle was not a
+cart, but a dory; and the skipper, instead of being contrite, said, 'I
+thank you for your ride.' I asked one of the skipper's contemporaries
+what the effect was on the skipper. 'Cowed him to death,' said he,
+'cowed him to death.' He went skipper again the next year, but never
+afterward. He had been dead only a year or two when Whittier's ballad
+appeared. His real name was not Floyd, as Whittier supposes, but
+Benjamin, 'Flood' being one of those nicknames that were not the
+exception, but the rule, in the old fishing-days. For many years before
+his death the old man earned a precarious living by dory-fishing in the
+bay, and selling his daily catch from a wheelbarrow. When old age and
+blindness overtook him, and his last trip was made, his dory was hauled
+up into the lane before his house, and there went to rot and ruin....
+The hoarse refrain of Whittier's ballad is the best-known example of the
+once famous Marblehead dialect, and it is not a bad one. To what extent
+this dialect was peculiar to Marblehead it might be difficult to
+determine. Largely, no doubt, it was inherited from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> English ancestors.
+Its principal delight consisted in pronouncing <i>o</i> for <i>a</i>, and <i>a</i> for
+<i>o</i>. For example, if an old-fashioned Marbleheader wished to say he 'was
+born in a barn,' he would say, he 'was barn in a born.' The <i>e</i> was also
+turned into <i>a</i>, and even into <i>o</i>, and the <i>v</i> into <i>w</i>. 'That vessel's
+stern' became 'that 'wessel's starn,' or 'storn.' I remember a
+school-boy declaiming from Shakspere, 'Thou little walliant, great in
+willany.' There was a great deal of shortening. The fine name
+Crowninshield became Grounsel, and Florence became Flurry, and a
+Frenchman named Blancpied found himself changed into Blumpy. Endings in
+<i>une</i> and <i>ing</i> were alike changed into <i>in</i>. Misfortune was misfartin',
+and fishing was always fishin'. There were words peculiar to the place.
+One of these was planchment for ceiling. Crim was another, meaning to
+shudder with cold, and there was an adjective, crimmy. Still another was
+<i>clitch</i>, meaning to stick badly, surely an onomatopoetic word that
+should be naturalized before it is too late. Some of the swearing, too,
+was neither by the throne nor footstool, such as 'Dahst my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> eyes!' and
+'Godfrey darmints.' The ancient dialect in all its purity is now seldom
+used. It crops out here and there sometimes where least expected, and
+occasionally one meets with some old veteran whose speech has lost none
+of the ancient savor."</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Now for "Barbara Frietchie." The incident of the poem was given to
+Whittier by the novelist, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, whose letter we
+append. The philanthropist, Dorothea Dix, investigated the case in
+Frederick, and she says that Barbara did wave the flag, etc. An army
+officer also made affidavit of the truth of the lines. A young Southern
+soldier has declared that he was present, and that his was one of the
+shots that hit the flagstaff!</p>
+
+<p>On the other side are Samuel Tyler and Jacob Engelbrecht, the latter an
+old and greatly respected citizen of Frederick, and living directly
+opposite Barbara's house. Jacob wrote to the Baltimore <i>Sun</i>, saying
+that Stonewall Jackson's corps marched through another street, and did
+not approach Dame Frietchie's house at all. Lee's column did pass it, he
+says; but he, who stood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> watching at his window, saw no flag whatever at
+<i>her</i> window.</p>
+
+<p>He says that when ten days later General McClellan passed through the
+town she did exhibit a flag.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, General Jubal Early comes upon the witness stand, and testifies
+that as the Southern troops passed through Frederick, there were only
+two cases of waving of Union flags; one of these was by a little girl,
+about ten years old, who stood on the platform of a house and waved
+incessantly a little "candy flag," and cried in a dull, monotonous
+voice: "Hurrah for the Stars and Stripes! Down with the Stars and Bars!"
+No one molested her. The other case was that of a coarse,
+slovenly-looking woman, who rushed up to the entrance of an alley and
+waved a dirty United States flag.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"The Pipes at Lucknow" is a poem full of martial fire and lyric
+rush,&mdash;the subject a capital one for a poet. A little band of English,
+besieged in a town in the heart of India, and full of despair, hear in
+the distance the sweetest sound that ever fell upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> their ears, namely,
+the shrill pibroch of the MacGregor Clan; and&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"When the far-off dust-cloud<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To plaided legions grew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full tenderly and blithesomely<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The pipes of rescue blew!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Another group of ballads comprises "Cobbler Keezar's Vision," "Amy
+Wentworth," and "The Countess."</p>
+
+<p>In the first of these, old Cobbler Keezar, of the early Puritan times,
+by virtue of a mystic lapstone, sees a vision of our age of religious
+tolerance, and wonders greatly thereat:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Keezar sat on the hillside<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Upon his cobbler's form,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a pan of coals on either hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To keep his waxed-ends warm.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And there, in the golden weather,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">He stitched and hammered and sung;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the brook he moistened his leather,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the pewter mug his tongue."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The ballad of "Amy Wentworth" treats of the same subject as "Among The
+Hills,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> namely, a superior woman, of the white-handed caste, falling in
+love with and marrying a broad-shouldered, brown-handed hero, with a
+right manly heart and brain.</p>
+
+<p>Many and many a poem of Whittier's is spoiled by its too great
+length,&mdash;a thing that is fatal in a lyric. The long prelude to "Amy
+Wentworth" should have been omitted.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The scene of the lovely poem entitled "The Countess" is laid in Rocks
+Village, a part of East Haverhill, and lying on the Merrimack, where&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The river's steel-blue crescent curves<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">To meet, in ebb and flow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The single broken wharf that serves<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For sloop and gundelow.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With salt sea-scents along its shores<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The heavy hay-boats crawl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The long antennæ of their oars<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In lazy rise and fall.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Along the gray abutment's wall<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The idle shad-net dries;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The toll-man in his cobbler's stall<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Sits smoking with closed eyes."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whittier dedicates his poem to his father's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> family physician, Elias
+Weld, of Rocks Village. The story which forms the subject of the poem is
+a romantic one, and exquisitely has our poet embalmed it in verse. From
+a sketch by Rebecca I. Davis, of East Haverhill, the following facts
+relating to the personages that figure in the poem have been culled:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The Countess was Miss Mary Ingalls, daughter of Henry and Abigail
+Ingalls, of Rocks Village. She was born in 1786, and is still remembered
+by a few old inhabitants as a young girl of remarkable beauty. She was
+of medium height, had long golden curls, violet eyes, fair complexion,
+and rosy cheeks, and was exceedingly modest and lovable. It was in the
+year 1806 that a little company of French exiles fled from the Island of
+Guadaloupe on account of a bloody rebellion or uprising of the
+inhabitants. Among the fugitives were Count Francis de Vipart and Joseph
+Rochemont de Poyen. The company reached Newburyport. The two gentlemen
+just mentioned settled at Rocks Village, and both married there. Mary
+Ingalls was only a laborer's daughter, and of course her marriage with
+the count<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> created a sensation in the simple, rustic community. The
+count was a pleasant, stately man, and a fine violinist. The bridal
+dress, says Miss Davis, was of a pink satin, with an overdress of white
+lace; her slippers also were of white satin. The count delighted to
+lavish upon her the richest apparel, yet nothing spoiled the sweet
+modesty of her disposition. After one short year of happy married life
+the lovely wife died. Assiduous attention to a sick mother had brought
+on consumption. In the village God's-acre her gray tombstone is already
+covered with moss.</p>
+
+<p>The count returned to his native island overwhelmed with grief. In after
+years, however, he married again. When he died he was interred in the
+family burial-place of the De Viparts at Bordeaux. He left several
+children.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Mr. Stedman, in his fine synthetic survey of American poetry, published
+in <i>The Century</i>, has remarked that most of our early poetry and
+painting is full of landscape. The loveliest season in America is the
+autumn, when, as Whittier beautifully says, the woods<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> "wear their robes
+of praise, the south winds softly sigh,"&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And sweet, calm days in golden haze<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Melt down the amber sky."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>We have plenty of idyls of autumn color, like Buchanan Read's "Closing
+Scene," and portions of Longfellow's "Hiawatha." But American winter
+landscapes are as poetical as those of autumn.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> It is probable that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+the scarcity of snow-idyls hitherto is due to the supposed cheerlessness
+of the snow. But with the rapid multiplication of winter comforts, our
+nature-worship is cautiously broadening so as to include even the stern
+beauty of winter. There are already a good many signs of this in
+literature. We have had, of late, lovely little snow-and-winter
+vignettes in prose by John Burroughs of New York, and Edith Thomas of
+Ohio; and there is plenty of room for further study of winter in other
+regions of the United States. The most delicate bit of realistic winter
+poetry in literature is Emerson's "Snow-Storm." Mr. Whittier is an
+ardent admirer of that writer&mdash;as what poet is not?&mdash;and his own
+productions show frequent traces of Emersonianisms. He has prefixed to
+"Snow-Bound" a quotation from the "Snow-Storm," and there can scarcely
+be a doubt that to the countless obligations we all owe Emerson must be
+added this: that he inspired the writing of Whittier's finest poem, and
+the best idyl of American rural life. It is too complex and diffusive
+fully to equal in artistic purity and plastic proportion the "Cotter's
+Saturday Night" of Burns; but it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> is much richer than that poem in
+felicitous single epithets, which, like little wicket doors, open up to
+the eye of memory many a long-forgotten picture of early life.</p>
+
+<p>"Snow-Bound" was published in 1860, and was written, Mr. Whittier has
+said, "to beguile the weariness of a sick-chamber." The poet has obeyed
+the canon of Lessing, and instead of giving us dead description wholly,
+has shown us his characters in action, and extended his story over three
+days and the two intervening nights,&mdash;that is to say, the main action
+covers that time: the whole time mentioned in the poem is a week. It is
+unnecessary to give here any further account of the idyl than has
+already been furnished in the account of Whittier's boyhood.</p>
+
+<p>"The Tent on the Beach" is a cluster of ballads. In accordance with a
+familiar fiction, they are supposed to be sung, or told, by several
+persons, in this case three, namely, the poet himself, "a lettered
+magnate" (James T. Fields), and a traveller (Bayard Taylor). All of the
+poems are readable, and many of them are to be classed among Whittier's
+best lyrics. "The Wreck of Rivermouth,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> "The Changeling," and
+"Kallundborg Church" are masterpieces in the line of ballads. In "The
+Dead Ship of Harpswell" we have the fine phrase,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O hundred-harbored Maine!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whittier has now become almost a perfect master of verbal melody.
+Hearken to this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oho!" she muttered, "ye're brave to-day!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I hear the little waves laugh and say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'The broth will be cold that waits at home;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For it's one to go, but another to come!'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There is a light and piquant humor about some of the interludes of the
+"Tent on the Beach." The song in the last of these contains a striking
+and original stanza concerning the ocean:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Its waves are kneeling on the strand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As kneels the human knee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Their white locks bowing to the sand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The priesthood of the sea!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Among the Hills" is a little farm-idyl, or love-idyl, of the New
+Hampshire mountain land, and bearing some resemblance to Tennyson's
+"Gardener's Daughter." It is an excellent specimen of the poems of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+Whittier that reach the popular heart, and engage its sympathies. In the
+remotest farm-houses of the land you are almost sure to find among their
+few books a copy of Whittier's Poems, well-thumbed and soiled with use.
+The opening description of the prelude to "Among the Hills" could not be
+surpassed by Bion or Theocritus. In this poem a fresh interest is
+excited in the reader by the fact that the city woman falls in love with
+a manly farmer, thus happily reversing the old, old story of the city
+man wooing and winning the rustic beauty. The farmer accuses the fair
+city maid of coquetry. She replies:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Nor frock nor tan can hide the man;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And see you not, my farmer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How weak and fond a woman waits<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Behind this silken armor?<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'I love you: on that love alone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And not my worth, presuming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will you not trust for summer fruit<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The tree in May-day blooming?'<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Alone the hangbird overhead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His hair-swung cradle straining,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Looked down to see love's miracle,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The giving that is gaining."<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>In "Lines on a Fly-Leaf," the author of "Snow-Bound" gives in his hearty
+adherence to that movement for the elevation of woman, and the securing
+of her rights as a human being, which is perhaps the most significant
+and important of the many agitations of this agitated age.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The poem "Miriam," like "The Preacher," is one of those long sermons, or
+meditations in verse, which Whittier loves to spin out of his mind in
+solitude. It contains in "Shah Akbar" a fine Oriental ballad.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The narrative poem called "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim," published in 1872,
+has no striking poetical merit, but is valuable and readable for the
+pleasant light in which it sets forth the doings of the quaint people of
+Germantown and the Wissahickon, near Philadelphia, nearly two hundred
+years ago. It introduces us to the homes and hearts of the little
+settlements of German Quakers under Francis Daniel Pastorius, the
+Mystics under the leadership of Magister Johann Kelpius, and the
+Mennonites under their various leaders. "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim" is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> a
+poem for Quakers, for Philadelphians who love their great park and its
+Wissahickon drives, and for antiquarian historical students. We may
+regret, if we choose, that the poet has not succeeded in embalming the
+memory of the Germantown Quakers in such felicitous verse as other poets
+have sung the virtues and ways of the Puritans, but we cannot deny that
+he has garnished with the flowers of poetry a dry historical subject,
+and so earned the gratitude of a goodly number of students and scholars.</p>
+
+<p>In "The King's Missive, and Other Poems," published in 1881, the most
+notable piece is "The Lost Occasion," a poem on Daniel Webster, finer
+even than the much-admired "Ichabod," published many years previously.
+"The Lost Occasion" is pitched in a high, solemn, and majestic strain.
+It is a superb eulogy, full of magnanimity and generous forgiveness.
+Listen to a few stanzas:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"Thou<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom the rich heavens did endow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With eyes of power and Jove's own brow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With all the massive strength that fills<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy home-horizon's granite hills,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Whose words, in simplest home-spun clad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The Saxon strength of Caedmon had,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sweet with persuasion, eloquent<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In passion, cool in argument,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As fell the Norse god's hammer blows,<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Too soon for us, too soon for thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beside thy lonely Northern sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where long and low the marsh-lands spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Laid wearily down thy august head."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The poem of "The King's Missive" calls for such extended discussion that
+a brief chapter shall be devoted to it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE KING'S MISSIVE.</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Under the great hill sloping bare</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>To cove and meadow and Common lot,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>In his council chamber and oaken chair,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott.</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>So run the opening lines of the historical poem contributed by Whittier
+to the first volume of the Memorial History of Boston (1880). While the
+governor is thus sitting, in comes Clerk Rawson with the unwelcome news
+that banished Quaker Shattuck, of Salem, has returned from abroad. The
+choleric governor swears that he will now hew in pieces the pestilent,
+ranting Quakers. Presently Shattuck is ushered in: "Off with the knave's
+hat," says the governor. As they strike off his hat he smilingly holds
+out the Missive, or mandamus, of Charles II. The governor immediately
+asks him to cover, and humbly removes his own hat. The king's letter
+commands him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> to cease persecuting the Quakers. After consultation with
+the deputy governor, Bellingham, he obeys, and the then imprisoned
+Quakers file out of jail with words of praise on their lips.</p>
+
+<p>The poem fascinates us, for the incident is dramatic, and focusses in a
+single picturesque situation all the features of that little historical
+episode of two hundred years ago, <i>i. e.</i>, the persecution of the
+Quakers by the Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A brief setting
+forth of the facts connected with this persecution will not only be full
+of intrinsic interest, but is indispensable to a right understanding of
+the Quaker poet's inherited character, as well as to a comprehension of
+his prose and poetry. One whose ancestors have been persecuted for
+generations will inherit a loathing of oppression, as Whittier has done.
+And this hatred of tyranny will be intensified in the case of one who is
+thoroughly read in the literature of that persecution, and is in quick
+and intimate sympathy with the victims, as Whittier is.</p>
+
+<p>But first a word more about the "King's Missive." Joseph Besse, in his
+"Collection<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers" (a sort of
+"Fox's Book of Martyrs," in two huge antique volumes), says [II., p.
+226] that the principal instrument in procuring the royal mandamus
+(styled by Whittier the King's Missive) was Edward Burroughs,<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> who
+went to the king and told him that "There was a Vein of innocent Blood
+open'd in his Dominions, which if it were not stopt might over-run all.
+To which the king replied, 'But I will stop that Vein.'" Accordingly, in
+the autumn of 1661, Samuel Shattuck was selected to bear a letter to
+America. The London Friends hired Ralph Goldsmith, also a Friend, to
+convey Shattuck to his destination. They paid him £300 for the service.
+The ship entered Boston Harbor on a Sunday in the latter part of
+November, 1661.</p>
+
+<p>"The Townsmen," says Besse, "seeing a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> Ship with <i>English</i> Colours, soon
+came on board, and asked for the Captain? <i>Ralph Goldsmith</i> told them,
+<i>He was the Commander</i>. They asked, <i>Whether he had any Letters</i>? He
+answered, <i>Yes</i>. But withal told them, <i>He would not deliver them that
+Day</i>. So they returned on shore again, and reported, that <i>There were
+many</i> Quakers <i>come, and that</i> Samuel Shattock (who they knew had been
+banished on pain of Death) <i>was among them</i>. But they knew nothing of
+his Errand or Authority. Thus all was kept close, and none of the Ship's
+Company suffered to go on shore that Day. Next morning <i>Ralph
+Goldsmith</i>, the Commander, with <i>Samuel Shattock</i>, the King's Deputy,
+went on shore, and sending the Boat back to the Ship, they two went
+directly through the Town to the Governour's House, and knockt at the
+Door: He sending a Man to know their Business, they sent him Word, that
+<i>Their Message was from the King of</i> England, <i>and that they would
+deliver it to none but himself</i>. Then they were admitted to go in, and
+the Governour came to them, and commanded <i>Samuel Shattock's</i> Hat to be
+taken off, and having received the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> Deputation and the <i>Mandamus</i>, he
+laid off his own Hat; and ordering Shattock's Hat to be given him again,
+perused the Papers, and then went out to the Deputy-Governour's, bidding
+the King's Deputy and the Master of the Ship to follow him: Being come
+to the Deputy-Governour, and having consulted him, he returned to the
+aforesaid two Persons and said, <i>We shall obey his Majesty's Command</i>.
+After this, the Master of the Ship gave Liberty to his Passengers to
+come on shore, which they did, and had a religious Meeting with their
+Friends of the Town, where they returned Praises to God for his Mercy
+manifested in this wonderful Deliverance."</p>
+
+<p>The persecution, it is true, only ceased for about a year (the next
+recorded whipping-order bearing date of December 22, 1662). But the
+Quakers were greatly encouraged by the interposition in their favor.</p>
+
+<p>In an address before the Massachusetts Historical Society, Dr. George E.
+Ellis, of Boston, read a paper criticising Mr. Whittier's "King's
+Missive." This address was published in the Proceedings of the Society
+for March, 1881. In the "Memorial History<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> of Boston" [I., p. 180] he
+asserts that the Quakers were all "of low rank, of mean breeding, and
+illiterate." He says that they courted persecution, and that they were a
+pestilent brood of ranters, disturbers of the public peace, and dreaded
+by the leaders of the infant Commonwealth as they would have dreaded the
+cholera. He quotes Roger Williams, who wrote of the Quakers that they
+were "insufferably proud and contentious," and advised a "due and
+moderate restraint of their incivilities." Dr. Ellis, it is true, takes
+the theoretical ground of "the equal folly and culpability of both
+parties in the tragedy," but seems entirely to nullify this statement by
+his apparently unbiassed, but really partisan treatment of the subject.
+When you have finished his paper you perceive that the impression left
+on your mind is that the really bitter and unrelenting Puritan
+persecutors were long-suffering, angelic natures, while their victims,
+the Quakers, were mere gallows' dogs. His theoretical position is summed
+up in the following words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"The crowning folly or iniquity in the course of the Puritans was in
+following up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> their penal inflictions, through banishments,
+imprisonments, fines, scourgings, and mutilations, to the execution on
+the gallows of four martyr victims. But what shall we say of the
+persistency, the exasperating contemptuousness and defiance, the
+goading, maddening obstinacy, and reproaching invectives of those who
+drove the magistrates, against their will, to vindicate their own
+insulted authority, and to stain our annals with innocent
+blood?"&mdash;Memorial History of Boston, I., 1882.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Dr. Ellis is right in holding that some of the Quakers were gadflies of
+obstinacy, and full of self-righteous pride; but he fails to tell us of
+the patience, Christian sweetness, and meekness of character of the
+majority of them; and it is only when we turn to the pages of Fox and
+Besse that we see the inadequate character of such a picture as that
+drawn by Dr. Ellis. In the plain, <i>naïve</i> annals of Besse, the
+hard-heartedness and haughty pride of the Puritan magistrates (traits
+still amply represented in their descendants) are thrown into the most
+striking relief. They glower over their victims like tigers; they are
+choked with their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> passions; they spurn excuses and palliatives; they
+demand blood.</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Boston Daily Advertiser</i> for March 29, 1881, Mr. Whittier
+published a long reply to Dr. Ellis, in which he fortified the positions
+taken by him in his ballad, showing that he did not mean to hold up
+Charles II. as a consistent friend of toleration, and that there must
+have been a general jail delivery in consequence of the receipt of the
+mandamus. He says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The charge that the Quakers who suffered were 'vagabonds' and
+'ignorant, low fanatics,' is unfounded in fact. Mary Dyer, who was
+executed, was a woman of marked respectability. She had been the friend
+and associate of Sir Henry Vane and the ministers Wheelwright and
+Cotton. The papers left behind by the three men who were hanged show
+that they were above the common class of their day in mental power and
+genuine piety. John Rous, who, in execution of his sentence, had his
+right ear cut off by the constable in the Boston jail, was of
+gentlemanly lineage, the son of Colonel Rous of the British army, and
+himself the betrothed of a high-born and cultivated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> young English lady.
+Nicholas Upsall was one of Boston's most worthy and substantial
+citizens, yet was driven in his age and infirmities, from his home and
+property, into the wilderness."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier further remarks:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Dr. Ellis has been a very generous, as well as ingenious defender of
+the Puritan clergy and government, and his labors in this respect have
+the merit of gratuitous disinterestedness. Had the very worthy and
+learned gentleman been a resident in the Massachusetts colony in 1660,
+one of his most guarded doctrinal sermons would have brought down upon
+him the wrath of clergy and magistracy. His Socinianism would have
+seemed more wicked than the 'inward light' of the Quakers; and, had he
+been as 'doggedly obstinate' as Servetus at Geneva (as I do him the
+justice to think he would have been), he might have hung on the same
+gallows with the Quakers, or the same shears which clipped the ears of
+Holder, Rous, and Copeland might have shorn off his own."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Let us look a little more closely at the evidence on both sides.</p>
+
+<p>In the fourth chapter of the seventh book<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> of Cotton Mather's "Magnalia"
+we have a specimen of Quaker rant. After stating that he is opposed to
+the capital punishment of Quakers, but advises shaving of the head, or
+blood-letting, the proud and scornful old doctor concludes as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<i>Reader</i>, I can foretell what usage I shall find among the <i>Quakers</i>
+for this chapter of our <i>church-history</i>; for a worthy man that writes
+of them has observed, <i>for pride and hypocrisie, and hellish reviling
+against the painful ministers of Christ, I know no people can match
+them</i>. Yea, prepare, friend <i>Mather</i>, to be assaulted with such language
+as <i>Fisher</i> the Quaker, in his pamphlets, does bestow upon such men as
+<i>Dr. Owen; thou fiery fighter and green-headed trumpeter; thou hedgehog
+and grinning dog; thou bastard that tumbled out of the mouth of the
+Babilonish bawd; thou mole; thou tinker; thou lizzard; thou bell of no
+metal, but the tone of a kettle; thou wheelbarrow; thou whirlpool; thou
+whirlegig. O thou firebrand; thou adder and scorpion; thou louse; thou
+cow-dung; thou moon-calf; thou ragged tatterdemallion; thou Judas; thou
+livest in philosophy and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> logick which are of the devil</i>. And then let
+<i>Penn</i> the Quaker add, Thou gormandizing Priest, one of the abominable
+tribe; <i>thou bane of reason, and beast of the earth; thou best to be
+spared of mankind; thou mountebank priest</i>. These are the very words, (I
+wrong them not!) which they vomit out against the best men in the
+<i>English</i> nation, that have been so hardy as to touch their <i>light
+within</i>: but let the <i>quills</i> of these <i>porcupines</i> fly as fast as they
+will, I shall not feel them! Yea, every <i>stone</i> that these <i>Kildebrands</i>
+throw at me, I will wear as a <i>pearl</i>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>As an offset to this quaint and amusing tirade, and to the charges of
+Dr. Ellis, one may read the following words of Whittier, and, by
+striking a general average between all the speakers, get a tolerable
+approximation to the exact truth. Mr. Whittier says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Nor can it be said that the persecution grew out of the 'intrusion,'
+'indecency,' and 'effrontery' of the persecuted.</p>
+
+<p>"It owed its origin to the settled purpose of the ministers and leading
+men of the colony to permit no difference of opinion on religious
+matters. They had banished the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> Baptists, and whipped at least one of
+them. They had hunted down Gorton and his adherents; they had imprisoned
+Dr. Child, an Episcopalian, for petitioning the General Court for
+toleration. They had driven some of their best citizens out of their
+jurisdiction, with Ann Hutchinson, and the gifted minister, Wheelwright.
+Any dissent on the part of their own fellow-citizens was punished as
+severely as the heresy of strangers.</p>
+
+<p>"The charge of 'indecency' comes with ill-grace from the authorities of
+the Massachusetts Colony. The first Quakers who arrived in Boston, Ann
+Austin and Mary Fisher, were arrested on board the ship before landing,
+their books taken from them and burned by the constable, and they
+themselves brought before Deputy Governor Bellingham, in the absence of
+Endicott. This astute magistrate ordered them to be <i>stripped naked and
+their bodies to be carefully examined, to see if there was not the
+Devil's mark on them as witches</i>. They were then sent to the jail, their
+cell window was boarded up, and they were left without food or light,
+until the master of the vessel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> that brought them was ordered to take
+them to Barbadoes. When Endicott returned, he thought they had been
+treated too leniently, and declared that he would have had them whipped.</p>
+
+<p>"After this, almost every town in the province was favored with the
+spectacle of aged and young women stripped to the middle, tied to a
+cart-tail and dragged through the streets and scourged without mercy by
+the constable's whip. It is not strange that these atrocious
+proceedings, in two or three instances, unsettled the minds of the
+victims. Lydia Wardwell of Hampton, who, with her husband, had been
+reduced to almost total destitution by persecution, was summoned by the
+church of which she had been a member to appear before it to answer to
+the charge of non-attendance. She obeyed the call by appearing in the
+unclothed condition of the sufferers whom she had seen under the
+constable's whip. For this she was taken to Ipswich and stripped to the
+waist, tied to a rough post, which tore her bosom as she writhed under
+the lash, and severely scourged to the satisfaction of a crowd of
+lookers-on at the tavern. One,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> and only one, other instance is adduced
+in the person of Deborah Wilson of Salem. She had seen her friends and
+neighbors scourged naked through the street, among them her brother, who
+was banished on pain of death. She, like all Puritans, had been educated
+in the belief of the plenary inspiration of Scripture, and had brooded
+over the strange 'signs' and testimonies of the Hebrew prophets. It
+seemed to her that the time had arrived for some similar demonstration,
+and that it was her duty to walk abroad in the disrobed condition to
+which her friends had been subjected, as a sign and warning to the
+persecutors. Whatever of 'indecency' there was in these cases was
+directly chargeable upon the atrocious persecution. At the door of the
+magistrates and ministers of Massachusetts must be laid the insanity of
+the conduct of these unfortunate women.</p>
+
+<p>"But Boston, at least, had no voluntary Godivas. The only disrobed women
+in its streets were made so by Puritan sheriffs and constables, who
+dragged them amidst jeering crowds at the cart-tail, stripped for the
+lash, which in one instance laid open with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> a ghastly gash the bosom of
+a young mother!"<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We may conclude this discussion by giving a few instances of Quaker
+persecutions, in addition to those mentioned by Mr. Whittier. In England
+the members of the sect suffered a whole Jeremiad of woes: they were
+dragged through the streets by the hair of the head, incarcerated in
+loathsome dungeons, beaten over the head with muskets, pilloried,
+whipped at the cart's-tail, branded, their tongues bored with red-hot
+irons, and their property confiscated to the State. One First Day,
+George Fox went into the "steeple-house" of Tickhill. "I found," he says
+in his Journal, "the priest and most of the chief of the parish together
+in the chancel. I went up to them and began to speak; but they
+immediately fell upon me; the clerk got up with his Bible, as I was
+speaking, and struck me in the face with it, so that my face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> gushed out
+with blood, and I bled exceedingly in the steeple-house. The people
+cried, 'Let us have him out of the church.' When they had got me out,
+they beat me exceedingly, threw me down, and threw me over a hedge. They
+afterwards dragged me through a house into the street, stoning and
+beating me as they dragged me along; so that I was all over besmeared
+with blood and dirt. They got my hat from me, which I never had again."
+Fox was at various times thrust into dungeons filled ankle-deep with
+ordure, and was shot at, beaten with stones and clubs, etc.</p>
+
+<p>One evening he passed through Cambridge: "When I came into the town, the
+scholars, hearing of me, were up and exceeding rude. I kept on my
+horse's back, and rode through them in the Lord's power; but they
+unhorsed Amor Stoddart before he could get to the inn. When we were in
+the inn, they were so rude in the courts and in the streets, that the
+miners, colliers, and carters could never be ruder. The people of the
+house asked us what we would have for supper. 'Supper!' said I, 'were it
+not that the Lord's power is over them, these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> rude scholars look as if
+they would pluck us in pieces and make a supper of us.' They knew I was
+so against the trade of preaching, which they were there as apprentices
+to learn, that they raged as bad as ever Diana's craftsmen did against
+Paul."</p>
+
+<p>In the declaration made by the Quakers to Charles II. it appears that in
+New England, up to that time, "thirty Quakers had been whipped;
+twenty-two had been banished on pain of death if they returned;
+twenty-five had been banished upon the penalty of being whipped, or
+having their ears cut, or being branded in the hand if they returned;
+three had their right ears shorn off by the hangman; one had been
+branded in the hand with the letter H; many had been imprisoned; many
+fined; and three had been put to death, and one (William Leddra) was
+soon after executed."</p>
+
+<p>Besse, in his "Sufferings of the Quakers," states that one William
+Brand, a man in years, was so brutally whipped by an infuriated jailer,
+in Salem, that "His Back and Arms were bruised and black, and the Blood
+hanging as it were in Bags under his Arms, and so into one was his Flesh
+beaten that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> Sign of a particular Blow could not be seen." And the
+surgeon said that "His Flesh would rot from off his Bones e'er the
+bruized Parts would be brought to digest." To all this must be added the
+humiliating fact that four persons were hanged on Boston Common for the
+crime of being Quakers. Their names were Marmaduke Stephenson, William
+Robinson, William Leddra, and Mary Dyer.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>POEMS BY GROUPS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Besides "The King's Missive," Whittier has written numerous other Quaker
+poems, the finest of which are "Cassandra Southwick," "The Old South,"
+and the spirited, ringing ballad of "The Exiles." In the first two of
+these the poet shows a delicate intuition into the feelings that might
+have prompted the Quaker women who witnessed for the truth in Boston two
+hundred years ago.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>There is nothing in American literature, unless it be the anti-slavery
+papers of Thoreau, which equals the sevenfold-heated moral indignation
+of Whittier's poems on slavery,&mdash;a wild melody in them like that of
+Highland pibrochs; now plaintively and piteously pleading, and now
+burning with passion, irony, satire, scorn; here glowing with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> tropical
+imagery, as in "Toussaint L'Ouverture," and "The Slaves of Martinique,"
+and there rising into lofty moral atmospheres of faith when all seemed
+dark and hopeless. Every one knows the power of a "cry" (a song like
+"John Brown's Body," or a pithy sentence or phrase) in any great popular
+movement. There can be no doubt that Whittier's poems did as much as
+Garrison's editorials to key up the minds of people to the point
+required for action against slavery. Some of these anti-slavery pieces
+still possess great intrinsic beauty and excellence, as, for example,
+"Toussaint L'Ouverture," "The Farewell," "The Slave Ships," and "The
+Slaves of Martinique." In these four productions there is little or none
+of the dreary didacticism of most of the anti-slavery poems, but a
+simple statement of pathetic, beautiful fact, which is left to make its
+own impression. Another powerful group of these slavery poems is
+constituted by the scornful, mock-congratulatory productions, such as
+"The Hunters of Men," "Clerical Oppressors," "The Yankee Girl," "A
+Sabbath Scene," "Lines suggested by Reading a State Paper wherein the
+Higher Law is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> Invoked to Sustain the Lower One," and "The Pastoral
+Letter."<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> The sentences in these stanzas cut like knives and sting
+like shot. The poltroon clergy, especially, looks pitiful, most pitiful,
+in the light of Whittier's noble scorn and contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"Randolph of Roanoke" is a noble tribute to a political enemy by one who
+admired in him the man. The long poem, "The Panorama," must be
+considered a failure, poetically speaking. Its showman's pictures and
+preachings do not get hold of our sympathies very strongly.</p>
+
+<p>The Tyrtaean fire in Whittier was so thoroughly kindled by the
+anti-slavery conflict that it has never wholly gone out. All through his
+life his hand has instinctively sought the old war-lyre whenever a voice
+was to be raised in honor of Freedom. The formal close of the
+anti-slavery period with him may be said to be marked by "Laus Deo," a
+triumphant, almost ecstatic shout of joy uttered on hearing the bells
+ring when the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery was passed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Naturally, the war poems of a Quaker&mdash;and even of our martial
+Whittier&mdash;could not be equal to his peace poems. Still there are many
+strong passages in the lyrics written by Whittier during the civil war
+of 1861-65. At first he counsels that we allow disunion rather than
+kindle the lurid fires of fratricidal war:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">"Let us press<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The golden cluster on our brave old flag<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In closer union, and, if numbering less,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><i>A Word for the Hour.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So he wrote in January, 1861. But afterward he becomes a pained but
+sadly approving spectator of the inevitable conflict:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Then Freedom sternly said: 'I shun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No strife nor pang beneath the sun,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When human rights are staked and won.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;*<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The moor of Marston felt my tread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through Jersey snows the march I led,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My voice Magenta's charges sped.'"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i12"><i>The Watchers.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As a Friend, he and his brethren could not personally engage in war. But
+they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> could minister to the sick and dying, and care for the slave.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"THE SLAVE IS OURS!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>he says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And we may tread the sick-bed floors<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where strong men pine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, down the groaning corridors,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pour freely from our liberal stores<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The oil and wine."<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8"><i>Anniversary Poem.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Barbara Frietchie" is, of course, the best of these war lyrics. The
+"Song of the Negro Boatmen" was set to music and sung from Maine to
+California during the war days:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"De yam will grow, de cotton blow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We'll hab de rice an' corn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">De driver blow his horn!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>After "Voices of Freedom," in the complete edition of Whittier's poems,
+come a cluster of Biblical, or Old Testament poems,&mdash;"Palestine,"
+"Ezekiel," "The Wife of Manoah to her Husband," "The Cities of the
+Plain," "The Crucifixion," and "The Star of Bethlehem." The best of
+these, perhaps, are "Cities of the Plain,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> and "Crucifixion,"&mdash;the
+former intense and thrilling in style, and suggesting the "Sennacherib"
+and "Waterloo" of Byron; the latter a high, solemn chant, and well
+calculated to touch the religious heart. Whittier has drawn great
+refreshment and inspiration from the thrice-winnowed wheat and the
+living-water wells of Old Testament literature.</p>
+
+<p>Allusion has already been made to the hymns of our poet. Hymn-book
+makers have had in his poems a very quarry to work. The hymn tinkers,
+too, have not spared Whittier even while he was alive, and many of his
+sacred lyrics have been "adapted" after the manner of hymn-book makers.
+Dr. Martineau's "Hymns of Praise" (1874) contains seven of Whittier's
+religious songs; the "Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book" (1868) also has
+seven; the Plymouth Collection (1855) has eleven, and Longfellow and
+Johnson's "Hymns of the Spirit" (1864) has twenty-two.</p>
+
+<p>The Essex minstrel has written quite a number of children's poems, such
+as "The Robin," "Red Riding Hood," and "King Solomon and the Ants." He
+has also compiled two books of selections for children, as has already
+been mentioned.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Like many authors, Whittier has been attracted, in the autumn of his
+life, to the rich fields of Oriental literature. His Oriental poems show
+careful and sympathetic study of eastern books. "The Two Rabbis" and
+"Shah Akbar" are especially fine. The little touch in the former of "the
+small weeds that the bees bow with their weight" is a very pretty one.
+In "The King's Missive" we have a few "Oriental Maxims," being
+paraphrases of translations from the Sanscrit. "The Dead Feast of the
+Kol-Folk," and "The Khan's Devil," are also included in the same volume.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier has also made successful studies in Norse literature, for
+which his beautiful ballads, the "Dole of Jarl Thorkell," "Kallundborg
+Church," and "King Volmer and Elsie" are vouchers.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>PROSE WRITINGS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is to be feared that the greater portion of the prose writings of
+Whittier will be <i>caviare</i> to many readers of this day. He himself
+almost admits as much in the prefatory note to the second volume of the
+complete edition of his essays. That many of the papers are entertaining
+reading, and that they are written often in a light and genial and
+vivacious style, is true; and, as he himself hints, they will at least
+be welcomed and indulgently judged by his personal friends and admirers.
+His prose work was done in a time seething with moral ideas; the air was
+full of reforms; the voice of duty sounded loud in men's consciences,
+and the ancestral buckler called&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Self-clanging, from the walls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the high temple of the soul!"<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10"><i>Lowell.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>That particular era is now passed. The great secular heart is now in its
+diastole, or relaxation. Hence it is that the philanthropic themes
+discussed by Mr. Whittier thirty years ago (and most of his essays are
+of a philanthropic character) possess but a languid interest for the
+present reading public. The artistic essays, however, are charming, and
+possess permanent interest. Let us except from these the long
+productions, "Margaret Smith's Journal" and "My Summer with Dr.
+Singletary." Some have thought these to be the best papers in the
+collection. But to many they must appear frigid and old-fashioned in the
+extreme. They seem aimless and sprawling, mere <i>esquisses</i>, tentative
+work in a field in which the author was doubtful of his powers. They
+would ordinarily be classed under the head of Sunday-school literature.
+It has been suggested that the idea of "Margaret Smith's Journal" might
+have been derived from the "Diary of Lady Willoughby," which appeared
+about the same time. "The Journal" is a reproduction of the antique in
+style and atmosphere, and is said to be very successful as far as that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>
+goes. But certainly the iteration of the archaism, "did do," "did
+write," etc., gets to be very wearisome. The "Journal" purports to be
+written by a niece of Edward Rawson, Secretary of Massachusetts from
+1650-1686. The scene is laid in Newbury, where Rawson settled about
+1636. We have pleasant pictures of the colonial life of the day, of the
+Quakers and Indians and Puritans, and, on the whole, the sketch is well
+worth reading by historical students.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Portraits and Modern Sketches" consists chiefly of newspaper
+articles on modern reformers. They were originally contributed to the
+<i>National Era</i>. The portraits drawn are those of John Bunyan, Thomas
+Ellwood, James Nayler, Andrew Marvell, John Roberts, Samuel Hopkins,
+Richard Baxter,&mdash;and, among Americans, William Leggett and Nathaniel
+Peabody Rogers,&mdash;both anti-slavery reformers and journalists; and,
+lastly, Robert Dinsmore, the rustic Scotch-American poet of Haverhill.
+The last three papers mentioned are the best.</p>
+
+<p>The second volume of Mr. Whittier's prose writings bears the title
+"Literary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> Recreations and Miscellanies," and consists of various
+reviews, thumb-nail essays, and indigenous folk-and-nature studies, made
+in the region of the Merrimack. These last are of most interest, and
+indicate the field which Mr. Whittier would have cultivated with most
+success. In the reviews of the volume the newspapery tone and journalist
+diction are rather unpleasantly conspicuous. As a critic, our poet is
+not very successful, because he is too earnest a partisan, too merciless
+and undistinguishing in his invective or too generous in his praise. For
+example, what he says about Carlyle, in reviewing that author's infamous
+"Discourse on the Negro Question," is true as far as it goes. But of the
+elementary literary canon, that the prime function of the critic is to
+put himself in the place of the one he is criticising,&mdash;of this law Mr.
+Whittier has not, practically, the faintest notion. He considers
+everything from the point of view of the Quaker or of the reformer.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous specimens of Mr. Whittier's prose have already been given in
+various parts of this volume, but for the sake of illustration we may
+add two more. For an example of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> his serious style take the following
+from "Scottish Reformers": "He who undertakes to tread the pathway of
+reform&mdash;who, smitten with the love of truth and justice, or, indignant
+in view of wrong and insolent oppression, is rashly inclined to throw
+himself at once into that great conflict which the Persian seer not
+untruly represented as a war between light and darkness&mdash;would do well
+to count the cost in the outset. If he can live for Truth alone, and,
+cut off from the general sympathy, regard her service as its own
+'exceeding great reward'; if he can bear to be counted a fanatic and
+crazy visionary; if, in all good nature, he is ready to receive from the
+very objects of his solicitude abuse and obloquy in return for
+disinterested and self-sacrificing efforts for their welfare; if, with
+his purest motives misunderstood and his best actions perverted and
+distorted into crimes, he can still hold on his way and patiently abide
+the hour when 'the whirligig of Time shall bring about its revenges';
+if, on the whole, he is prepared to be looked upon as a sort of moral
+outlaw or social heretic under good society's interdict of food and
+fire; and if he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> is well assured that he can, through all this, preserve
+his cheerfulness and faith in man,&mdash;let him gird up his loins and go
+forward in God's name. He is fitted for his vocation; he has watched all
+night by his armor.... Great is the consciousness of right. Sweet is the
+answer of a good conscience. He who pays his whole-hearted homage to
+truth and duty,&mdash;who swears his life-long fealty on their altars, and
+rises up a Nazarite consecrated to their service,&mdash;is not without his
+solace and enjoyment when, to the eyes of others, he seems the most
+lonely and miserable. He breathes an atmosphere which the multitude know
+not of; 'a serene heaven which they cannot discern rests over him,
+glorious in its purity and stillness.'"</p>
+
+<p>For a specimen of our author's vein of pleasantry take the following bit
+of satire on "The Training": "What's now in the wind? Sounds of distant
+music float in at my window on this still October air. Hurrying
+drum-beat, shrill fife-tones, wailing bugle-notes, and, by way of
+accompaniment, hurrahs from the urchins on the crowded sidewalks. Here
+come the citizen-soldiers, each martial foot beating up the mud of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
+yesterday's storm with the slow, regular, up-and-down movement of an
+old-fashioned churn-dasher. Keeping time with the feet below, some
+threescore of plumed heads bob solemnly beneath me. Slant sunshine
+glitters on polished gun-barrels and tinselled uniform. Gravely and
+soberly they pass on, as if duly impressed with a sense of the deep
+responsibility of their position as self-constituted defenders of the
+world's last hope,&mdash;the United States of America, and possibly Texas.
+They look out with honest, citizen faces under their leathern vizors
+(their ferocity being mostly the work of the tailor and tinker), and, I
+doubt not, are at this moment as innocent of bloodthirstiness as yonder
+worthy tiller of the Tewksbury Hills, who sits quietly in his wagon
+dispensing apples and turnips without so much as giving a glance at the
+procession. Probably there is not one of them who would hesitate to
+divide his last tobacco-quid with his worst enemy. Social, kind-hearted,
+psalm-singing, sermon-hearing, Sabbath-keeping Christians; and yet, if
+we look at the fact of the matter, these very men have been out the
+whole afternoon of this beautiful day, under God's holy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> sunshine, as
+busily at work as Satan himself could wish in learning how to butcher
+their fellow-creatures, and acquire the true scientific method of
+impaling a forlorn Mexican on a bayonet, or of sinking a leaden missile
+in the brain of some unfortunate Briton, urged within its range by the
+double incentive of sixpence per day in his pocket and the cat-o'-nine
+tails on his back!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p>
+<h2><span class="smcap">Part III.</span></h2>
+
+<h3>TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3>TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The passing away from earth of John Greenleaf Whittier occurred on
+September 7, 1892, at four-thirty <span class="smcap">A. M.</span>, at Hampton Falls, N. H., in the
+very heart of the region he has immortalized by his ballads. The hour
+was just as the reddening east was mingling its light with that of the
+full harvest moon. Around his bedside were numerous relatives and
+friends. He fell asleep in an unconscious state, after an illness of a
+week. Let us now go back and, taking up the thread of the narrative
+where it was dropped on page 152, run over the incidents that have
+intervened in the decade since 1882 in the life of this pleasant
+singer&mdash;this plain Quaker farmer, who drew such soul-thrilling strains
+from his home-made rustic flute as to concentrate upon himself the
+attention of the whole world.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In 1883 (January 7) died, in Boston, Whittier's brother, Matthew
+Franklin Whittier, whose daughter Elizabeth, before her marriage to
+Samuel T. Pickard, was house-keeper for a number of years for her uncle,
+the poet, at Amesbury. "Frank," as his associates called him, obtained,
+it is said, his position in the Boston Custom House through the
+influence of his brother. Says a friend (Mr. Charles O. Stickney):&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"Frank was not a poet, and being of a practical turn of mind, had the
+good sense not to attempt the impossible; but he was a man of intellect,
+an omnivorous reader, was well posted, and, though inclined to seclusion
+and taciturnity, was nevertheless genial and companionable; his
+conversation spiced with his quiet, quaint humor, which bubbled up in
+some happy <i>mot</i>, neat fun, or well-turned bit of satire which raised a
+laugh, but left no sting behind." His quaint, humorous dialect articles,
+over the signature "Ethan Spike," are said to have given Nasby and
+Artemus Ward their cue. They were chiefly contributed to the Portland
+<i>Transcript</i>, the Boston <i>Carpet Bag</i>, and New York <i>Vanity Fair</i>. They
+all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> purported to emanate from "Hornby," a "smart town" in Maine&mdash;"a
+veritable down-east wonderland, whose wide-awake citizens were up to the
+times and ready to settle any great question of the day at 'a special
+town meetin'.'" Mr. Spike was as intense in his anti-slavery views as
+his brother Greenleaf. Specimens of his work may be found in the
+Portland <i>Transcript</i>, January 10, 1846, the <i>Carpet Bag</i>, October 14,
+1850, and November, 1851.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1884 Whittier's seventy-seventh birthday was observed at Oak Knoll,
+when the genial old bachelor received with courtesy and hospitality all
+who called. Gifts of flowers poured in to serve as foil to the two huge
+birthday cakes from relatives.</p>
+
+<p>An editorial writer in one of Boston's chief dailies thus describes a
+visit to Mr. Whittier, made in 1884:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Mr. Whittier met us at the door of the pleasant house at Oak Knoll. He
+came out on the piazza, and shook us each by the hand, and said, 'I am
+glad to see thee.' He concerned himself about our rubbers and
+waterproofs in the hall-way, and said that we were kind to come. I had
+taken a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> fit of shyness on seeing him, and was surprised to hear
+my friend speaking to him in the same quiet tone that she had used when
+alone with me. I listened, and reveled in silence as the old poet and
+the young artist spoke together. He led us into the parlor, and they
+talked of a landscape on the wall, of pictures, and of a portrait.</p>
+
+<p>"Presently he said: 'It is a little cold here. Shall we go into my
+room?' He led the way to the bright library where most of his days are
+now spent. Mr. Whittier happened to glance from the window as we stood
+for a moment speaking with him: he saw our cab waiting for us on the
+drive. The rain had begun again. Then a wonderful thing befell.</p>
+
+<p>"He forbade us to go away within the quarter hour; he forbade us to go
+for three hours. He went out and sent the cabman away, then he took us
+into the library. We sat down in front of the cheery open fire, and Mr.
+Whittier talked with us. He spoke of the claims of young people on life,
+it was different from any talk I had heard; in the face of my poets, I
+used to think that all good people believed that life is our creditor
+and hard taskmaster."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>On October 24, 1884, a portrait of Whittier was presented by Charles F.
+Coffin, of Lynn, Mass., a devoted friend and admirer of his, to the
+Friends' School of Providence, R.I. It was painted by Edgar Parker, of
+Boston, and represents Whittier sitting in an arm-chair in an attitude
+of peaceful thought.</p>
+
+<p>It is hung in Alumni Hall, between busts of Elizabeth Fry and John
+Bright, and is considered to be a worthy memorial of the poet. Letters
+on this occasion were read from James Russell Lowell, Dr. Holmes, E. P.
+Whipple, John Bright, George William Curtis, Boyle O'Reilly, Matthew
+Arnold, and others. From Mr. Whipple's letter the following is an
+extract:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I have had the privilege of knowing him intimately for many years, and
+of doing all I could through the press to point out his exceptional and
+original merits as a writer. My admiration of his genius and character
+has increased with every new volume he has published and every new
+manifestation of that essential gentleness which lies at the root of his
+nature, even when some of his poems suggest the warrior rather than the
+Quaker. One thing is certain: that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> reader feels that the writer
+possesses that peculiar attribute of humanity which we instinctively
+call by the high name of soul; and, whether he storms into the souls of
+others or glides into them, his hot invectives equally with his soft
+persuasions mark him as a man; a man, too, of might; a man whose force
+is blended with his insight, and who can win or woo his way into hostile
+or recipient minds by innate strength or delicacy of nature."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1885 the poet's birthday was again quietly celebrated at Oak Knoll,
+and in the afternoon Mr. Whittier's portrait was unveiled before a large
+audience in the Town Hall of Haverhill.</p>
+
+<p>In September, 1885, occurred a most interesting festival&mdash;the reunion of
+the graduates of the old Haverhill Academy, for whom the poet cherished
+to the end of his life an earnest and outspoken affection. It was here
+that Whittier got all the scholastic education he ever had outside of
+the district school; the reunion was thoroughly enjoyed therefore by
+him, although it was in his honor. For his health was pretty good, and
+he was in fine spirits. An interesting letter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> was received from the
+aged Miss Arethusa Hall, a preceptress in the Academy when Whittier
+attended it. Among others, Dr. Holmes wrote: "The class of 1829
+[Harvard] has a bright record; but how much brighter it would have been
+if we could have read upon the triennial and quinquennial catalogues:
+Johannes Greenleaf Whittier, A. B., A. M., LL. D., etc! But what, after
+all, can all the degrees of all the colleges do for him whose soul has
+been kindled by that 'ae spark of Nature's fire,' which Burns caught
+from her torch on the banks of Ayr, and Whittier among the mists that
+rise from the Merrimack?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier presented photographs of himself with his autograph to his
+school-mates, promised to think over the sitting for an oil portrait,
+and entered with zest into any bit of mirthfulness that sparkled out
+during the evening, although, as will be seen from the following
+description of a representative of the Boston <i>Advertiser</i>, he could
+scarcely understand the situation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"In the company was one man who seemed neither to accept nor to
+comprehend the situation. That man was John G. Whittier.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> His face and
+demeanor that day would have afforded study for a psychologist. That it
+was fifty-seven years since he entered Haverhill Academy he remembered
+with a certain sweet melancholy. That everybody was vying with everybody
+else in making love to him he could not help observing. But what it was
+all about, and why people should persist in talking of him when he
+wanted other, more congenial topics to be uppermost&mdash;these questions
+evidently puzzled him. A countenance on which was a look of shyness, of
+surprise, of perplexity; withal, a countenance irradiated by reciprocal
+affection and pleasure in seeing others pleased&mdash;if any one of the
+present artists could have caught and delineated those features, the
+painter would have been destined to share the immortality of the poet.
+On such a subject the temptation to indulge in reminiscence is strong.
+But space will permit me to mention only two or three characteristic
+incidents. A gifted vocalist had just sung a composition prepared for
+that day; and Mr. Whittier, turning to her, said, 'Friend, I wish that I
+could write a song for thee to sing.' An elocutionist of note read
+aloud<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> one of the author's poems. He listened eagerly, as if it was
+wholly new to him; and a little mist gathered in those deep, dreamy eyes
+at the lines beginning,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'I mourn no more my vanished years,'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>but there was an answering gleam at the words,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'The windows of my soul I throw<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wide open to the sun.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Two circumstances made that one of the few red-letter days in the
+memory of the present writer. I had known in Kansas a lady who belonged
+to that band of Haverhill Academy pupils whose boast and joy it was to
+have studied and played with the Quaker poet. On mentioning this lady's
+name, I found myself instantly accepted as her proxy. For some minutes
+Mr. Whittier seemed to have no other interest than to learn all possible
+particulars of her and send to her all possible expressions of regard.</p>
+
+<p>"The other circumstance was the result of my connection with the
+<i>Advertiser</i>. Taking me into one corner of the room, he asked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> me to sit
+beside him on the sofa. Then, drawing from his pocket the manuscript of
+the poem which he had written for that occasion and on portions of which
+the ink was not yet dry, the author, in a manner irresistibly winning,
+seemed to take his humble brother of the pen-craft into confidence,
+explaining the motive for various lines and passing on to speak of those
+boyhood days which the poem and the occasion recalled."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>December 17 again came round in 1886, and found Whittier receiving
+friends, presents, and congratulatory telegrams at Oak Knoll. Wendell
+Phillips, for example, sent him a handsome cane, and some one else sent
+a great frosted cake and a basket that strained its sides to hold the
+gift of fruit it contained.</p>
+
+<p>In December, 1887, it occurred to a young lady journalist on the staff
+of the Boston <i>Advertiser</i> (Miss Minna C. Smith) that it would be a good
+idea to have a "Whittier number" of that journal. The thought was a
+fertile one and was put into execution in great haste, but with eminent
+success. Poems were contributed by Walt Whitman,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> Dr. Holmes, James
+Jeffrey Roche, Hezekiah Butterworth, Herbert D. Ward, Minot J. Savage,
+Margaret Sidney (Mrs. D. Lothrop), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and others,
+and there was a great array of letters from other writers and eminent
+persons. Edward Everett Hale told the story of Whittier's Kansas
+"Emigrants' Song," how it was sung <i>en route</i> and in the West by brave
+pioneers of New England. James Parton, of Newburyport, Whittier's
+Amesbury neighbor, wrote that Whittier was carrying his burthen of
+eighty years "with considerable ease and constant cheerfulness." He
+continued:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I am sometimes asked, 'Is the poet Whittier really a Quaker or only one
+by inheritance?' He is really a Quaker. He wears, it is true, a silk hat
+of the kind familiarly called the stove-pipe, which gleams in the
+brilliant sun of winter, and seems to indicate at once the man of Boston
+and the man of the world. But it is not the broad-brimmed hat that makes
+the Quaker. The poet does actually keep a Quaker coat for Sundays and
+other dress occasions, which coat was made by a firm of Orthodox Friends
+in Philadelphia, the metropolitan city of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> gentle sect. He also uses
+the <i>thee</i> and <i>thou</i> in conversation, although without attaching the
+least importance to these trifles. But he is also a Friend from
+heartfelt conviction. A few miles from his home is one of the smallest
+meeting-houses in New England, standing alone in a land of farms and
+fields. It is painted white, and looks a little like a small
+school-house. This edifice will seat perhaps forty persons, but the
+usual congregation numbers about fourteen, who on winter Sundays dwindle
+often to seven and sometimes to three. This is the meeting-house which
+the poet Whittier attends whenever he is at home, unless prevented by
+the weather.</p>
+
+<p>"What an extraordinary thing is this! The poet who has most deeply felt
+and most beautifully expressed the sentiment and soul of New England is
+a member of the sect to which New England was so intolerant and so
+cruel! When the essential New England has ceased to exist, it will live
+again, and live long, in Whittier's poems; and he a Quaker! Was there
+ever before a revenge so complete and so sublime?"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr. Charles M. Thompson sent for this octogenarian birthday a fine
+poetical stanza:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A thousand stars swim on through time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unknown and unregarded in the skies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But one, kings followed; one, thy rhyme,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Led on a land of kings in liberty's emprise!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mr. James H. Carleton knew Whittier in connection with a circle of
+intellectual and social people that centred around the family of Judge
+Pitman in the years just preceding the rise of the abolition movement.
+"The Pitmans were neighbors of mine," said Mr. Carleton, "and I (I
+hardly know why) was admitted to the meetings of the people who gathered
+there. They were the leaders in everything that was progressive. They
+have since become widely scattered.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember Mr. Whittier as a leader of these leaders. These people
+formed to a large extent his social world at that time. It was the one
+place at which Mr. Whittier threw off his natural reserve and took his
+proper place. He was a good conversationalist on occasion, and when he
+spoke he was worth listening to. I remember him as intensely interested
+in whatever subject occupied the attention of the circle. He was never
+the first to begin a discussion, but rather bided his time for an
+especial opportunity."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. George C. How wrote of Mr. Whittier's friendliness, his cordiality,
+and his unassuming manner: "In the few delightful days I spent in his
+company in the White Mountain region, I saw no signs of formality or
+reserve. He told me, under the trees, many stories of his life and of
+his earliest successes. He impresses you strongly as a true and generous
+friend to everything and every man he believes good and honest. He does
+not like to be lionized, and refused to be introduced to a man whose
+only claim to his friendship was that he had read all his works. When,
+however, Mr. Whittier learned that this same man was an ardent admirer
+of the poet Hayne, a chord of sympathy was struck that made them firm
+friends during this stranger's stay."</p>
+
+<p>At Oak Knoll the winter day was clear and sunshiny, if cold, and warm
+hearts within laughed the season to scorn. The ladies of Boston, at the
+suggestion of Mrs. D. Lothrop, sent up a most unique and exquisite gift;
+eighty beautiful roses edged a large basket fringed with fern-sprays,
+that held an open book of white roses, across whose face lay a pen of
+violets, and on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> wide satin book-mark was inscribed the closing
+stanza of "My Triumph." The Essex Club of Boston presented a large
+album; fruit and flowers flanked a mighty birthday cake in the
+dining-room. Mr. Charles F. Coffin, of Lynn, sent a large overflowing
+basket of fruit, arranged under his personal supervision, "every fruit
+in its season," of exquisite colors and shapes, to express his affection
+for his life-long friend, the poet.</p>
+
+<p>The new town of Whittier, in California, sent an advance copy of the
+first issue of the town's newspaper; the Governor of the Commonwealth,
+as the winter afternoon quickly declined, cut and distributed to the
+guests slices of the birthday cake, while all through the day Whittier
+passed to and fro from room to room, conversing with young and old, and
+hospitable to all.</p>
+
+<p>Whittier himself is reported as saying on his eightieth birthday: "When
+a man is eighty years old, it is time to give up active mental work. Oh!
+I am able to go about these grounds pretty well. I have never attempted
+to imitate Gladstone and chop down trees, but I like to split wood."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This was James Russell Lowell's verse for Mr. Whittier on his eightieth
+birthday:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"How fair a pearl chain, eighty strong,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lustrous and hallowed every one<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With saintly thoughts and sacred song,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As 'twere the rosary of a nun!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The excitement and nervous exhaustion attendant upon these birthday
+occasions, it always took Mr. Whittier three or four weeks fully to
+recover from. Hence in 1889 (and partly on account of the recent death
+of a beloved cousin), the poet announced, through the press, that he
+should have to ask his friends to spare him any public reception.
+However, December 17 was observed as "Whittier Day" very generally
+throughout the country, as it had been in 1887, in accordance with the
+custom that has grown up of celebrating the birthdays of eminent men in
+the schools, and introducing into their courses of supplementary reading
+selected portions of the writings of each. Among the gifts received at
+Oak Knoll was a painting of a golden vase by Mr. Herman Marcus, of New
+York City, to whom the poet had appeared in a dream, bearing in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>
+hand an elegant portfolio of red morocco, containing a picture of a vase
+of Grecian design, richly ornamented, and inscribed with the legend,
+"May in the smallest part thy sorrows lie concealed and all the rest be
+filled with joy overflowing." The portfolio and the picture on its page
+are a close realization of what the donor saw in his dream.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of visitors, Col. Higginson tells two incidents in point. He
+says two nice little boys called one day on Whittier, saying that they
+had recently called on Longfellow, and, as he had died soon after, they
+thought it best to call at once on Mr. Whittier. One of the poet's
+housekeepers once asked him in severe tones whether all "these people"
+came on business or whether they were relatives. When told that neither
+was the case, she said she did not see what they came for then. "Neither
+did I," said Whittier, with laughing eye.</p>
+
+<p>In December, 1890, Mr. Whittier, who had gone down to Amesbury to vote,
+had been taken ill there, and hardly expected to be able to get back to
+Oak Knoll by the seventeenth. He did arrive, however, on a sunny day.
+Many of his friends spared him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> visits, merely leaving their cards or
+sending remembrances. His mail was very large, as usual on this day.</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1891 Mr. Whittier's health was so feeble that he was
+obliged to abandon his daily walks, except about the grounds at Oak
+Knoll. Driving was too fatiguing for him, and his hearing had grown so
+bad that he could converse only with difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>In Whittier's poem, "The Red River Voyageur," there is a beautiful
+allusion to the "bells of the Roman mission," now the Archepiscopate of
+St. Boniface. Archbishop Tache was reminded by Lieut.-Gov. Schultz that
+December 17, 1891, was the eighty-fourth birthday of the poet, the
+suggestion being made that the anniversary should be greeted by a
+joy-peal from the tower of the Cathedral of St. Boniface, in Winnipeg,
+Manitoba. His Grace cordially concurred, and the graceful tribute was
+rendered at midnight with the last stroke of the clock ushering the
+natal day. Mr. Whittier, having been informed of the incident by United
+States Consul Taylor, wrote to the Archbishop: "I have reached an age
+when literary success and manifestations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> of popular favor have ceased
+to satisfy one upon whom the solemnity of life's sunset is resting; but
+such a delicate and beautiful tribute has deeply moved me. I shall never
+forget it. I shall hear the bells of St. Boniface sounding across the
+continent, and awakening a feeling of gratitude for thy generous act."</p>
+
+<p>Our poet's eighty-fourth birthday (1891), and alas! his last on earth,
+was delightfully observed at the home of the Cartlands, his cousins, in
+Newburyport, with whom he was spending the winter. Mr. Joseph Cartland
+is himself a Quaker, and his white hair and genial cheery temperament
+are quite of the old régime. He and his wife were teachers in the
+Friends' School at Providence, R. I. Their fine old mansion on High
+Street is the identical one built and lived in by Judge Livermore,
+father of the shrewish saint and devotee of "Snow-Bound." It may be
+stated, too, that it was to succeed one of the Cartlands in the
+editorial chair of the <i>Pennsylvania Freeman</i> that Whittier went to
+Philadelphia in 1838. In this house is kept the old maple-wood desk,
+made by Joseph Whittier, grandfather of the poet, who, by the way,
+"wrote on it his first poem."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> The desk is about one hundred and eighty
+years old now. On the back are carved the initials "J. W., 1786," in
+large letters. The wood has been smoothed down a little and a coat of
+shellac applied. On the back of the drawers are memoranda in chalk and
+pencil made by Greenleaf's father. On December 17, 1891, the old piece
+of furniture was covered with hundreds of congratulatory letters which
+would have made the old farmer Quaker, its builder, rub his eyes in
+astonishment, could he have seen them.</p>
+
+<p>"As he walks slowly down the broad stairs of the Cartlands at
+Newburyport," says one who saw him on his birthday, "there is much to
+suggest his years, it is true, yet no signs of unusual feebleness. He is
+erect for a man of eighty-four; his early litheness has not degenerated
+into the hopeless leanness of an ill-nourished and uncared-for old age;
+his step does not drag after his body as if unwilling to carry the
+burden longer; his head is not lowered, awaiting the smite of Time."</p>
+
+<p>Another thus describes Whittier in 1891: "In personal appearance he is
+remarkable. Tall, and as straight as one of the young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> pines in his
+favorite grove, it seems impossible that he is at the end of fourscore
+years. The crown of his head is bald, and his hair is glossy silver; but
+his great black eyes are as clear, bright and piercing as if he were in
+the prime of life. He walks with the deliberation and dignity of age,
+but without a suggestion of physical feebleness, and while he remains
+standing his head is as finely poised as a soldier's. The straightness
+of his figure is the more noticeable on account of his Quaker dress, the
+coat of which fits him as neatly and closely as if it were the
+conventional 'swallow-tail.' When seated and listening, his head drops
+slightly forward and aside&mdash;a pose which seems peculiar to poetic
+natures the world over. He is a most appreciative reader of other men's
+books and poems, and talks admirably of all good writings except his
+own, of which he can scarcely be persuaded to speak, even to his dearest
+intimates."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. S. T. Pickard, and Mr. and Mrs. Cartland received the guests in the
+wide hall of the old-fashioned hospitable Quaker home; and the poet
+himself wandered here and there about the room, so said the Boston<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>
+<i>Advertiser</i>, "greeting every guest informally and pleasantly, from the
+old and tried comrades of anti-slavery's earliest days to the little
+girl in cream-white dress and wide hat, his little friend Margaret
+Lothrop, who had to stand on tip-toe to greet the bowed head with her
+childish kiss; and whose small hand he held closely as he kept her by
+his side."</p>
+
+<p>A pleasant note was received from Phillips Brooks:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Whittier</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"I have no right save that which love and gratitude and reverence
+may give, to say how devoutly I thank God that you have lived, that
+you are living, and that you will always live. May his peace be
+with you more and more.</p>
+
+<p class="right">"Affectionately your friend,<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Phillips Brooks</span>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The first guests to arrive were a deputation of fifty from Haverhill,
+members of the Whittier Club of that town. Whittier made them a little
+speech, saying it was evident that sometimes a prophet was honored in
+his own country.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The house was filled with cut flowers&mdash;in the window-seats, on the
+tables, in the poet's bedroom, up-stairs&mdash;all gifts from friends. The
+Whittier Club of Haverhill brought eighty-four roses. There was a basket
+of English violets from Mr. and Mrs. D. Lothrop. Mr. C. F. Coffin, of
+Lynn, sent, as usual, his generous basket of fruit. From Mr. E. C.
+Stedman came a painting "High Tide, Hampton Meadows," by Carroll D.
+Brown. And some kindly old soul sent a half-dozen pairs of socks&mdash;the
+spirit that prompted the gift as deeply appreciated as that of others.
+Other gifts were: an oil painting of a scene at York Harbor, painted by
+J. L. Smith, of Boston, the frame carved by A. G. Smith; a ruler of
+various inlaid woods from California, the gift of pupils of the workshop
+at West Point, Calaveras County, who wrote a letter, saying that they
+would devote the birthday to reading and speaking selections from his
+works; a paper-cutter made from the wood of Fort Loudon, of Winchester,
+Penn., and sent by the ladies of that place; a hand-painted tray from
+artist Florence Cammett of Amesbury; a late photograph of Dr. Holmes,
+"with his hat in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> his hand, and his most man-of-the-world air;" a
+souvenir spoon of Independence Hall from W. H. and S. B. Swazey, of
+Newburyport; a picture of the old Mission at Santa Barbara, done on
+native olive-wood, from Professor John Murray, of California; a handsome
+footstool from Elizabeth Cavazza, of Portland, Me.; photogravures of
+scenes about the Whittier homestead in Haverhill; a transparency
+("Snow-Bound") from Austin P. Nichols; eighty-four roses from the girls
+of Lasell Seminary near Boston, and a wreath of evergreens from Mrs.
+Annie Fields.</p>
+
+<p>Among the messages was one from a little Indian maiden whom Whittier had
+befriended: "Your young Mohawk friend asks for you to-day the Great
+Spirit's blessing"&mdash;signed, E. Pauline Johnson; a letter came from Abby
+Hutchinson, of the Hutchinson singers.</p>
+
+<p>Among those present were, Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, Sarah Orne Jewett,
+"Margaret Sidney," Mrs. James T. Fields, Mrs. William Claflin, Harriet
+McEwen Kimball, T. E. Burnham, Mayor of Haverhill, and others.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Among the company, conspicuous by those natural gifts that make one a
+centre for intellectual and genial comradeship, was Mr. D. Lothrop&mdash;the
+eminent publisher&mdash;(since passed away, mourned by all) who probably has
+done more than any other man of present times to create a new literature
+for children and young people, all achieved when it cost to do it, and
+that consumed years of patient, persistent struggling, till his splendid
+success was won.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier writes to his widow, "Thy husband and Mr. Coffin" (the
+old-time friend referred to), "were the life of my birthday reception,
+and now both are gone before me." (Mr. Coffin died the week after the
+birthday.)</p>
+
+<p>Again, to quote one of the many extracts of Mr. Whittier's letters
+concerning Mr. Lothrop: "Let me sit in the circle of thy mourning, for I
+too have lost in him a friend."</p>
+
+<p>There was much to draw the two men together; both sprang from New
+England ancestry, sturdy as the granite hills of their native State;
+each possessed the same indomitable will, where a question of right was
+involved, and the same breadth of charity for all, of whatsoever creed
+or divergence of opinion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier partook of but little food in the dining-room, nibbling a
+bit here and there, and refusing firmly all offers of tea or coffee. His
+eyes, every one noticed, flamed with old-time lustre, whenever he was
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>Letters of congratulation were received from Robert C. Winthrop, Celia
+Thaxter, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Andrew P. Peabody,
+Rose Terry Cooke (who has since died), George W. Cable, T. W. Higginson,
+Charles Eliot Norton, and others.</p>
+
+<p>Donald G. Mitchell wrote that above Whittier's literary art he admired
+the broad and cheery humanities of the man.</p>
+
+<p>For the eighty-fourth birthday the Boston <i>Advertiser</i> printed a superb
+illustrated Whittier number, as did also the Boston <i>Journal</i>. For the
+latter Dr. Holmes contributed the following letter:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">My Dear Whittier</span>:&mdash;I congratulate you on having climbed another
+glacier and crossed another crevasse in your ascent of the white
+summit which already begins to see the morning twilight of the
+coming century. A life so well filled as yours has been cannot be
+too long for your fellow-men and women. In their affections you are
+secure, whether you are with them here or near them in some higher
+life than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> theirs. I hope your years have not become a burden, so
+that you are tired of living. At our age we must live chiefly in
+the past. Happy is he who has a past like yours to look back upon.</p>
+
+<p>It is one of the felicitous incidents&mdash;I will not say accidents&mdash;of
+my life that the lapse of time has brought us very near together,
+so that I frequently find myself honored by seeing my name
+mentioned in near connection with your own. We are lonely, very
+lonely, in these last years. The image which I have used before
+this in writing to you recurs once more to my thought. We were on
+deck together as we began the voyage of life two generations ago. A
+whole generation passed, and the succeeding one found us in the
+cabin, with a goodly company of coevals. Then the craft which held
+us began going to pieces, until a few of us were left on the raft
+pieced together of its fragments. And now the raft has at last
+parted, and you and I are left clinging to the solitary spar, which
+is all that still remains afloat of the sunken vessel.</p>
+
+<p>I have just been looking over the headstones in Mr. Griswold's
+cemetery, entitled "The Poets and Poetry of America." In that
+venerable receptacle, just completing its half-century of
+existence&mdash;for the date of the edition before me is 1842&mdash;I find
+the names of John Greenleaf Whittier and Oliver Wendell Holmes next
+each other, in their due order, as they should be. All around are
+the names of the dead&mdash;too often of forgotten dead. Three which I
+see there are still among those of the living. Mr. John Osborne
+Sargent, who makes Horace his own by faithful study and ours by
+scholarly translation; Isaac McLellan, who was writing in 1830, and
+whose last work is dated 1886; and Christopher P. Cranch, whose
+poetical gift has too rarely found expression.</p>
+
+<p>Of these many dead you are the most venerated, revered and beloved
+survivor; of these few living the most honored representative. Long
+may it be before you leave a world where your influence has been so
+beneficent, where your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> example has been such inspiration, where
+you are so truly loved, and where your presence is a perpetual
+benediction.</p>
+
+
+<p class="right">Always affectionately yours,<br />
+Oliver Wendell Holmes.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Following is one of two stanzas sent to the Poet of Freedom by his
+friend "Margaret Sidney," and which, says the <i>Advertiser</i>, with one
+other tribute, was the only one of the innumerable letters and poems
+sent him that he read in its entirety that day, owing to his failing
+eyesight:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"To be near the heart of Christ<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was his creed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">White as truth the life<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That all men may read;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strengthful of soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Yet lowly in meekness;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dreading no hate of men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Scorning all weakness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sounded the warning note,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When it cost to be brave and true;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sang freedom for the slave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then almost death to do.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">'Unbind every shackle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Loosen each chain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Bid every slave go free!'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mr. F. B. Sanborn wrote some interesting autobiographical reminiscences
+for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> <i>Advertiser</i>. He stated: "I can scarcely remember when I did
+not read Whittier and Holmes. Their verses were eagerly caught up and
+reprinted by all the newspapers, and I knew them by heart before I ever
+saw a volume of them. Whittier, indeed, was almost my neighbor, living
+only eight miles away across the Merrimack, and sometimes coming for
+silent worship or to hear Mrs. Edward Gove speak in the Quaker
+meeting-house at Seabrook, only three miles from the farm of my
+ancestors. But I did not know this then; I never went there to see him.
+He is a distant cousin of mine, both of us tracing descent, through his
+daughters, from that stout and ungovernable old Puritan minister,
+Stephen Bachiler, who planted the old town of Hampton, in whose wide
+limits I was born, and which extended almost to Amesbury."</p>
+
+<p>Another scholarly writer in the same paper wrote instructively of
+Whittier in the Massachusetts Legislature. The Legislature of 1835 he
+describes as a notable one in the quality of its members and in the work
+accomplished. An extra session was held in the autumn. The Speaker of
+the House<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> was Judge Julius Rockwell of Pittsfield, with whom Whittier
+had already formed a personal acquaintance through Judge Rockwell's
+contributions to the <i>New England Review</i>. Among the Suffolk County
+representatives were such names as Frothingham, Brooks, Otis, Sturgis,
+Peabody, and Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, also Col. J. B. Fay, the first
+mayor of Chelsea. It is not remembered that Whittier made any set
+speech, but he nevertheless did so much and such arduous work as to make
+himself ill before the session was half over. Dr. Bowditch, he often
+recalled with amusement, told him that, if he followed implicitly the
+rules he laid down for him, he might live to see his fiftieth birthday;
+otherwise, not.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps no one man has been more frequently interviewed concerning the
+policy of party politics than John G. Whittier. With gifted qualities of
+heart and mind, was added wisdom, prudence and sagacity, in all that
+related to governmental affairs. The late Henry Wilson once said of him,
+"I can rely more safely upon the advice of Whittier than upon any other
+man in America."</p>
+
+<p>In the early movements of the Republican<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> party he was acknowledged to
+be the power behind the throne. Sumner, wise and learned, could trust to
+the advice of Whittier. His correspondence with such men as Giddings,
+Chase, Sumner, Wilson, John P. Hale, Upham and other celebrities, upon
+national topics, is known to a few of his friends. They contain
+sentiments which prove him as wise in statesmanship as he is eloquent in
+verse.</p>
+
+<p>How well and faithfully he labored is best expressed in his words:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I am not insensible to literary reputation; I love, perhaps too well,
+the love and praise of my fellow-men; but I set a higher value on my
+name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of 1833, than on the
+title page of any book."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>On the subject of the abolishment of capital punishment, Whittier's vote
+is found recorded in the affirmative, as might have been expected. He
+has said that one of the pleasantest years of his life was that passed
+during the session of the Legislature in 1835.</p>
+
+<p>One of the chief reasons why Whittier went seven miles from his Amesbury
+home last summer was to "escape pilgrims" (as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> called them). One
+Sunday after meeting at Amesbury he said to his life-long friend, Miss
+Gove, "Abby, has thee a spare room up at thy house?" She responded in
+the affirmative, and he went to her home in Hampton Falls for the latter
+part of the summer. It was here he penned his last poem&mdash;the verses "To
+Oliver Wendell Holmes:"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The gift is thine the weary world to make<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More cheerful for thy sake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soothing the ears its Miserere pains<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With the old Hellenic strains."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In a letter to one of the editors of the <i>Critic</i> (August 29, 1892), Dr.
+Holmes wrote, concerning his birthday:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I have received two poems in advance, and our dear friend Whittier,
+whose heart is a cornucopia of blessings for his fellow-creatures, has
+remembered me in the pages of the <i>Atlantic</i>, where we have found
+ourselves side by side for so many years. Long may the sands of his life
+keep running, for they come from the bed of Pactolus."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The news of his friend's death was received by Dr. Holmes in Beverly,
+just as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> was coming in from a drive along the shore. It was a heavy
+blow, coming as it did just upon the death of Lowell, Thomas Parsons,
+and George William Curtis. He remarked that his acquaintance with
+Whittier dated from the year of the founding of the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>.
+He had frequently visited him at Oak Knoll. He was there last year, and
+the two old fellows walked and talked among the trees and had a good
+time together. When the Doctor was leaving, his friend loaded him down
+with fruit. It was on one of these recent visits that Dr. Holmes with
+characteristic keenness of perception, discovered the beautiful symmetry
+of the grand Norway spruce in front of the mansion on the wide sweep of
+lawn, and he laughingly named it "The Poet's Pagoda," and this name it
+has kept ever since.</p>
+
+<p>To return to "Elmfield," as the old Gove mansion is called. The
+old-fashioned house, with its upper balconies, heavy chimneys, and rich
+collection of historical relics, stands on a hill not far from the falls
+which gave the name to the village&mdash;Hampton Falls. The sight from
+Whittier's window commanded a little balcony, with a view of the distant
+blue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> sea. One day after another passed quietly away, he rising at
+seven, going across through a pine grove to the adjoining tavern for his
+breakfast, getting the mail at the little post-office, reading the
+papers, looking at the distant sails on the sea through a glass,
+conversing with friends or walking in the neighboring orchard, with its
+paths and rustic seats. The region is that where his Bachiler and Hussey
+ancestors both lived, as Mr. F. B. Sanborn tells us (Boston
+<i>Advertiser</i>, September 8, 1892). Daniel Webster's Bachiler ancestors
+also lived on a farm, a mile and a half from the Gove mansion; namely,
+where now stands the villa of Warren Brown. As Mr. Sanborn truthfully
+says, Whittier has been the local poet of this whole region of Essex and
+adjoining counties. "No poet of New England," he continues, "has lived
+so close to the actual habits of the people, in the present and the past
+centuries, as did Whittier; and his poems of locality will become as
+much a feature of New England literature as are those of Burns and Scott
+in their native country. This fidelity to homely fact and profound
+sentiment have made Whittier more than any other the patrial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> and
+religious poet of New Hampshire and Eastern Massachusetts. He has done
+in verse what Hawthorne did in prose. It was only the accident or
+accomplishment of verse which separated these two poets, and made one of
+them our most graceful and romantic prose-writer, while the other became
+our most spiritual and literal poet."</p>
+
+<p>The truth of these statements comes home to me with force since I made a
+week's itinerary through this Whittier ballad land a year ago, and saw
+how every mile of coast land was celebrated in storied verse by
+Whittier.</p>
+
+<p>On Wednesday, August 31, Mr. Whittier was taken ill. The malady was
+acute diarrhea, which by the Saturday following developed a new and
+alarming symptom, a remarkable irregularity of the heart's action,
+accompanied by partial paralysis of the left side, arms, and vocal
+organs. He remained conscious until Tuesday at three <span class="smcap">P. M.</span>, when the
+symptoms became markedly worse. He was surrounded by ministering
+relatives and friends, who gave him every loving attention, but all were
+powerless to stay the hand of death.</p>
+
+<p>When urged to take the nourishment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> prescribed by his physicians, he
+said: "I want water from Abby's (Miss Gove) nice well," and as it was
+given, remarked with a bright smile, "That's good&mdash;nothing better." Soon
+after, as his forehead was being bathed, he said, "That is all that can
+be done." To his attending physicians, Drs. Douglass and Howe, and
+nurse, he said: "I am worn out&mdash;thee have done what thee could&mdash;I thank
+thee." And as the end drew near the dying poet recognized his niece from
+Portland, and remarked in faltering words, "Love&mdash;to&mdash;the&mdash;world." These
+were his last words. He died at four-thirty on the morning of the
+seventh. At seven o'clock on Friday evening the silent form of the poet
+was brought to Amesbury, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. S. T. Pickard, and
+Mr. and Mrs. Cartland.</p>
+
+<p>On Saturday morning business was entirely suspended in Amesbury. The
+selectmen issued the following proclamation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"To the Citizens of Amesbury:&mdash;Our town has been saddened by the
+death of its great poet and one of its noblest and best-loved
+citizens. We feel that our country at large, and the civilized
+world, mourns with us the death of the poet and liberty-loving
+philanthropist, John G. Whittier.</p>
+
+<p>"Sharing the sadness which must come to the wise and good
+everywhere, we, the people of Amesbury, mourn the loss of a friend
+and neighbor endeared to us by his lovable qualities and the purity
+of his daily life in our midst.</p>
+
+<p>"We revered him for his greatness, and loved him for himself. Always
+identified with every good work in Amesbury, sustaining the right and
+defending the oppressed, his life for more than half a century has been
+to us a daily sermon.</p>
+
+<p>"If it be true that</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'The heart speaketh most when the life move,'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>we can only add that such a life, with its fullness of years and its
+crown of blessings, is a rich legacy to the community."</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus8.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>THE GOVE HOUSE, HAMPTON FALLS, N. H., IN WHICH WHITTIER
+DIED.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At ten o'clock the public was admitted to the house, passing in a
+continuous line (as at the funeral of dear old Walt Whitman, his brother
+poet of Democracy, a few months before in Camden) through the humble
+little parlor of the Amesbury home. It was originally intended to hold
+the services in the Friends' meeting-house near by; but the dense fog
+clearing up and the bright sun coming out&mdash;as one beautifully said, "the
+mystery of death typified by the shifting and elusive shadows of the
+fog, and the glory and hopefulness of the resurrection by the bright
+rays of the sun"&mdash;it was decided to let the body rest in the house, and
+hold memorial services in the quiet garden in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> rear of the house.
+The funeral arrangements were in charge of William Lloyd Garrison, Jr.,
+S. T. Pickard and Judge G. W. Cate, the tenant of the house. The
+atmosphere was one of peace and restfulness, and the simplicity of the
+life of the Friends was seen in all the arrangements. In the quaint
+parlor of the homestead lay all that was mortal of the poet, on whose
+face was an expression of supreme peace; his form was encircled by a
+delicate fringe of trailing fern. A most beautiful wreath from Dr.
+Oliver Wendell Holmes&mdash;eighty-four white roses, fringed with carnations
+and maidenhair ferns, one for each year of the poet's life,&mdash;was laid
+around the name-plate on the coffin. It was a touching tribute by the
+last one of that remarkable galaxy of poets that marked such a
+distinguished era in our American literature. Two crossed palms, with
+the Japan lilies Whittier loved so well, encircled by a broad white
+satin ribbon, were from Mrs. Daniel Lothrop. The fronds of the long
+palms encircled the face of the dead poet as it looked out from the
+large engraving between the windows of the parlor. Upon the end of the
+ribbon was delicately painted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> six lines from Whittier's "Andrew
+Rykman's Prayer:"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Some sweet morning yet in God's<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dim æonian periods,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Joyful I shall wake to see<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those I love who rest in Thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And to them in Thee allied<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall my soul be satisfied."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Upon the accompanying card was this: "In memory of my husband's dear
+friend. This verse of 'Andrew Rykman's Prayer' was consolation in the
+hour of death to both him who wrote it, and to him who loved it.&mdash;Mrs.
+Daniel Lothrop."</p>
+
+<p>Another exquisite floral offering came with these lines:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I know not where His islands lift<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Their fronded palms in air;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I only know I cannot drift<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Beyond His love and care."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>On the back of the card were the words "Oak Knoll."</p>
+
+<p>The alcove behind the casket was filled with floral tributes. Here was a
+large St. Andrew's cross of exquisite white roses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> upon a bed of ivy,
+from a very near and dear friend of Mr. Whittier's at Lexington, whose
+name is withheld. There was a ladder of hydrangeas, gladioli, carnations
+and snow-balls from Mrs. Albert Clarke of Amesbury, an ivy wreath from
+Sarah Orne Jewett, a sheaf of wheat from Mrs. Lizzie Cheney and the
+Misses Coffin of Lynn, a broken shaft of white carnations from Mr. and
+Mrs. J. Henry Hall of Amesbury. A massive wreath of Whittier's own
+much-loved pine tassels was hung above the portrait of his sister
+Elizabeth, the tribute of Mrs. Joseph A. Purington; the heavy green was
+relieved by a spray of bright, contrasting goldenrod. Mrs. Samuel
+Rowell, Jr., sent a basket of white roses and maidenhair. There was a
+beautiful spray of the passion flower from L. Kelcher, Hotel Winthrop,
+Boston, and an hour-glass of white carnations from Mr. J. R. Fogg. Many
+touching little clusters of flowers came from the children; and his
+neighbors sent a beautiful wreath of fringed gentian&mdash;Whittier's
+favorite flower. This came from the far Pacific Slope: "Lay one flower
+for me upon the bier of the beloved friend who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> rests. No purer soul
+ever passed from earth to Heaven, or bore with it greater love and
+blessing than does his.&mdash;Ina D. Coolbrith, Oakland, Cal."</p>
+
+<p>In the garden, and overlooked by the windows of the study where Mr.
+Whittier wrote and thought for so many years, was gathered to pay the
+last tributes of love and reverence to the dead poet, a large and
+notable assemblage: Gen. O. O. Howard, E. C. Stedman, Mrs. Alice Freeman
+Palmer, Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-Ward, Gail Hamilton, Lucy Larcom,
+Edna Dean Proctor, Horace E. Scudder, T. W. Higginson, ex-Governor
+Claflin, Parker Pillsbury, Francis H. Underwood, Edward L. Pierce,
+Robert S. Rantoul, Mrs. C. A. Dall, "Margaret Sidney," Harriet Prescott
+Spofford, Mrs. Endicott, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Jr., Frank J. Garrison,
+etc.</p>
+
+<p>And the sight was one never to be forgotten. Under the soft September
+sky, blue and cloudless, in the shade of pear and apple trees which
+Whittier himself had planted and tended and loved, were his relatives,
+friends, neighbors and men and women whose names are known wherever the
+English language is spoken.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It scarcely seemed like a funeral, so unaffectedly natural and sincere
+was every spoken word and every act. And the entire absence of formality
+and stiffness deprived the occasion of that artificial gloom which is so
+often characteristic of funerals.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, too, the subtle influence of the balmy air and the beauties of
+the place helped to lift the pall that must have hung over many a heart.
+It was as if the friends of some dearly beloved man, who was going on a
+journey, had gathered to bid him God-speed&mdash;not as if they had come to
+bid him farewell.</p>
+
+<p>A hollow square was formed around a low platform, and near by was a
+table with a Bible upon it. Gentians, one of Whittier's favorite
+flowers, and goldenrod formed the only floral ornaments. Back of the
+seats stood a dense crowd that must have numbered thousands, almost
+filling the garden. Children climbed the trees and looked with open-eyed
+wonder on the scene. On an apple bough, his naked legs dangling in the
+air almost over the head of Edmund Clarence Stedman, was an urchin who
+might have inspired the "Barefoot Boy;" faces peered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> from many a tree,
+from the vine-clad arbor and from the window of a neighboring barn, down
+upon the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>The poet's relatives, and members of the Society of Friends from various
+places, occupied the seats forming the hollow square, an easy-chair
+being reserved for Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he was unable to be
+present.</p>
+
+<p>The Friends gave the exercises their peculiar complexion; first one and
+then another rising to eulogize their friend as the "Spirit moved them."
+Verses of Whittier were recited by "that lovely Quaker lady," Mrs.
+Gertrude Cartland, and by Mrs. James H. Chace. Mr. E. C. Stedman was the
+last speaker.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke of the personal loss he felt in the poet's death. "To know him
+was a consecration, to have his sympathy a benediction. His passing away
+was not so much a death as a translation. He is gone, and has not left
+his mantle! How could he? Why should he? No one can overestimate his
+artless art, his power, vigor and effect in his polemic efforts. No one
+put so much heart or so much religion into his writings. He was one of
+the great trio of New England<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> poets, of whom there is only one now
+left. They are the vanishers of whom he spoke. He was a believer in the
+inward life, as a poet should be. He will be his own successor, and
+belongs to our time as well as to that earlier time to which he is
+linked by his work. We may say of him that the chariot swung low and he
+was translated, dividing the waters of truth, beauty, and religion, with
+his mantle. The last time I spoke at a memorial service was at Bayard
+Taylor's funeral. Taylor was Whittier's friend, and like Whittier he had
+a firm belief in immortality."</p>
+
+<p>It is to Mr. Stedman that Whittier dedicated in a few choice lines his
+latest volume of verse, "At Sundown," which the poet, as if prescient of
+his coming death, had had privately printed and circulated among a few
+friends a year before his fatal illness.</p>
+
+<p>The most picturesque and striking figure at Whittier's funeral was that
+of the venerable John W. Hutchinson, whose long gray hair fell over a
+broad white Rembrandt collar. He and his sister, Abby Hutchinson Patton,
+were life-long friends of Whittier, and their voices in the song they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>
+sang&mdash;"Close his eyes, his work is done"&mdash;were, "like the echoes of
+sweet bells from the far-away time of their youth, when they and
+Whittier were one in endeavor."</p>
+
+<p>And then the long procession was formed. In the family lot, in the
+Friends' section of the Union Cemetery, where are buried his father,
+mother, sisters and brother, John Greenleaf Whittier was laid to rest.</p>
+
+<p>The Boston <i>Journal</i>, in writing of Whittier's obsequies, gathered up
+this tender reminiscence:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"We recall the incident of some ten years since, when Mr. Daniel
+Lothrop, the late publisher, while visiting in California, used
+Whittier's poem, 'Andrew Rykman's Prayer' to comfort the bereaved. Mr.
+Lothrop had, as it were, been brought up on Mr. Whittier's poems, there
+being in many ways a great similarity of tastes and characteristics
+between them. Of late years there was a strong friendship. The clergyman
+of a prominent Oakland church had died suddenly in the pulpit some few
+weeks before, and at the large memorial meeting Mr. Lothrop was asked
+without warning by the chairman to recite this poem, as he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> heard
+him repeat a few lines from it during a consecration meeting. Mr.
+Lothrop ascended the platform and gave the poem entire. There was a
+profound hush throughout the vast assembly, like that following the
+instant when the beloved pastor had suddenly fallen before their eyes.
+Many were in tears, all agreeing that Whittier's strong, uplifting words
+comforted them more than anything else that had been said. Rev. Dr.
+Gordon, in the address at Mr. Lothrop's funeral in the Old South Church,
+appropriately recited this poem for the late publisher, who on his
+death-bed used this poem, as he had in health and strength."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>James G. Blaine telegraphed that he had "long regarded Whittier with
+affectionate veneration," and over the wire came from Frederick Douglas
+the words, "Emancipated millions will hold his memory sacred." Speaking
+of Mr. Blaine, a writer, "S. F. M.," in the Boston <i>Journal</i>, December
+18, 1891, tells of Mr. Blaine's presenting his, "S. F. M.'s," brother
+with a morocco-bound copy of the beautiful Mussey edition, and of Mr.
+Blaine's reading and re-reading aloud, one Sunday at their house in
+Charlestown, Mass.,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> the poem "Among the Hills," which had then just
+been issued.</p>
+
+<p>Memorial services on the afternoon of the funeral were held in Danvers,
+Haverhill, Salem, Mass., and Vassalboro, Maine. The old Whittier grange
+at the cross roads in Haverhill was draped in mourning. The present
+owner of the birthplace is Mr. George E. Elliott, a retired wealthy
+gentleman of Haverhill; and it is hoped that at no distant day he may be
+induced to sell it to the town of Haverhill, who would sacredly keep
+this cherished spot marking the nativity of her distinguished son, so
+that all lovers of John G. Whittier's poetry may have an opportunity to
+see his early home.</p>
+
+<p>The day after the funeral between seventeen and eighteen hundred people
+visited the grave. And, as in the case of Walt Whitman's grave, each one
+wanted a leaf or flower as a memento, so that it was necessary in both
+cases to have the place of sepulture guarded by special watchmen, in
+order that anything green be left.</p>
+
+<p>The funeral of the poet was conducted as he himself wished. For in his
+will he wrote, "It is my wish that my funeral may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> conducted in the
+plain and quiet way of the Society of Friends, with which I am connected
+not only by birthright, but also by a settled conviction of the truth of
+its principles and the importance of its testimonies." Mr. Whittier, by
+the way, in his will requests all who have letters of his to refrain
+from publishing them unless with the consent of his literary executor,
+Mr. S. T. Pickard.</p>
+
+<p>So beautifully ended a most beautiful life&mdash;beautiful because just and
+heroic in the defense of justice. As says of him James Herbert Morse:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Such was the man&mdash;no more than simple man,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Plain Quaker, with the Norman-Saxon glow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But seeing beauty so, and justice so,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We love to think him the American."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And as Lowell says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Peaceful by birthright as a virgin lake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The lily's anchorage, which no eyes behold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save those of stars, yet for thy brother's sake<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That lay in bonds thou blew'st a blast as bold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As that wherewith the heart of Roland brake,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Far heard through Pyrenean valleys cold!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The lines strong and resonant, of Stedman's "Ad Vatem," addressed to
+Whittier<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> while living, might well have been uttered over his bier:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Whittier, the land that loves thee, she whose child<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou art, and whose uplifted hands thou long<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hast staid with song availing like a prayer&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She feels a sudden pang who gave thee birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And gave to thee the lineaments supreme<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of her own freedom, that she could not make<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy tissues all immortal, or, if to change,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To bloom through years coeval with her own;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So that no touch of age nor frost of time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Should wither thee, nor furrow thy dear face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor fleck thy hair with silver. Ay, she feels<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A double pang that thee, with each new year<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glad youth may not revisit, like the spring<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That routs her northern winter and anew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Melts off the hoar snow from her puissant hills."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Many pleasant anecdotes of the Quaker poet appeared shortly after his
+death. Col. T. W. Higginson, writing of the Amesbury home, said of
+Whittier's mother:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"On one point only this blameless soul seemed to have a shadow of
+solicitude, this being the new wonder of Spiritualism just dawning on
+the world. I never went to the house that there did not come from the
+gentle lady very soon a placid inquiry from behind her knitting needles,
+'Has thee any further information to give in regard to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> spiritual
+communications, as they call them?' But if I attempted to treat
+seriously a matter which then, as now, puzzled most inquirers by its
+perplexing details, there would come some keen thrust from Elizabeth
+Whittier which would throw all serious solution further off than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"She was indeed a brilliant person, unsurpassed in my memory for the
+light cavalry charges of wit; as unlike her mother and brother as if she
+had been born into a different race. Instead of his regular features,
+she had a wild, bird-like look, with prominent nose and large liquid
+dark eyes, whose expression vibrated every instant between melting
+softness and impetuous wit. There was nothing about her that was not
+sweet and kindly, but you were constantly taxed to keep up with her
+sallies and hold your own; while her graver brother listened with
+delighted admiration and rubbed his hands over bits of merry sarcasm
+which were utterly alien to his own vein. His manifold visitors were
+touched off in living colors; two plump and rosy Western girls among
+them, who had lately descended upon the household beaming with eagerness
+to see the poet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They had announced themselves as the Cary sisters, who had lately sent
+him their joint poems&mdash;verses, it will be remembered, crowded with
+deaths and melodious dirges that seemed ludicrously inconsistent with
+the blooming faces at the door. Mrs. Whittier met them rather guardedly
+and explained that her son was out. 'But we will come in and wait for
+him,' they smilingly replied. 'But he is in Boston, and may not be home
+for a week,' said the prudent mother. 'No matter,' they said, in the
+true spirit of Western hospitality; 'we can stay till he returns.' There
+was no resource but to admit them; and happily the poet came back next
+day, and there ensued a life-long friendship, in which the mother fully
+shared."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And another reminiscence appeared in the press, touching the poet's
+residence in Boston.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>When Mrs. Celia Thaxter was boarding at the little English-like inn on
+the sunny slope of Beacon Hill called Hotel Winthrop, Mr. Whittier went
+there one day to see her. Mrs. Thaxter liked the quiet place, with its
+ivied window and its glimpse of the strong, short, green-draped tower of
+St. John the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> Evangelist's, and she praised it to her old friend. That
+was some time in 1881, and in November of that year he joined his Oak
+Knoll cousins, Mrs. Woodman and her daughter and the Misses Johnson, at
+the Winthrop. The ladies of the family came in September, but Mr.
+Whittier did not join them until November. He said that he did not want
+to lose his vote in Amesbury.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was a winter full of pleasure to the poet. He was then not too feeble
+to go out evenings, and he spent many pleasant hours with friends like
+the Claflins and others. But the hours in the parlor of the hotel make
+the place historic, and give it a special interest and meaning for his
+future biographer. Mr. Whittier had room fourteen (the number of a
+sonnet's lines, twice seven, with luck for a poet), and the fire-escape
+made a little balcony for him on a corner toward St. John's. The
+landlord had a door cut through the thick old wall to the rooms
+adjoining, and these were the rooms of Mrs. Woodman and the rest. It is
+old Boston decidedly in that quarter. The brick of the houses is mellow
+old red, and there is nothing newfangled anywhere about. Mr. Whittier<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>
+said he preferred coming here rather than to one of the big hotels,
+because there he was "overwhelmed with the service," and here it seemed
+"more like Amesbury," where people "are neighborly and drop in without
+knocking." He had "always been used to waiting upon himself," and he
+"liked being in a place where they would let him."</p>
+
+<p>It was his custom, mornings, to come down into the little reception-room
+on the street floor, and "sitting right in that chair where you're
+sitting," as the writer was told, he "used to read his letters and throw
+all the papers in a pile on the floor and go off and leave them." That
+little room was a great place of congregation for "the family," as the
+boarders who were there with Mr. Whittier liked to call themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The poet would sit on the sofa with a favored one on each side of him
+and the rest in a group about, "often on footstools or on the floor, as
+like as not," while he "told stories of war times." Gen. Stevens was
+there during one of the poet's long stays; he had been a classmate of
+Gen. Lee and of Jefferson Davis at West Point, and he and the abolition
+poet discussed these men and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> their times from the broader view of later
+days.</p>
+
+<p>"Once a friend, a lady who had some property in Virginia, wrote Mr.
+Whittier of having named a street in a new town for him, and of having
+set aside a portion of ground in his name. He replied with thanks,
+saying that he had that week received news of no less than three towns
+or streets being named for him with a gift of town lots, adding, 'If
+this sort of thing goes on much longer, I shall be land poor.'</p>
+
+<p>"During the winters he was at the Winthrop, Mr. Whittier's favorite way
+of getting about was in a herdic. They were 'not pretty,' but they 'knew
+the way to places.' Politicians used to go there to see him and try to
+get him to banquets. But his life-long avoidance of politics in the
+minor sense made him easily resist their wiles. 'I have seen Mr. &mdash;&mdash; (a
+well-known name) come here and just about go down on his knees to get
+Mr. Whittier to speak or even to come to a banquet,' says the landlord
+(who is, by the way, an old-time character worthy of a novelist's pen),
+'but Mr. Whittier would just sit here&mdash;right in that chair you're
+in&mdash;and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> kind of smile to himself as if to say, "Oh! your talk don't
+amount to anything." Well, once Mr. &mdash;&mdash; came here and staid and staid
+a-talking and persuading, and gave Mr. Whittier an earache if ever a man
+had one. But he didn't make anything by it, although he finally had to
+take a bed and stay all night.'"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Charles Brainard visited Whittier soon after the publication of
+"Snow-Bound." Finding his house painted and improved, he remarked to
+him, "It is evident that poetry has ceased to be a drug in the market."</p>
+
+<p>"The next morning Mr. Whittier's answer came. It was in the winter, and,
+as the poet went up to the fire to warm his boots preparatory to putting
+them on, he said, 'Thee will have to excuse me, for I must go down to
+the office of the Collector.' Then, with a humorous gleam in his eye, he
+added, 'Since "Snow-Bound" was published, I have risen to the dignity of
+an income tax.'"</p>
+
+<p>To an Englishman who visited him not long before his death, Mr. Whittier
+expressed his surprise that his guest should know so much of his poetry
+by heart. "I wonder," he said, "thou shouldst burden thy memory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> with
+all that rhyme. It is not well to have too much of it: better get rid of
+it as soon as possible. Why, I can't remember any of it. I once went to
+hear a wonderful orator, and he wound up his speech with a poetical
+quotation, and I clapped with all my might. Some one touched me on the
+shoulder, and said. 'Do you know who wrote that?' I said, 'No, I don't;
+but it's good.' It seems I had written it myself. The fault is I have
+written far too much."</p>
+
+<p>Here is a story illustrating Whittier's kind-heartedness: A young lady,
+a neighbor, was asked to take tea at his house. "He had no servant at
+the moment, and, with the assistance of his guest, prepared the simple
+meal with his own hand. She contributed to the press for her support,
+and prepared a minute account of the affair, of which Mr. Whittier
+chanced to be advised, and sent off a remonstrance post haste. But when
+the young author pleaded the real need of the money which the little
+story was to bring her, and the harmlessness to its subject of its
+effective details, the former reason (for the latter would never have
+overcome his abhorrence of what he must have felt a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> vivisection)
+actually prevailed, and he permitted the publication with a benignant
+forbearance."</p>
+
+<p>The Hon. Nathan Crosby, LL. D., writes in the Essex Institute
+Collections for 1880.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"James F. Otis, nephew of the Hon. H. G. Otis, while reading law in my
+office, found in some newspaper a piece of poetry which he said he was
+told had been written by a shoemaker boy in Haverhill, and he wished to
+go and find him. Upon his return he told me he found the young man by
+the name of Whittier at work in his shoe shop, and, making himself known
+to him, they spent the day together in wandering over the hills on the
+shore of the Merrimack, and in conversation upon literary matters. The
+next year he became an editor. Mr. Whittier is not only a poet, but is
+himself a poem."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier, when interviewed some time ago as to his favorite works,
+replied: "Oh! really, I have none. Much that I have written I wish was
+as deep in the Red Sea as Pharaoh's chariot wheels. Much of the bread
+cast on the waters I wish had never returned. It is not fair to revive
+writings composed in the shadow of conditions that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> make every
+acceptable work impossible. In my early life I was not favored with good
+opportunities. Limited chances for education and a lack of books always
+stood in my way. When I began to write I had seen nothing, and virtually
+knew nothing of the world. Of course, things written then could not be
+worth much. In my father's house there were not a dozen books, and they
+were of a severe type. The only one that approached poetry was a rhymed
+history of King David, written by a contemporary of George Fox, the
+Quaker. There was one poor novel in the family. It belonged to an aunt.
+This I secured one day, but when I had read it about half through I was
+discovered and it was taken away from me."</p>
+
+<p>This was about the time when Judge Pickering, of Salem, and a party of
+ladies called at the farm-house to see him. "He was then an awkward boy
+of seventeen&mdash;as he used to tell the story&mdash;and was just then under the
+barn, looking for eggs. Hearing his name called, he came up with his hat
+full and found himself suddenly in the presence of people more elegant
+in appearance than any he had ever met. In telling the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> story, he added
+naïvely, 'They came to see the Quaker poet&mdash;and they saw him!' This must
+have been about the year 1824."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. T. W. Ball (in the Boston <i>Journal</i>, Dec. 18, 1891, weekly edition),
+the journalist, wrote of his sole interview in 1848 with Whittier, in a
+little editorial den at the junction of Spring Lane and Water Street
+with Devonshire Street (the building recently torn down), where Henry
+Wilson was then editing the Free-Soil paper (owned by him as well). "I
+was busy," says Mr. Ball, "getting up some local items one morning, when
+a gentleman of staid appearance, with a beaming countenance, a
+broad-brimmed fur hat&mdash;the old-fashioned fur hat, so different from the
+silk tile&mdash;and a brownish coat of formal cut, entered the room, and,
+after the usual courtesies of salutation, fell into a close chat with
+the 'Natick cobbler,' by which popular title the future Vice-President
+was then known. It was the summer season, and Wilson was resplendent in
+a brown linen coat and a flaming red-checked velvet waistcoat, which was
+much affected in those days. As the conversation between the two waxed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>
+interesting, I noticed that the visitor unbuttoned his vest for comfort,
+and possessed himself of an exchange paper which he converted into a
+fan. The interview closed, and the visitor, buttoning up his vest and
+donning his hat, turned to depart, when for the first time he appeared
+to take notice of my presence. With a rapid glance at Wilson, he said,
+'Henry, who is thy young friend?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, that's William, my local reporter,' was the reply. 'Here, William,
+this is Mr. Whittier, the Quaker poet, that you have heard about; shake
+hands with him.' I timidly extended my hand, and the great man not only
+grasped it with a cordial grasp, but, patting me on the head with his
+other hand, said, 'My young friend, thee has chosen a noble calling.'"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Whittier, in speaking of Longfellow's works a few years ago, said,
+"'Evangeline' is a favorite with me. I think it is one of the most
+beautiful of poems. Longfellow had an easy life and superior advantages
+of association and education, and so did Emerson. It was widely
+different with me, and I am very thankful for the kind esteem that
+people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> have given my writings. Before 'Evangeline' was written I had
+hunted up the history of the banishment of the Acadians, and had
+intended to write upon it myself, but I put it off, and Hawthorne got
+hold of the story and gave it to Longfellow. I am very glad he did, for
+he was just the one to write it. If I had attempted it I should have
+spoiled the artistic effect of the poem by my indignation at the
+treatment of the exiles by the Colonial Government, who had a very hard
+lot after coming to this country. Families were separated and scattered
+about, only a few of them being permitted to remain in any given
+locality. The children were bound out to the families in the localities
+in which they resided, and I wrote a poem upon finding in the records of
+Haverhill the indenture that bound an Acadian girl as a servant in one
+of the families in that neighborhood. Gathering the story of her death,
+I wrote 'Marguerite.'"</p>
+
+<p>In addition to what has been stated in this volume and elsewhere by me
+on the Barbara Frietchie ballad, are to be finally appended a few words,
+suggested by the one who sent the raw material of the ballad to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>
+Whittier, namely, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, who, soon after the
+poet's death, at her pretty home in Georgetown, D. C., recalled the
+circumstances as they occurred back in 1863. It seems that the story was
+told her by a neighbor of hers who was also a relative of Barbara&mdash;Mr.
+C. S. Ramsburg. Mrs. Southworth's son, who was present, remarked, "What
+a grand subject for a poem by Whittier, mother!"</p>
+
+<p>She thereupon sat down, and with tears in her eyes, wrote the incident
+out and sent it to Amesbury. Mr. Whittier replied as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Amesbury</span>, 9mo. 8, 1863.</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear Mrs. Southworth</span>:&mdash;I heartily thank thee for thy very kind
+letter and its inclosed "message." It ought to have fallen into
+better hands, but I have just written out a little ballad of
+"Barbara Frietchie," which will appear in the next <i>Atlantic</i>. If
+it is good for anything thee deserves all the credit of it.</p>
+
+<p>"With best wishes for thy health and happiness, I am most truly thy
+friend,</p>
+
+<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">John G. Whittier</span>."</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is said that Mr. Whittier expressed regret for having made a bonfire
+of nearly all the letters he had received from his correspondents for
+over half a century. It is to be hoped that his literary executor will
+be liberal-minded in allowing the publication of the most interesting of
+Whittier's own letters, for he put a good bit of his sister Elizabeth's
+wit and vivacity into his letters; and scarcely a day passed that one or
+more of these was not written, overflowing with kindly words and good
+humor, though these, it is true, could give no hint of that lambent
+gleam of the marvelous eyes, nor of that sudden compression of the upper
+lip with which he repressed a smile when he had flashed out a bit of
+humor.</p>
+
+<p>Whittier was not only quick in repartee, but quick and lithe in all his
+movements, and quick in his mental processes. His friend, Judge G. W.
+Cate, says he latterly read books very rapidly by inspection, turning
+the leaves and seizing the contents by intuition. The poet's
+imagination, continues Judge Cate, was wonderful. Years ago he may have
+read an accurate description of some remote place&mdash;Malta,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> Jerusalem, or
+some smaller town in the far East. He would then converse at any time as
+readily about such a place as if he had been there. It was this vivid
+remembrance of places, Whittier himself said, which made him not care so
+much to visit them in person. He was never a traveler, not having been
+farther from home than Philadelphia (half a century ago), and Washington
+somewhat later. He said that he should like to be in California or
+Florida for a winter, but the getting there appalled him, and so he sat
+contentedly in his Northern study, with its bright open fire, finding in
+its crumbling embers a compensatory dream of the <i>Morgenland</i> with its
+palms, mirages and luxuriant blossomry. He followed with deep interest
+the toils and adventures of his friend Greely in the arctic regions, and
+rejoiced with all his neighbors when word came of his rescue. And at
+another time he said he "would rather shake hands with Stanley than with
+any other man in the world just then."</p>
+
+<p>The sincerest mourners at Whittier's funeral were women. One of the
+peculiarities of his life was the devotion and loving care given to him
+by noble women&mdash;sisters,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> mother, nieces, cousins and such poet friends
+as Lucy Larcom, Mrs. Spofford, Rose Terry Cooke, Sarah Orne Jewett,
+Celia Thaxter, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Mrs. Annie Fields. He was
+always an ardent defender of woman suffrage, and such advocates of that
+noble cause as Adelaide A. Claflin publicly expressed their sorrow on
+the death of their coadjutor and friend.</p>
+
+<p>He was not only liberal in politics, but also in religion, and while
+remaining from choice in the creedless church of his fathers, yet he had
+sympathies that allied him with the broad humanitarian movements of the
+times in religion. There was no shred of bigotry in his nature. Who ever
+heard of a persecuting Quaker? It is they who have always patiently
+suffered persecution. Whittier, indeed, belonged with the advance guard
+of the Friends, in spirit at least, and he said in a letter written
+shortly before his death, "For years I have been desirous of a movement
+for uniting all Christians, with no other creed or pledge than a simple
+recognition of Christ as our leader."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The Whittier Club of Haverhill, an organization<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> the poet had thoroughly
+enjoyed, not only because it represented the feeling of his native town
+toward him, but also from the constant attentions paid him by it, held a
+memorial service in Haverhill, October 7. It was a rare day of tribute
+and thanksgiving, and all who participated in it felt grateful for the
+honor allowed them. It was just a month from the day when the loved poet
+and former citizen passed from earth. Mr. George E. Elliott, the owner
+of Whittier's birthplace, very generously allowed the club to hold its
+meeting in the old homestead, and he furthered in every way their
+well-conceived plan by which the several rooms presented an appearance
+as near as possible to that of the poet's boyhood. The partition in the
+old kitchen, that had been put up of late years, was taken down,
+disclosing the array of ancient cupboards and queer little window; there
+was the kettle hanging on the crane in the wide fireplace, along whose
+hearth one almost expected to see "the apples sputtering in a row," as
+of yore. There were the iron fire-dogs and the antiquated chairs, the
+wainscoting untouched by the hand of Time, save to grow mellower<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> of
+tint, and there was "the sagging beam," the uneven floor and the quaint
+staircase, all just as Whittier, the boy, saw and touched and lived
+amongst, all those impressible years of his life.</p>
+
+<p>It was a notable company gathered in that old homestead that beautiful
+October day&mdash;bidden there by the Whittier Club&mdash;not large in numbers, as
+the invitations were of necessity limited to the capacity of the old
+homestead. But they were mostly the poet's dear friends who came to do
+honor to his name. There was Lucy Larcom, William Lloyd Garrison, Jr.,
+Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney and "Margaret Sidney" (Mrs. D. Lothrop); there was
+Charles Carleton Coffin and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Garrison and Miss
+Sparhawk, whose father, Dr. Thomas Sparhawk of Amesbury, was one of the
+poet's life-long friends. There was the dear Quaker presence of Mrs.
+Purington, Mr. Whittier's cousin, and the members of his family at Oak
+Knoll, Mrs. Woodman, her daughter, Miss Phebe, and the Misses Johnson;
+there was Mr. S. T. Pickard of Portland, Maine, who married the poet's
+niece Lizzie, and who is Mr. Whittier's literary executor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> And there
+were other relatives and friends and Haverhill citizens thronging the
+house, and listening outside the little many-paned windows to catch the
+echoes of the words being uttered within.</p>
+
+<p>The day was all that one could desire who looked for sympathy in Nature
+toward this her favorite child who has so interpreted her woods and
+fields, her autumn skies and the trembling line of river and coast. The
+old kitchen was filled with chairs, and on them, and crowded in the
+doorways and peeping in the windows, were the interested and reverent
+listeners. Mr. Charles Howe, the president of the club, presided with
+great grace and dignity; with rare tact culling from the large amount of
+what waited to be read and said, just such choice extracts and bits of
+reminiscence as would best serve the purpose of the hour. Selections
+from "Snow-Bound" were read by a member of the club in that room where
+"Snow-Bound" was lived, if one may so express it. And to the listeners
+there came a vision of wintry fields and whirling storm; of the little
+knot of friends drawn close to the friendly comforting fire on the
+hearth; in the midst the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> thoughtful sensitive boy who was to awaken the
+love and veneration of future generations all over his country.</p>
+
+<p>There were reminiscences of a visit to his birthplace paid by the poet
+some ten years since with Mr. S. T. Pickard, who told to the assembled
+company many amusing stories related by Mr. Whittier on that occasion.
+There was the quaint staircase down which the poet, when a baby, wrapped
+in a blanket, was rolled by his sister only two years older, who
+probably thought it the greatest kindness in the world to thus project
+her infant brother into space. There was the queer old cupboard where
+Mr. Whittier when a boy was dragged by his jacket collar by a tramp who
+had forcibly entered the house; and there he was compelled to stand
+while the unwelcome visitor searched high and low for any chance jug or
+bottle that would yield another supply to his already over-weighted
+condition. Seizing a jug from a dark corner, he ejected the cork without
+a glance at the contents, and took a long deep draught of whale oil used
+for filling lamps. The embryo poet took advantage of the confused
+spluttering that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> ensued, to make good his escape. Mr. Will Carleton
+recited with dramatic vigor "Barbara Frietchie," till the walls and
+rafters rang. Lucy Larcom read from the poet's writings, and Mr. William
+Lloyd Garrison, Jr. recited an original poem. A young English lady, who
+was visiting friends of Mr. Whittier's, read by request Tennyson's
+"Crossing the Bar," the Poet Laureate's death having just occurred.</p>
+
+<p>There were reminiscences by Dr. Fiske of Newburyport, who told several
+characteristic stories connected with Joshua Coffin, the "Yankee
+Schoolmaster," and life-long friend of the poet; and Charles Carleton
+Coffin, the historian, gave the account of his capture of the big key of
+the last slave prison in Richmond, and of his giving it to Mr. Whittier
+who returned it to him a year or so ago. At the close of his remarks,
+Mr. Carleton hung the key on the nail above the fireplace where, in
+Whittier's boyhood, the big bull's-eye watch used to hang. Fitting place
+was it for the silent symbol of agony and shame to the slave brother;
+and all who witnessed it hanging there, felt the heart beat to a newer
+and a keener sense of the debt we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> owe to him whose songs (as one who
+gave a reminiscence that day told us) influenced Abraham Lincoln to
+project the Emancipation Proclamation upon the American people. The
+beautiful poem of Mr. Whittier's, "My Psalm," was rendered with deep
+feeling by Mrs. Julia Houston West for whom, several years ago, the
+verses had been set to music. And to bring to a fitting close these
+memorial exercises, the assembled company of relatives and friends rose
+and sang one stanza of of "Auld Lang Syne."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus9.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>(handwritten note)</h3>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Dr Holmes.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Beloved physician of an age of ail<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When grave prescriptions fail<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy songs have cheer and healing for us all<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As David's had for Saul.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">John G Whittier<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Hampton Falls, NH<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Aug 26 1892<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><i>The above fac-simile of the last verse written by Mr. Whittier, is
+kindly loaned us by the "Boston Journal." The following letter was sent
+with the verse</i>:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hampton Falls</span>, <i>August</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Wingate</span>:</p>
+
+<p>I have only time and strength to write a single verse expressive of
+my love and admiration of my dear old friend, Dr. Holmes.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">John G. Whittier.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> "The History of Haverhill, Mass.; from its first settlement
+in 1640 to the year 1860. By George Wingate Chase, Haverhill. Published
+by the author, 1861."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The foregoing statements are taken from the Whittier
+genealogy. But the author finds that there are a few slight
+discrepancies of date between this book and the inscriptions on the
+family tombstones in Amesbury. The tombstones say that John Whittier
+died "11th of 6 mo., 1831," and that Mary died "1st mo. 7, 1861."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Whittier has thus alluded to this surmise:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The name the Gallic exile bore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">St. Malo! from thy ancient mart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Became upon our Western shore<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Greenleaf for Feuillevert."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> It may be added that the ancestral home of the Longfellows
+is still standing in Byfield, about five miles distant from the Whittier
+homestead in Haverhill. (See the author's Life of Henry Wadsworth
+Longfellow, p. 15.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The name of Daniel Webster's paternal grandmother was
+Susannah Bachelor, or Batchelder.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> See histories of Lynn and Newbury, <i>passim</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> 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.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The old brown school-house is now no more, having been
+removed to make room for a reservoir.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> 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."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See Appendix II.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> See note on p. 301.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Mr. Whittier quotes this fine ballad in Vol. II. p. 243 of
+his prose works, but with numerous changes of punctuation and phrase.
+The differences between the poem as it there appears and as it is given
+in his own edition of Brainard, published in 1832, seem to show that he
+has amended the ballad and punctuated it to suit himself, or else has
+quoted it from memory, or at third or fourth remove. It must be admitted
+that the changes are all improvements, however they were made. The
+ballad is quoted above, however, as it appears in Brainard's Poems.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> "He gave us a kind word of approval," says Whittier, "and
+invited us to his mountain home, on the banks of the Pemigewasset, an
+invitation which, two years afterwards, we accepted."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Twenty-one of these persons were Quakers, as Mr. Whittier
+and the writer proved by actual count of the names on Mr. Whittier's
+fac-simile copy of the Declaration.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Mr. Whittier here made a slip of memory. His first
+work was "Legends of New England," as he himself testifies, in
+his own handwriting, in a memorandum sent to the New England
+Historic-Genealogical Society.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> For these details about days on the Bearcamp, the writer
+is indebted to Dr. Robert R. Andrews, an acquaintance of the poet.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> The writer remembers once speaking with a laborer whom Mr.
+Whittier had employed. The good fellow could not conceal his admiration
+for the poet, "Why," he said, "you wouldn't think it, would you, but he
+talks just like common folks. We was talkin' about the apples one day,
+and he said, 'Some years they ain't wuth pickin','&mdash;just like anybody,
+you know; ain't stuck up at all, and yet he's a great man, you know. He
+likes to talk with farmers and common folks; he don't go much with the
+bigbugs;&mdash;one of the nicest men, and liberal with his money, too."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> The Emperor has translated Whittier's "Cry of a Lost Soul"
+into Portuguese, and has sent to the poet several specimens of the
+Amazonian bird whose peculiar note suggested the poem.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Mrs. Sargent's "Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical
+Club," pp. 301, 302.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> The same sterling material that went to the making of the
+Quaker went also to the making of the Puritan farmer-and-artisan victors
+of Naseby, and Worcester, and Marston Moor. The same faults
+characterized each class. In stiff-backed independence and scorn of the
+gilt-edged poetry of conventional manners, and in the absurd extreme to
+which they carried that independence and scorn, the Quaker and the
+Puritan were alike. Only the Quaker out-puritaned the Puritan,&mdash;was much
+more consistent in his fanatical purism, scrawny asceticism, and
+contempt for distinguished manners and the noble imaginative arts.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> In his work "No Cross, No Crown."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Their ideas on this subject are very well stated in the
+following words taken from a Quaker pamphlet by Mary Brook: "Solomon
+saith, 'The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the
+tongue, are from the Lord.' If the Lord alone can prepare the heart,
+stir it up, or incline it towards unfeigned holiness, how can any man
+approach him acceptably, till his heart be prepared by him?&mdash;and how can
+he know this preparation except he wait in silence to feel it?"</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> See Appendix I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Mrs. John T. Sargent's "Sketches and Reminiscences of the
+Radical Club."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Hear Whittier himself on the subject:&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Without intending any disparagement of my peaceable ancestry for many
+generations, I have still strong suspicions that somewhat of the old
+Norman blood, something of the grim Berserker spirit, has been
+bequeathed to me. How else can I account for the intense childish
+eagerness with which I listened to the stories of old campaigners who
+sometimes fought their battles over again in my hearing? Why did I, in
+my young fancy, go up with Jonathan, the son of Saul, to smite the
+garrisoned Philistines of Michmash, or with the fierce son of Nun
+against the cities of Canaan? Why was Mr. Greatheart, in Pilgrim's
+Progress, my favorite character? What gave such fascination to the grand
+Homeric encounter between Christian and Apollyon in the valley? Why did
+I follow Ossian over Morven's battle-fields, exulting in the
+vulture-screams of the blind scald over his fallen enemies? Still,
+later, why did the newspapers furnish me with subjects for hero-worship
+in the half-demented Sir Gregor McGregor, and Ypsilanti at the head of
+his knavish Greeks? I can account for it only on the supposition that
+the mischief was inherited,&mdash;an heirloom from the old sea-kings of the
+ninth century."&mdash;<i>Prose Works, II.</i>, 390, 391.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The beginning of this decade nearly coincides with the
+fourth or final period in our classification, upon the consideration of
+which we shall now enter.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> What is the subtle fascination that lurks in such bits of
+winter poetry as the following, collected by the writer out of his
+reading?
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Yesterday the sullen year<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saw the snowy whirlwind fly."&mdash;<i>Gray.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"All winter drives along the darkened air."&mdash;<i>Thomson.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"High-ridged the whirled drift has almost reached<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The powdered keystone of the churchyard porch;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mute hangs the hooded bell; the tombs lie buried."&mdash;<i>Grahame.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Alas! alas! thou snow-smitten wood of<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Troy, and mountains of Ida."&mdash;<i>Sophocles.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O hard, dull bitterness of cold."&mdash;<i>Whittier.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And in the narrow house o' death<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let winter round me rave."&mdash;<i>Burns.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The mesmerizer, Snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With his hand's first sweep<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Put the earth to sleep."&mdash;<i>Robert Browning.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And the cakèd snow is shuffled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the plough-boy's heavy shoon."&mdash;<i>Keats.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> "There is a story," says Dr. George E. Ellis, "that
+Burroughs got access to the king out of doors, while his Majesty was
+playing tennis. As Burroughs kept on his hat while accosting the king,
+the latter gracefully removed his plumed cap and bowed. The Quaker, put
+to the blush, said, 'Thee need'st not remove thy hat.' 'Oh,' replied the
+king, 'it is of no consequence, only that when the king and another
+gentleman are talking together it is usual for one of them to take off
+his hat.'"</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Mr. Whittier stated to a member of the Massachusetts
+Historical Society that it was his intention "at some time to prepare a
+full and exhaustive history of the relations of Puritan and Quaker in
+the seventeenth century." It may be added that the newspaper articles
+quoted above, with the several replications of their authors, may all be
+found in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for
+1880-81 (see the index of that volume).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> "The Pastoral Letter" was an idiotic manifesto of the
+clergy of Massachusetts aimed at the Grimké sisters.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's John Greenleaf Whittier, by W. Sloane Kennedy
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+</body>
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@@ -0,0 +1,7612 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of John Greenleaf Whittier, by W. Sloane Kennedy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: John Greenleaf Whittier
+       His Life, Genius, and Writings
+
+Author: W. Sloane Kennedy
+
+Release Date: August 24, 2011 [EBook #37191]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tor Martin Kristiansen, Carol Brown, Mary
+Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                    JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
+
+                 His Life, Genius, and Writings
+
+                     BY W. SLOANE KENNEDY
+
+      Author of a "Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," Etc.
+
+                     REVISED AND ENLARGED
+
+
+    _INTRODUCTION BY REV. S. F. SMITH, D.D._
+    Author of Hymn "America"
+
+
+    Such music as the woods and streams
+    Sang in his ear, he sang aloud
+
+            _The Tent on the Beach_
+
+
+    For all his quiet life flowed on,
+      As meadow streamlets flow,
+    Where fresher green reveals alo
+      The noiseless ways they go
+
+            _The Friend's Burial_
+
+
+    CHICAGO NEW YORK
+    THE WERNER COMPANY
+
+    COPYRIGHT 1892
+    BY D. LOTHROP COMPANY
+
+    COPYRIGHT 1895
+    BY THE WERNER COMPANY
+
+    John Greenleaf Whittier
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+Who does not admire and love John Greenleaf Whittier? And who does not
+delight to do him honor? He was a man raised up by Providence to meet an
+exigency in human history, and an exigency in the experiences of the
+United States. And he met the exigency with distinguished success. He
+was a true exponent of New England life and the New England spirit. He
+drew his inspiration from the soil where he was born, from the
+necessities of the times, from the demands of human rights, from the
+love of God and of man. He was a unique man. We knew not his like before
+him. We shall see no other like him after him. He was the product of his
+age; and the age in which he lived belonged to him, and he to and in it.
+He was a unique literary man. He was so meek and retiring; he was so
+keenly sensitive to the wrongs done by man to man; he was so devoid of
+self-seeking; so pure and exalted in motive, and so sturdy a defender of
+the rights of the oppressed; he was so full of trust in God that we seem
+never to have seen his equal among men. His beautiful gentleness of
+character and his inflexible and fearless advocacy of the cause of
+righteousness--even when such advocacy involved persecution and
+personal harm and loss, a rare combination of qualities--remind us of
+the sentiment of Oliver Wendell Holmes,
+
+    "The gentle are the strong."
+
+If ever in modern days the character of the apostle John has been
+reproduced among men it was in John G. Whittier. See with what sweetness
+and meekness the shy and loving Quaker moved through the ranks of
+society in times of peace and prosperity, and with what an adamantine
+boldness and bravery he stood up before the mob in Philadelphia when his
+types and manuscripts were scattered, his printing office burned and
+himself threatened with personal violence by the foes of human equality
+and freedom. Did he quail before the storm? Not he. Did he abandon his
+principles and retire from the arena? Oh, no; no more than did the
+apostle John--the apostle of love--forsake his Christian faith when the
+persecutors immersed him in boiling oil and exiled him to a desert
+island in the AEgean Sea.
+
+The poetry of Mr. Whittier is a complete autobiography. It is a
+reflection, as in a polished mirror, of himself. We miss only the
+accidents of dates and places, which are of merely external importance;
+but we find in his works, amply displayed, the portraiture of the man;
+even as the architect records himself and his thoughts in his plans, and
+builds his own soul into his edifices. Read the poetry of Mr. Whittier,
+and you have no need to ask what kind of man produced it. Behold the
+portrait: a thorough New England man, a son of its soil and a legitimate
+product of its institutions; a fruit of the simple education which was
+open to the people in the times of his youth and manhood; a
+philanthropist, loving all righteousness and all men, and scorning all
+oppression, injustice and iniquity; a stern advocate of human freedom,
+prepared to fight for it even "to the bitter end;" a bachelor, but
+having always a sweet and tender side for women; petted by society, but
+never tempted to swerve from the straight line of his principles;
+holding the faith of his fathers as a birthright and the result of his
+honest convictions, but with sympathies as broad as the universe and an
+appreciation of the privilege of private judgment on religious matters
+as the right and duty of all men; animated by a patriotism which took in
+his whole country, but a yearning for his own New England, its people,
+its scenery, its institutions and its honor; warmly attached to the
+friends whom he met along the pilgrimage of this life, but preserving to
+the last the memory and the love of the survivors whom he knew in his
+school days in the Haverhill Academy; living very much apart from his
+fellow-men, as he did in his latter days, on account of the increasing
+infirmities of his age, and absorbed in the world of his own thoughts,
+yet ever most affable, and as accessible as a most warm-hearted and
+cordial associate; every inch a man, as in stature, so also in soul, but
+exhibiting also the simplicity and the loving and confiding spirit of a
+child ("of such is the kingdom of heaven"); conscious of his human
+weakness and dependence on a higher Power, as he approached the goal of
+life, but relying on that higher Power with a sublime courage and a firm
+faith. How the man stands forth, like an orator on the stage, in the
+presence of throngs of admiring and reverent spectators! Unconsciously
+he sets forth in his works, whether they be prose or poetry, an example
+of the beauty of righteousness, the charm of philanthropy, the power and
+attractiveness of the broadest charity, the fervor of patriotism and the
+controlling force of love. The century which is about to close has been
+honored and made better, as well as gladder, by his presence in it. He
+has enriched its literature. He has elevated its ethics. He has breathed
+a divine life into its inspirations. He has warmed its heart.
+
+Mr. Whittier, like another Wordsworth, glorifies the scenes of common
+life, and hallows the landscapes of his New England homes. His verses
+speak in the dialect of the people, and deal with themes with which they
+are familiar. He lifts toil above its drudgery, and sanctifies, as with
+a sacred glow, the things with which men in common spheres chiefly have
+to do. He admired nature as he saw in it the landscapes which surrounded
+his several homes, the rolling green hills of Haverhill and Bradford,
+the mighty trees of Oak Knoll, the flowing stream and graceful curves of
+the Merrimack; the sober and quiet graces of Amesbury; and with his pen
+he stamped upon them immortality.
+
+The sun has set, but no night follows. The singer is gone, but his songs
+remain, and will long be a power among men far beyond the places adorned
+and honored by his personal presence. We love his poems which on account
+of their helpfulness the grateful world will long continue to read. How
+little he wrote--did he ever write anything--"which, dying, he could
+wish to blot?" and his life was a poem. The seal of Death is on his
+virtues, and the seal of universal approval is on his works.
+
+
+S. F. SMITH.
+
+
+
+
+     CONTENTS.
+
+
+     Part I.--LIFE.
+
+     I. ANCESTRY                                                   9
+
+     The Poet's Titles. Heredity. Spelling of the Name Whittier.
+     Whittier Ancestors. Greenleaf Ancestors. The Husseys and
+     Batchelders. Portrait of Whittier's Mother.
+
+     II. THE MERRIMACK VALLEY                                     24
+
+     Description of Essex County, Haverhill, Amesbury, Newburyport,
+     Salisbury Beach, and the Isles of Shoals. Extracts from the
+     "Supernaturalism of New England." The Spirit of the Age.
+
+     III. BOYHOOD                                                 36
+
+     Birthplace. Kenoza Lake. Whitman and Whittier. The Old Homestead.
+     Members of the Household. Harriet Livermore and Lady Hester
+     Stanhope. The Poet's School Days. "My Playmate." Ellwood and Burns.
+     Old Stragglers. "Pilgrim's Progress." The Demon Fiddler. First
+     Poem. William Lloyd Garrison and the _Free Press_. Haverhill
+     Academy. Robert Dinsmore, the Quaint Farmer-Poet of Windham.
+
+     IV. EDITOR AND AUTHOR: FIRST VENTURES                        83
+
+     Whittier as Editor of the _Boston Manufacturer_, the _Essex
+     Gazette_, and the _New England Review_. First Volume, "Legends of
+     New England." The Poet, J. G. C. Brainard. Ballad of "The Black
+     Fox." Whittier's Views on the Poetical Resources of the New World.
+     "Moll Pitcher."
+
+     V. WHITTIER THE REFORMER                                     97
+
+     Identifies Himself with the Anti-Slavery Movement. Publication of
+     his _Brochure_, "Justice and Expediency." Social Martyrdom.
+     Prudence Crandall and her Battle with the Philistinism of
+     Canterbury, Conn. Tailor Woolman and Saddler Lundy. Account of the
+     Philadelphia Convention for the Formation of the American
+     Anti-Slavery Society. Whittier's Account of the Convention. William
+     Lloyd Garrison draws up the Famous Declaration of Principles.
+     Samuel J. May Mobbed at East Haverhill. Whittier and George
+     Thompson Mobbed at Concord, N. H. Story of the Landlord and the
+     Flight by Night. The Poet's Account of the Mobbing of William Lloyd
+     Garrison. Letters of John Quincy Adams. Harriet Martineau on
+     Slavery. Attitude of Whittier toward the Quakers on the Slavery
+     Question.
+
+     VI. AMESBURY                                                123
+
+     Removal to Amesbury. Description of the Town and of the Poet's
+     Residence. The Study. Whittier Corresponding Editor of the
+     _National Era_. Various Works Written, including "Stranger in
+     Lowell," "Supernaturalism of New England," "Songs of Labor,"
+     "Child-Life," "Child-Life in Prose," "Introduction" to Woolman's
+     Journal, and "Songs of Three Centuries" (Edited). Whittier College
+     Established.
+
+     VII. LATER DAYS                                             141
+
+     Danvers. Oak Knoll. Summerings of the Poet at the Isles of Shoals
+     and the Bearcamp House. _The Literary World_ Tribute, and the
+     Whittier Banquet at the Hotel Brunswick. The Whittier Club. Various
+     Volumes of Poetry Published.
+
+     VIII. PERSONAL                                              153
+
+     Whittier's Personal Appearance Described by Frederika Bremer, Geo.
+     W. Bungay, David A. Wasson, and others. Incident of his
+     Kind-heartedness to a Stranger. Dom Pedro II. and Whittier at Mrs.
+     John T. Sargent's Reception. Letter to Mrs. Sargent. Humor. Love of
+     Children. Offices of Dignity and Honor.
+
+
+     Part II.
+
+     ANALYSIS OF HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS.
+
+
+     I. THE MAN                                                  169
+
+     The Moral in Whittier Predominates over the AEsthetic. Love of
+     Freedom the Central Element of his Character. Freedom, Democracy,
+     and Quakerism, links in one Chain. Quakerism Described; Freedom and
+     the Inner Light; Quakerism is Pure Democracy or Christianity, and
+     Pure Individualism, or Philosophical Idealism; it Resembles
+     Transcendentalism; the Details of the Quaker Religion Considered;
+     Quotations from William Penn, Mary Brook, and A. M. Powell;
+     Objections to Quakerism; Beautiful Lives of the Quakers; Whittier's
+     Attitude Toward the Religion of his Fathers. His Religious
+     Development, Doubt, and Trust. Patriotism. Has Blood Militant in
+     his Veins. A Representative American Poet. Summing Up.
+
+     II. THE ARTIST                                              196
+
+     Little or no _Technique_. More Fancy than Imagination. The Artistic
+     Quality of his Mind a Fusion of that of Wordsworth and Byron. His
+     Bookish Lore. The Beauty and Melody of his Finest Ballads. His
+     Strength and Nervous Energy. Culmination of his Genius. His Three
+     Crazes. Letters to the _Nation_, and to the American Anti-Slavery
+     Society. Illustrations of the Predominance of the Moral in his
+     Nature. Taine Quoted. Pope-Night. His Over-religiousness. Love of
+     Consecutive Rhymes. Minor Mannerisms. Originality.
+
+     III. POEMS SERIATIM                                         217
+
+     Mr. David A. Wasson's Classification of Epochs in the Poet's
+     Development. The Author's Classification. Four Periods: 1st,
+     _Introductory_; 2d, _Storm and Stress_; 3d, _Transition_; 4th,
+     _Religious and Artistic Repose_. General Review of Earlier
+     Productions. The Indian Poems. "Songs of Labor." The Ballad Decade.
+     "Prophecy of Samuel Sewall." John Chadwick on "Skipper Ireson's
+     Ride." The "Barbara Frietchie" Controversy. The Romance of the
+     "Countess." Winter in Poetry. "Snow-Bound." "The Tent on the
+     Beach." Various Poems.
+
+     IV. THE KING'S MISSIVE                                      254
+
+     Joseph Besse Quoted. Story of the Quaker and the King of England.
+     The Debate of Whittier and Dr. Geo. E. Ellis of Boston. Humorous
+     Specimen of Quaker Rant from Mather's _Magnalia_. Terrible
+     Sufferings of the Quakers.
+
+     V. POEMS BY GROUPS                                          272
+
+     The Anti-Slavery Poems Reviewed. Poems Inspired by the Civil War.
+     Hymns. Children's Poems: "Red Riding-Hood," "The Robin," etc.
+     Oriental Poems and Paraphrases.
+
+     VI. PROSE WRITINGS                                          279
+
+     Much of his Prose of Historical or Sectarian Interest Only.
+     Charming Nature- and Folk-Studies and Sketches. "Margaret Smith's
+     Journal." "Old Portraits and Modern Sketches." "Literary
+     Recreations and Miscellanies." Specimens of Whittier's Prose.
+
+
+     Part III.
+
+     TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL.
+
+
+     I. TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL                                301
+
+     Whittier's death at Hampton Falls, N. H. Celebration of his
+     birthdays. Funeral and memorial services. Personal reminiscences.
+     Fac-simile of letter to Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+
+
+     APPENDIX.
+
+     BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                375
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+LIFE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ANCESTRY.
+
+
+The Hermit of Amesbury, the Wood-thrush of Essex, the Martial Quaker,
+the Poet of Freedom, the Poet of the Moral Sentiment,--such are some of
+the titles bestowed upon Whittier by his admirers. Let us call him the
+Preacher-Poet, for he has written scarcely a poem or an essay that does
+not breathe a moral sentiment or a religious aspiration. What effect
+this predetermination of character has had upon his artistic development
+shall be discussed in another place.
+
+The present chapter--which may be called the propylaeum or vestibule of
+the biographical structure that follows--will deal with the poet's
+ancestry, and the information afforded by it, and the two chapters that
+succeed will afford unmistakable evidence of the truth that a poet, no
+less than a solar system or a loaf of bread, is the logical resultant of
+a line of antecedent forces and circumstances. The fine but infrangible
+threads of our destiny are spun and woven out of atom-fibres indelibly
+stamped with the previous owners' names. Their characters immingle in
+our own,--the affluence or the indigence of their intellects, the sugar
+or the nitre of their wit, the shifting sand or the unwedgeable iron of
+their moral natures.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The name Whittier is spelled in thirty-two different ways in the old
+records: a list of these different spellings is given in Daniel Bodwell
+Whittier's genealogy of the family. The common ancestor of the Whittiers
+is Thomas Whittier, who in the year 1638 came from Southampton, England,
+to New England, in the ship "Confidence," of London, John Dobson,
+master. It is recorded of Thomas Whittier, says his descendant, the
+poet, in a half facetious way, that the only noteworthy circumstance
+connected with his coming was that he brought with him a hive of bees.
+He was born in 1620. His mother was probably a sister of John and Henry
+Rolfe, with the former of whom he came to America. His name at that time
+was spelled "Whittle." He married Ruth Green, and lived at first in
+Salisbury, Mass. He seems afterward to have lived in Newbury. In 1650 he
+removed to Haverhill, where he was admitted freeman, May 23, 1666.
+
+It was customary in those days, says the historian of Haverhill, for the
+nearest neighbors to sleep in the garrisons at night, but Thomas
+Whittier refused to take shelter there with his family. "Relying upon
+the weapons of his faith, he left his own house unguarded, and
+unprotected with palisades, and carried with him no weapons of war. The
+Indians frequently visited him, and the family often heard them, in the
+stillness of the evening, whispering beneath the windows, and sometimes
+saw them peep in upon the little group of practical 'non-resistants.'
+Friend Whittier always treated them civilly and hospitably, and they
+ever retired without molesting him."[1] Thomas Whittier died in
+Haverhill, November 28, 1696. His autograph appears in the probate
+records of Salem, Mass., as witness to a will of Samuel Gild. His widow
+died in July, 1710, and her eldest son John was appointed administrator
+of her estate. Thomas had ten children, of whom John became the ancestor
+of the most numerous branch of the Whittiers. Joseph, the brother of
+John, became the head of another branch of the family, and is the
+great-grandfather of our poet. Joseph married Mary, daughter of Joseph
+Peasley, of Haverhill, by whom he had nine children, among them Joseph,
+2d, the grandfather of the poet. Joseph, 2d, married Sarah Greenleaf of
+Newbury, by whom he had eleven children. The tenth child, John (the
+father of the poet), married Abigail Hussey, who was a daughter of
+Joseph Hussey, of Somersworth,--now Rollinsford,--N. H., a town on the
+Piscataqua River, which forms the southern part of the boundary line
+between New Hampshire and Maine. The mother of Abigail Hussey (the
+poet's mother) was Mercy Evans, of Berwick, Me. John Whittier, the
+father of the poet, died in Haverhill, June 30, 1830. His children were
+four in number: (1) Mary, born September 3, 1806, married Jacob
+Caldwell, of Haverhill, and died January 7, 1860; (2) John Greenleaf,
+the poet, born December 17, 1807, in Haverhill; (3) Matthew Franklin,
+born July 18, 1812, married Jane E. Vaughan; (4) Elizabeth Hussey, born
+December 7, 1815, died September 3, 1864. From this statement it will be
+seen that Matthew is the only surviving member of the family, besides
+the poet himself. Matthew resides in Boston, and has sons, daughters,
+and grandchildren.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: "The History of Haverhill, Mass.; from its first settlement
+in 1640 to the year 1860. By George Wingate Chase, Haverhill. Published
+by the author, 1861."]
+
+[Footnote 2: The foregoing statements are taken from the Whittier
+genealogy. But the author finds that there are a few slight
+discrepancies of date between this book and the inscriptions on the
+family tombstones in Amesbury. The tombstones say that John Whittier
+died "11th of 6 mo., 1831," and that Mary died "1st mo. 7, 1861."]
+
+The name Whittier constantly appears in important documents signed by
+the chief citizens of Haverhill. The family was evidently respected and
+honored by the community. In 1669 a Whittier was chosen town-constable.
+It is recorded that in 1711 Thomas Whittier--probably a son of Thomas
+(1st)--was one of a militia company provided with snow-shoes in order
+the better to repel an anticipated attack of the Indians. But, in spite
+of civil honors, it is well known that, down to comparatively recent
+times, the family suffered considerable social persecution and slight on
+account of their religious belief. For example, when the citizens built
+a new meeting-house, in 1699, they peremptorily refused to allow the
+Quakers to worship in it, although petitioned to do so by Joseph Peasley
+and others, and although they were taxed for its support. It was not
+until 1774 that an act was passed by the State exempting dissenters from
+taxation for the support of what we may call the State religion. It is
+important to bear this in mind, if we would know all the influences that
+went to form the character of the poet.
+
+The poet's paternal grandmother was Sarah Greenleaf, of Newbury. The
+genealogist of the Greenleafs says: "From all that can be gathered it is
+believed that the ancestors of the Greenleaf family were Huguenots, who
+left France on account of their religious principles some time in the
+course of the sixteenth century, and settled in England. The name was
+probably translated from the French _Feuillevert_.[3] Edmund Greenleaf,
+the ancestor of the American Greenleafs, was born in the parish of
+Brixham, and county of Devonshire, near Torbay, in England, about the
+year 1600." He came to Newbury, Mass., in 1635. He was by trade a
+silk-dyer. Respecting the family coat-of-arms the genealogist gives, on
+page 116, the following interesting statement:--
+
+    "The Hon. William Greenleaf, once of Boston, and then of New
+    Bedford, being in London about the year 1760, obtained from an
+    office of heraldry a device, said to be the arms of the family,
+    which he had painted, and the painting is now in the possession of
+    his grand-daughter, Mrs. Ritchie, of Roxbury, Mass. The field is
+    white (argent), bearing a chevron between three leaves (vert). The
+    crest is a dove standing on a wreath of green and white, holding in
+    its mouth three green leaves. The helmet is that of a warrior (visor
+    down); a garter below, but no motto."
+
+[Footnote 3: Whittier has thus alluded to this surmise:--
+
+    "The name the Gallic exile bore,
+      St. Malo! from thy ancient mart,
+    Became upon our Western shore
+      Greenleaf for Feuillevert."]
+
+What more appropriate emblazonment for the escutcheon of our Martial
+Quaker poet than a warrior's helmet, and a dove holding in its mouth the
+emblem of peace!
+
+Jonathan Greenleaf, born in Newbury, in 1723, is described as possessing
+a remarkably kind and conciliatory disposition. "Even the tones of his
+voice were gentle and persuasive, and he was very frequently resorted to
+as a peacemaker between contending parties. His dress was remarkably
+uniform, usually in his later years being deep blue or drab. He seldom
+walked fast, his gait being a measured and moderate step. His manners
+were plain, unassuming, but very polite. He was very religious, and a
+strict Calvinist. Nothing but absolute necessity kept him from public
+worship on the Sabbath, and he was scarce ever known to omit regular
+morning and evening worship."
+
+Of Professor Simon Greenleaf, the Harvard Law Professor (1833-1845), the
+family genealogist says: "For the last thirty years of his life he was
+one of the most spiritually-minded of men, evidently intent on walking
+humbly with God, and doing good to the bodies and souls of his
+fellow-men; scarce ever writing a letter of friendship even, without
+breathing in it a prayer, or delivering in it some good message."
+Professor Greenleaf published some dozen works, both legal and
+religious. It is a curious fact that his son James married Mary
+Longfellow, a sister of the Cambridge poet, thus making Whittier and
+Longfellow distant kinsmen.[4]
+
+[Footnote 4: It may be added that the ancestral home of the Longfellows
+is still standing in Byfield, about five miles distant from the Whittier
+homestead in Haverhill. (See the author's Life of Henry Wadsworth
+Longfellow, p. 15.)]
+
+Another English Greenleaf--contemporary with Edmund, being a silk-dyer
+as well as he, and in all probability a near kinsman--was a lieutenant
+under Oliver Cromwell, and served also under Richard Cromwell, and was
+in the army of the Protector under General Monk, at the time of the
+restoration of Charles II.
+
+It is hardly necessary to call the reader's attention to the significant
+fact, elicited by the foregoing researches, that, in tracing down two
+hereditary lines of the poet's paternal ancestors, we discover that for
+many generations those ancestors suffered religious persecution for
+loyalty to their religious convictions, and that many of them were
+remarkable for their sensitive piety.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Turn we now to the maternal ancestry of Whittier.
+
+In 1873 the poet wrote to Mr. D. B. Whittier, of Boston, as follows:--
+
+    "My mother was a descendant of Christopher Hussey, of Hampton, N.
+    H., who married a daughter of Rev. Stephen Bachelor, the first
+    minister of that town.
+
+    "Daniel Webster traces his ancestry to the same pair, so Joshua
+    Coffin informed me. Colonel W. B. Greene, of Boston, is of the same
+    family."[5]
+
+[Footnote 5: The name of Daniel Webster's paternal grandmother was
+Susannah Bachelor, or Batchelder.]
+
+In the light of the preceding note, the following letter of Col. W. B.
+Greene explains itself:--
+
+     "JAMAICA PLAIN, MASS., Sept. 24, 1873.
+
+     "Mr. D. B. WHITTIER, Danville, Vt.
+
+     "DEAR SIR,--Yours of September 20 is just received, and I reply to
+     it at once. My grandfather, on my mother's side, was the Rev.
+     William Batchelder, of Haverhill, Mass. In the year 1838 I had a
+     conversation, on a matter of military business, with the Hon.
+     Daniel Webster; and, to my astonishment, Mr. Webster treated me as
+     a kinsman. My mother afterwards explained his conduct by telling me
+     that one of Mr. W.'s female ancestors was a Batchelder. In 1838 or
+     1839, or thereabouts, I met schoolmaster [Joshua] Coffin on a
+     Mississippi steamboat, near Baton Rouge. The captain of the boat
+     told me, confidentially, that Coffin was engaged in a dangerous
+     mission respecting some slaves, and inquired whether my aid and
+     countenance could be counted on in favor of Coffin, in case
+     violence should be offered him. This he did because I was on the
+     boat as a military man, and in uniform. When Coffin found he could
+     count on me, he came and talked with me, and finally told me he had
+     [once] been hired by Daniel Webster _to go to Ipswich_, and there
+     look up Mr. W.'s ancestry. He spoke of Rev. Stephen Batchelder, of
+     New Hampshire, and said that Daniel Webster, John G. Whittier, and
+     myself were related by Batchelder blood. I did not feel at all
+     ashamed of my relatives. In 1841 or 1842 Mrs. Crosby, of Hallowell,
+     Me., who had charge of my grandfather when he was a boy, and knew
+     all about the family, told me that Daniel Webster was a Batchelder,
+     that she had known his father intimately, and knew Daniel when he
+     was a boy. At the time of my conversation with her, Aunt Crosby
+     might have been anywhere from seventy-five to eighty-five years of
+     age. When I was a boy, at (say) about the year 1827 or 1828, I used
+     to go often to the house of J. G. Whittier's father, a little out
+     of the village (now city) of Haverhill, Mass. There was a Mrs.
+     Hussey in the family, who baked the best squash pies I ever ate,
+     and knew how to make the pine floors shine like a looking-glass.
+
+     "This is, I think, all the information, in answer to your request,
+     that I am competent to give you.
+
+     "Yours respectfully,
+     "WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE."
+
+In a note addressed to the New England Historical and Genealogical
+Society, the poet says: "On my mother's side my grandfather was Joseph
+Hussey, of Somersworth, N. H.; married Mercy Evans, of Berwick, Me."
+
+Some of the genealogical links connecting the Husseys of Somersworth
+with those of Hampton have not yet been recovered. But this much is
+known of the family,[6] that in 1630 Christopher Hussey came from
+Dorking, Surrey, England, to Lynn, Mass. He had married, in Holland,
+Theodate, the daughter of the Rev. Stephen Bachiler, a Puritan minister,
+who had fled to that country to avoid persecution in England. The author
+was told by a local antiquary in Hampton, N. H., that there is a
+tradition in the town that Stephen Bachiler would not let his daughter
+marry young Hussey unless he embraced the Puritan faith. His love was so
+great that he consented, and came with his bride to America, where two
+years later his father-in-law followed him. Stephen Bachiler came to
+Lynn in 1632, with six persons, his relatives and friends, who had
+belonged to his church in Holland, and with them he established a
+little independent church in Lynn. The progenitive faculty of this
+worthy divine must have been highly developed: he was married four
+times, and was dismissed from his church at Lynn on account of charges
+twice preferred against him by women of his congregation. The recorded
+dates show that both he and his son-in-law, Hussey, came to Hampton in
+the year 1639. The Hampton authorities had the previous year made Mr.
+Bachiler and Mr. Hussey each a grant of three hundred acres of land, to
+induce them to settle there. When and how the Husseys became Quakers is
+not known to the author. But in Savage's Genealogical Dictionary, II.
+507, it is recorded that as early as 1688 a certain John Hussey of
+Hampton was a preacher to the Quakers in Newcastle, Del. The mother of
+the poet was a devoted disciple of the Society of Friends. That she was
+a person of deep and tender religious nature is evident to one looking
+at the excellent oil-portrait of her which hangs in the little parlor at
+Amesbury. The head is inclined graciously to one side, and the face
+wears that expression of ineffable tranquillity which is always a
+witness to generations of Quaker ancestry. In the picture, her garments
+are of smooth and immaculate drab. The poet once remarked to the writer
+that one of the reasons why his mother removed to Amesbury, in 1840, was
+that she might be near the little Friends' "Meeting" in that town.
+
+[Footnote 6: See histories of Lynn and Newbury, _passim_.]
+
+Thus among the maternal as well as the paternal progenitors of our
+Quaker poet we find the religious nature predominant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE VALLEY OF THE MERRIMACK.
+
+
+In the valley of the Merrimack John Greenleaf Whittier was born
+(December 17, 1807), and in the same region he has passed nearly his
+entire life, first in the town of Haverhill, and then in Amesbury, some
+nine miles distant. To strangers, the hilly old county of Essex wears a
+somewhat bleak and Scotian look; but it is fertile in poetical
+resources, and the tillers of its glebe are passionately attached to its
+blue hills and sunken dales, its silver rivers and winding roads,
+umbrageous towns and thrifty homes. Like Burns and Cowper, Whittier is
+distinctively a rustic poet, and he and Whitman are the most indigenous
+and patriotic of our singers. His idyllic poetry savors of the soil and
+is full of local allusions. It is, therefore, essential to the full
+enjoyment of his writings that one should get, at the outset, as vivid
+an idea as possible both of the Essex landscape and the Essex farmer.
+
+Whittier was born some three miles northeast of what is now the thriving
+little city of Haverhill. It was settled in 1640 by twelve men from
+Newbury and Ipswich. Its Indian name was Pentucket,--the appellation of
+a tribe once dwelling on its site, a tribe under the jurisdiction of
+Passaconaway, chief of the Pennacooks. The city is built partly on the
+river-terrace of the northern shore, and partly on the adjoining hills.
+It is celebrated in colonial history for the heroic exploit of Hannah
+Duston, who, when taken captive by a party of twenty savages at the time
+of the Haverhill massacre, killed and scalped them all, with the aid of
+her companion (also a woman), and returned in safety to the settlement.
+A handsome monument has recently been erected to her memory in the city
+square; it is a granite structure, with bronze bas-reliefs, and
+surmounted by a bronze statue of the heroine. In the public library of
+the city (founded in 1873) may be seen a fine bust of Whittier, by
+Powers. On February 17 and 18, 1882, almost the entire business portion
+of the city was destroyed by fire; eight acres were burned over, and
+$2,000,000 worth of property destroyed. Haverhill is eighteen miles east
+of Lowell, thirty-two miles northwest of Boston, and six miles northeast
+of Lawrence. The manufacture of boots and shoes gives employment to
+6,000 men. The population in 1870 was 13,092.
+
+Down to the sea, some seventeen miles away, winds the beautiful
+Merrimack, with the deep-shaded old town of Newburyport seated at its
+mouth. A little more than half way down lies Amesbury, just where the
+winding Powwow joins the Merrimack, but not before its nixies and
+river-horses have been compelled to put their shoulders to the wheels of
+several huge cotton mills that lift their forbidding bulk out of the
+very centre of the village. A horse-railroad connects Amesbury with
+Newburyport, six miles distant. At about half that distance the road
+crosses the Merrimack by way of Deer Island and connecting bridges. The
+sole house on this wild, rough island is the home of the Spoffords.
+
+As you near Newburyport, coming down from Amesbury, you see the river
+widened into an estuary, and bordered by wide and intensely green
+salt-meadows. Numerous large vessels lie at the wharves, a "gundelow,"
+with lateen sail, creeps slowly down the current; the draw of the
+railroad bridge is perhaps opening for the passage of a tug, and out at
+sea athwart the river's mouth--
+
+    "Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned,
+    Plum Island lies, like a whale aground,
+    A stone's toss over the narrow sound."
+
+    _Prophecy of Samuel Sewall._
+
+Far off to the left lie Salisbury and Hampton beaches, celebrated by
+Whittier in his poems "Hampton Beach," "Snow-Bound," and "The Tent on
+the Beach":--
+
+    "Where Salisbury's level marshes spread
+      Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
+    Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
+    Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
+      The low green prairies of the sea."
+
+    _Snow-Bound._
+
+Standing on the sand-ridge by the beach, you have before you the washing
+surf, and miles on miles of level sand, rimmed with creeping, silver
+water-lace, overhung here and there by thinnest powdery mist. Out at
+sea the waves are tossing their salt-threaded manes, or flinging the
+sunlight from their supple coats--(aeonian roar; white-haired, demoniac
+shapes)--while at evening you see far away to the northeast the
+revolving light of the Isles of Shoals.
+
+    "Quail and sandpiper and swallow and sparrow are here;
+    Sweet sound their manifold notes, high and low, far and near;
+    Chorus of musical waters, the rush of the breeze,
+    Steady and strong from the south,--what glad voices are these!"
+
+So sings the poet of the Isles of Shoals, Celia Thaxter, who, it is
+said, was discovered and introduced to the world by Whittier,--her rocky
+home being still one of his favorite summer resorts.
+
+Landward, your gaze sweeps the beautiful salt-meadows and rests on the
+woods beyond, or reaches still farther to the steeples of Newburyport
+rising sculpturesquely in the pellucid atmosphere, and often at evening
+filling the air with faint silver hymns that chime with the liquid
+undertone of the pouring surf.
+
+The valley of the Merrimack with the surrounding region, is, or was
+until recently, full of legends of the marvellous and the supernatural,
+which, in this remote and isolated corner of the State, have come down
+in unbroken tradition from earlier times. One of the distinguishing
+peculiarities of Whittier's genius is his story-telling power, and since
+he has not only written many poems about the legends of his native
+province, but also published in his youth two small collections of those
+legends in prose form, it will be proper to give the reader a taste of
+them, both here and elsewhere in the volume, and thus assist him to an
+understanding of our poet's early environment.
+
+The following extracts from his "Supernaturalism of New England,"
+published in the year 1847, are germane to the subject in hand:--
+
+     "One of my earliest recollections," he says, "is that of an old
+     woman residing at Rocks Village, in Haverhill, about two miles from
+     the place of my nativity, who for many years had borne the
+     unenviable reputation of a witch. She certainly had the look of
+     one,--a combination of form, voice, and features, which would have
+     made the fortune of an English witch-finder in the days of Matthew
+     Paris or the Sir John Podgers of Dickens, and insured her speedy
+     conviction in King James' High Court of Justiciary. She was accused
+     of divers ill-doings, such as preventing the cream in her
+     neighbor's churn from becoming butter, and snuffing out candles at
+     huskings and quilting parties. The poor old woman was at length so
+     sadly annoyed by her unfortunate reputation, that she took the
+     trouble to go before a Justice of the Peace, and made a solemn oath
+     that she was a Christian woman and no witch."
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "Some forty years ago, on the banks of the pleasant little creek
+     separating Berwick, in Maine, from Somersworth, in New Hampshire,
+     within sight of my mother's home, dwelt a plain, sedate member of
+     the Society of Friends, named Bantum. He passed, throughout a
+     circle of several miles, as a conjurer and skilful adept in the art
+     of magic. To him resorted farmers who had lost their cattle,
+     matrons whose household gear, silver spoons, and table-linen had
+     been stolen, and young maidens whose lovers were absent; and the
+     quiet, meek-spirited old man received them all kindly, put on his
+     huge, iron-rimmed spectacles, opened his 'conjuring book,' which my
+     mother describes as a large clasped volume, in strange language and
+     black-letter type, and after due reflection and consideration gave
+     the required answers without money and without price. The curious
+     old volume is still in possession of the conjurer's family.
+     Apparently inconsistent as was this practice of the Black Art with
+     the simplicity and truthfulness of his religious profession, I have
+     not been able to learn that he was ever subjected to censure on
+     account of it."
+
+This incident reminds one of some verses in a poem of Whittier's
+entitled "Flowers in Winter":--
+
+    "A wizard of the Merrimack--
+      So old ancestral legends say--
+    Could call green leaf and blossom back
+      To frosted stem and spray.
+
+    The dry logs of the cottage wall,
+      Beneath his touch, put out their leaves;
+    The clay-bound swallow, at his call,
+      Played round the icy eaves.
+
+    The settler saw his oaken flail
+      Take bud, and bloom before his eyes;
+    From frozen pools he saw the pale,
+      Sweet summer lilies rise.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The beechen platter sprouted wild,
+      The pipkin wore its old-time green;
+    The cradle o'er the sleeping child
+      Became a leafy screen."
+
+In chapter second of the "Supernaturalism" we have a whimsical story
+about a certain "Aunt Morse," who lived in a town adjoining Amesbury:--
+
+     "After the death of Aunt Morse no will was found, though it was
+     understood before her decease that such a document was in the hands
+     of Squire S., one of her neighbors. One cold winter evening, some
+     weeks after her departure, Squire S. sat in his parlor, looking
+     over his papers, when, hearing some one cough in a familiar way, he
+     looked up, and saw before him a little crooked old woman, in an
+     oil-nut colored woollen frock, blue and white tow and linen apron,
+     and striped blanket, leaning her sharp, pinched face on one hand,
+     while the other supported a short black tobacco pipe, at which she
+     was puffing in the most vehement and spiteful manner conceivable.
+
+     "The squire was a man of some nerve; but his first thought was to
+     attempt an escape, from which he was deterred only by the
+     consideration that any effort to that effect would necessarily
+     bring him nearer to his unwelcome visitor.
+
+     "'Aunt Morse,' he said at length, 'for the Lord's sake, get right
+     back to the burying-ground! What on earth are you here for?'
+
+     "The apparition took her pipe deliberately from her mouth, and
+     informed him that she came to see justice done with her will; and
+     that nobody need think of cheating her, dead or alive. Concluding
+     her remark with a shrill emphasis, she replaced her pipe, and
+     puffed away with renewed vigor. Upon the squire's promising to obey
+     her request, she refilled her pipe, which she asked him to light,
+     and then took her departure."
+
+     "Elderly people in this region," says our author, "yet tell
+     marvellous stories of General M., of Hampton, N. H., especially of
+     his league with the devil, who used to visit him occasionally in
+     the shape of a small man in a leathern dress. The general's house
+     was once burned, in revenge, as it is said, by the fiend, whom the
+     former had outwitted. He had agreed, it seems, to furnish the
+     general with a boot full of gold and silver poured annually down
+     the chimney. The shrewd Yankee cut off, on one occasion, the foot
+     of the boot, and the devil kept pouring down the coin from the
+     chimney's top, in a vain attempt to fill it, until the room was
+     literally packed with the precious metal. When the general died, he
+     was laid out, and put in a coffin, as usual; but, on the day of the
+     funeral, it was whispered about that his body was missing; and the
+     neighbors came to the charitable conclusion that the enemy had got
+     his own at last."
+
+It should be understood that the state of society which produced such
+superstitions and legends as the foregoing lingers now only in secluded
+corners of New England. The railroad, the newspaper, and the influx of
+foreign population, have combined to frighten away ghost, conjurer, and
+witch, or to drive them up into the mountainous districts. There are
+still plenty of quaint and picturesque old Puritan farmers; and their
+mythology is antique and rusty enough, to be sure. But the folk-lore of
+the early days,--where is it? Let the shriek of the steam-demon answer,
+or that powerful magician, the "Spirit of the Age," who, ten thousand
+times divided, and slyly hidden in plethoric leathern mail bags, daily
+rushes into the remotest nooks and corners of the land, there to enter
+into the nooks and corners of the mind of man. The "Spirit of the Age"
+has exorcised the spirits of the ingle and the forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+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.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+EDITOR AND AUTHOR: FIRST VENTURES.
+
+
+The winter of 1828-29 was passed by Whittier in Boston. He once with
+characteristic modesty told the writer that he drifted into journalism
+that winter, as editor of the _American Manufacturer_, in the following
+way: He had gone to Boston to study and read. He undertook the writing
+for the _Manufacturer_ not because he had much liking for questions of
+tariff and finance, but because his own finances would thereby be
+improved. Mr. Whittier's chief personal trait is extreme shyness and
+distrust of himself, and he deprecated the idea that he had any special
+power as a writer at the time of which we are speaking, saying that he
+had to study up his subjects before writing. But undoubtedly he must
+have wielded a vigorous pen, and been known to possess a cool and
+careful head, or he would not have been invited to assume the
+editorship of such a paper. He himself admitted, in the course of the
+conversation, that at that time he had political ambitions, and made a
+study of political economy and civil politics.
+
+In 1830 we find Whittier at Haverhill again. In March of that year he
+was occupying the position of editor of the _Essex Gazette_, and "issued
+proposals to publish a 'History of Haverhill,' in one volume of two
+hundred pages, duodecimo, price eighty-seven and one-half cents per
+copy. 'If the material swelled the volume above two hundred pages, the
+price was to be one dollar per copy.'" But the limited encouragement
+offered, and the amount of work required to compile the volume, led the
+young editor to abandon the project. Whittier was editor of this
+_Gazette_ for six months,--from January 1 to July 10, 1830. On May 4,
+1836, after he had returned from Philadelphia, he resumed the editorship
+of the journal, retaining the position until December 17 of the same
+year.
+
+He left the _Gazette_ at the time of his first connection with it, to go
+to Hartford for the purpose of editing the _New England Weekly Review_
+of that city. His first acquaintance with this Connecticut periodical
+had been made while attending the Academy at Haverhill. While there he
+happened to see a copy of the _Review_, then edited by George D.
+Prentice. He was pleased with its sprightly and breezy tone, and sent it
+several articles. Great was his astonishment on finding that they were
+accepted and published with editorial commendation. He sent numerous
+other contributions during the same year.
+
+One day in 1830, he was at work in the field, when a letter was brought
+to him from the publishers of the Hartford paper, in which they said
+that they had been asked by Mr. Prentice to request him to edit the
+paper during the absence of Mr. Prentice in Kentucky, whither he had
+gone to write a campaign life of Henry Clay. "I could not have been more
+utterly astonished," said Mr. Whittier once, "if I had been told that I
+was appointed prime minister to the great Khan of Tartary."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Whittier was at this time a member of the National Republican
+party. He afterward belonged to the anti-slavery Liberty party, a
+faction of the Abolitionists which had separated from the Garrison band.
+In 1855 Mr. Whittier acted with the Free Democratic party. In the
+conversation alluded to a moment ago, the poet laughingly remarked that
+the proprietors of the paper had never seen him when he went to Hartford
+in 1830 to take charge of their periodical. They were much surprised at
+his youth. But at the first meeting he discreetly kept silence, letting
+them do most of the talking. Here most assuredly, if never again, his
+Quaker doctrine of silence stood him in good stead; since, if we may
+believe him, he was most wofully deficient in a knowledge of the
+intricacies of the political situation of the time.
+
+Whittier was twenty-four years old when he published his first volume.
+It is a thin little book entitled "Legends of New England" (Hartford:
+Hanmer and Phelps, 1831), and is a medley of prose and verse. The style
+is juvenile and extravagantly rhetorical, and the subject-matter is far
+from being massive with thought. The libretto has been suppressed by
+its author, and it would be ungracious as well as unjust to criticise it
+at any length, or quote more than a single morsel of its verses, which
+are inferior to the prose. But one may be pardoned for giving two or
+three specimens of the prose stories, for they are intrinsically
+interesting. In the preface we have a striking passage, which may be
+commended to those who accuse Whittier of hatred of the Puritan fathers,
+and undue partiality toward the Quakers. He says: "I have in many
+instances alluded to the superstition and bigotry of our ancestors, the
+rare and bold race who laid the foundation of this republic; but no one
+can accuse me of having done injustice to their memories. A son of New
+England, and proud of my birthplace, I would not willingly cast dishonor
+upon its founders. My feelings in this respect have already been
+expressed in language which I shall be pardoned, I trust, for
+introducing in this place:--
+
+    Oh!--never may a son of thine,
+    Where'er his wandering steps incline,
+    Forget the sky which bent above
+    His childhood like a dream of love,
+    The stream beneath the green hill flowing,
+    The broad-armed tree above it growing,
+    The clear breeze through the foliage blowing;
+    Or hear unmoved the taunt of scorn,
+    Breathed o'er the brave New England born;
+    Or mark the stranger's jaguar hand
+      Disturb the ashes of thy dead--
+    The buried glory of a land
+      Whose soil with noble blood is red,
+      And sanctified in every part,
+    Nor feel resentment, like a brand,
+      Unsheathing from his fiery heart!"
+
+The flow of language in these prose pieces is smooth and easy, and the
+narratives are in the same vein and style as the "Twice Told Tales," or
+Irving's stories, only they are very much weaker than these, and more
+extravagant and melodramatic in tone. "The Midnight Attack" describes
+the adventure of Captain Harmon and thirty Eastern rangers on the banks
+of the Kennebec River in June, 1722. A party of sleeping Indians are
+surprised by them and all shot dead by one volley of balls. An idea of
+the style of the piece will be obtained from the following paragraphs.
+The men are waiting for the signal of Harmon:--
+
+     "'Fire!' he at length exclaimed, as the sight of his piece
+     interposed full and distinct between his eye and the wild
+     scalp-lock of the Indian. 'Fire, and rush on!'
+
+     "The sharp voice of thirty rifles thrilled through the heart of the
+     forest. There was a groan--a smothered cry--a wild and convulsive
+     movement among the sleeping Indians; and all again was silent.
+
+     "The rangers sprang forward with their clubbed muskets and hunting
+     knives; but their work was done. The red men had gone to their
+     audit before the Great Spirit; and no sound was heard among them
+     save the gurgling of the hot blood from their lifeless bosoms."
+
+It was one of the superstitions of the New England colonists that the
+rattlesnake had the power of charming or fascinating human beings.
+Whittier's story, "The Rattlesnake Hunter," is based upon this fact. An
+old man with meagre and wasted form is represented as devoting his life
+to the extermination of the reptiles among the hills and mountains of
+Vermont, the inspiring motive of his action being the death of his
+young and beautiful wife, many years previously, from the bite of a
+rattlesnake.
+
+"The Human Sacrifice" relates the escape of a young white girl from the
+hands of the Matchit-Moodus, an Indian tribe formerly dwelling where
+East Haddam now stands. The Indians are frightened from their purpose of
+sacrificing the girl by a rumbling noise proceeding from a high hill
+near by. In his note on the story Mr. Whittier says: "There is a story
+prevalent in the neighborhood, that a man from England, a kind of
+astrologer or necromancer, undertook to rid the place of the troublesome
+noises. He told them that the sound proceeded from a carbuncle--a
+precious gem, _growing in the bowels of the rock_. He hired an old
+blacksmith shop, and worked for some time with closed doors, and at
+night. All at once the necromancer departed, and the strange noises
+ceased. It was supposed he had found the precious gem, and had fled with
+it to his native land." This story of the carbuncle reminds us of
+Hawthorne's story on the same subject.
+
+The following remarks are prefixed to the poem, "The Unquiet Sleeper":
+"Some fifty or sixty years since an inhabitant of ----, N. H., was found
+dead at a little distance from his dwelling, which he left in the
+morning in perfect health. There is a story prevalent among the people
+of the neighborhood that, on the evening of the day on which he was
+found dead, strange cries are annually heard to issue from his grave! I
+have conversed with some who really supposed they had heard them in the
+dead of the night, rising fearfully on the autumn wind. They represented
+the sounds to be of a most appalling and unearthly nature."
+
+"The Spectre Ship" is the versification of a legend related in Mather's
+"Magnalia Christi." A ship sailed from Salem, having on board "a young
+man of strange and wild appearance, and a girl still younger, and of
+surpassing beauty. She was deadly pale, and trembled even while she
+leaned on the arm of her companion." They were supposed by some to be
+demons. The vessel was lost, and of course soon reappeared as a
+spectre-ship.
+
+Mr. Whittier's next work was the editing, in 1832, of the "Remains" of
+his gifted friend, J. G. C. Brainard. Students of Whittier's poems know
+that for many years the genius and writings of Brainard exercised a
+potent influence on his mind. Brainard undoubtedly possessed genius. He
+was at one time editor of the _Connecticut Mirror_. He died young, and
+his work can be considered as hardly more than a promise of future
+excellence. Whittier, in his Introduction to the "Remains," shows a nice
+sense of justice, and a delicate reserve in his eulogistic estimate of
+his dead brother-poet and friend. That he did not falsely attribute to
+him a rare genius will be evident to those who read the following
+portion of Brainard's spirited ballad of "The Black Fox":--
+
+    "'How cold, how beautiful, how bright
+      The cloudless heaven above us shines;
+    But 'tis a howling winter's night,--
+      'Twould freeze the very forest pines.
+
+    'The winds are up while mortals sleep;
+      The stars look forth while eyes are shut;
+    The bolted snow lies drifted deep
+      Around our poor and lonely hut.
+
+    'With silent step and listening ear,
+      With bow and arrow, dog and gun,
+    We'll mark his track, for his prowl we hear,
+      Now is our time--come on, come on.'
+
+    O'er many a fence, through many a wood,
+      Following the dog's bewildered scent,
+    In anxious haste and earnest mood,
+      The Indian and the white man went.
+
+    The gun is cock'd, the bow is bent,
+      The dog stands with uplifted paw;
+    And ball and arrow swift are sent,
+      Aim'd at the prowler's very jaw.
+
+    --The ball, to kill that fox, is run
+      Not in a mould by mortals made!
+    The arrow which that fox should shun
+      Was never shap'd from earthly reed!
+
+    The Indian Druids of the wood
+      Know where the fatal arrows grow--
+    They spring not by the summer flood,
+      They pierce not through the winter snow!"[12]
+
+[Footnote 12: Mr. Whittier quotes this fine ballad in Vol. II. p. 243 of
+his prose works, but with numerous changes of punctuation and phrase.
+The differences between the poem as it there appears and as it is given
+in his own edition of Brainard, published in 1832, seem to show that he
+has amended the ballad and punctuated it to suit himself, or else has
+quoted it from memory, or at third or fourth remove. It must be admitted
+that the changes are all improvements, however they were made. The
+ballad is quoted above, however, as it appears in Brainard's Poems.]
+
+Whittier's Introduction to Brainard's poems reveals a mind matured by
+much reading and thought. We hardly recognize in the author and editor
+of Hartford the shy girlish boy we so recently left on the farm at
+Haverhill. There has evidently been a good deal of midnight oil burned
+since then.
+
+The following sentiments respecting the resources and the proper field
+of the American poet show that thus early had Whittier taken the manly
+and patriotic resolution to find in his native land the chief sources of
+poetic inspiration: "It has been often said that the New World is
+deficient in the elements of poetry and romance; that its bards must of
+necessity linger over the classic ruins of other lands; and draw their
+sketches of character from foreign sources, and paint Nature under the
+soft beauty of an Eastern sky. On the contrary, New England is full of
+romance; and her writers would do well to follow the example of
+Brainard. The great forest which our fathers penetrated, the red men,
+their struggle and their disappearance, the powwow and the war-dance,
+the savage inroad and the English sally, the tale of superstition and
+the scenes of witchcraft,--all these are rich materials of poetry. We
+have, indeed, no classic vale of Tempe, no haunted Parnassus, no temple
+gray with years, and hallowed by the gorgeous pageantry of idol worship,
+no towers and castles over whose moonlight ruins gathers the green pall
+of the ivy; but we have mountains pillaring a sky as blue as that which
+bends over classic Olympus, streams as bright and beautiful as those of
+Greece and Italy, and forests richer and nobler than those which of old
+were haunted by sylph and dryad."
+
+It is easy to see here a foreshadowing of "Mogg Megone," "The Bridal of
+Pennacook," the "Supernaturalism of New England," and a hundred poems
+and ballads of Whittier's founded on native themes. The sentiments in
+the quotation just made remind one of Emerson's "Nature," the preface of
+Whitman to his first portentous quarto, "Leaves of Grass," and
+Wordsworth's essay on the nature of the poetic art. But however laudable
+was the Quaker poet's resolve to choose indigenous subjects, it cannot
+be said that either he or Bryant attained to more than an indigeneity of
+theme. In form and style they are imitative. Emerson and Whitman are
+our only purely original poets.
+
+Whittier was editor of the _New England Weekly Review_ for about
+eighteen months, at the end of which time he returned to the farm at
+Haverhill, and engaged in agricultural pursuits for the next five or six
+years. In 1831 or 1832 he published "Moll Pitcher," a tale of the Witch
+of Nahant. This youthful poem seems to have completely disappeared, and
+Mr. Whittier will no doubt be devoutly thankful that the writer has been
+unable to procure a copy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+WHITTIER THE REFORMER.
+
+    _"God said: 'Break thou these yokes; undo
+      These heavy burdens. I ordain
+    A work to last thy whole life through,
+      A ministry of strife and pain._
+
+    _'Forego thy dreams of lettered ease,
+      Put thou the scholar's promise by,
+    The rights of man are more than these.'
+      He heard, and answered: 'Here am I!'"_
+
+    WHITTIER, _Sumner_.
+
+
+On New Year's day of 1831 William Lloyd Garrison issued the first number
+of the _Liberator_ from his little attic room, No. 6 Merchants' Hall,
+Boston. Its clear bugle-notes sounded the onset of reform and the
+death-knell of slavery. It called for the buckling on of moral armor.
+Its words were the touchstone of wills, the shibboleth of souls. Cowards
+and time-servers quickly ranged themselves on one side, and heroes on
+the other. Before young Whittier,--editor, _litterateur_, and poet,--a
+career full of brilliant promise had opened up at Hartford. But through
+the high chambers of his soul the voice of duty rang in solemn and
+imperative tones. He heard and obeyed. The cost was counted, and his
+resolution taken. Upon his brow he placed the lustrous fire-wreath of
+the martyr, well assured of his power to endure unflinchingly to the end
+its sharpest pains. It was the most momentous act of his life; it formed
+the keystone in the arch of his destinies.
+
+The first decided anti-slavery step taken by him was the publication of
+his fiery philippic, "Justice and Expediency." About this time also he
+began the writing of his stirring anti-slavery poems, many of them full
+of pathos, fierce invective, cutting irony and satire,--stirring the
+blood like a trumpet-call, giving impulse and enthusiasm to the despised
+and half-despairing Abolitionists of that day, and becoming a part of
+the very religion of thousands of households throughout the land.
+
+It is almost impossible for those who were not participants in the
+anti-slavery conflict, or who have not read histories and memoirs of
+the struggle, to realize the deep opprobrium that attached to the word
+"Abolitionist." To avow one's self such meant in many cases suspicion,
+ostracism, hunger, blows, and sometimes death. It meant, in short,
+self-renunciation and social martyrdom. All this Whittier gladly took
+upon himself; and he knew that it was a long struggle upon which he was
+entering. As he says in one of his poems, he was
+
+                "Called from dream and song,
+    Thank God! so early to a strife so long,
+    That, ere it closed, the black, abundant hair
+    Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare
+    On manhood's temples."
+
+That the martyrdom was a severe one to all who took up the cross goes
+without saying. Mr. Whittier remarked to the writer that it was at some
+sacrifice of his ambition and plans for the future that he decided to
+throw in his lot with the opponents of slavery. He knew that it meant
+the annihilation of his hopes of literary preferment, and the exclusion
+of his articles from the pages of magazines and newspapers. "For twenty
+years," said he, "my name would have injured the circulation of any of
+the literary or political journals of the country."
+
+When Whittier joined the ranks of the despised faction, Garrison had
+been imprisoned and fined in Baltimore for his arraignment of the slave
+traffic; Benjamin Lundy had been driven from the same city by threats of
+imprisonment and personal outrage; Prudence Crandall was waging her
+battle with the Philistinism of Canterbury, Conn.; and the Legislature
+of Georgia had offered a reward of five thousand dollars for "the
+arrest, prosecution, and trial to conviction under the laws of the
+State, of the editor or publisher of a certain paper called _The
+Liberator_, published in the town of Boston, and State of
+Massachusetts."
+
+But it is not within the province of this biography to give an
+exhaustive _resume_ of the anti-slavery conflict, but only to speak of
+such of its episodes as were especially participated in by Mr. Whittier.
+How tailor John Woolman became a life-long itinerant preacher of his
+mild Quaker gospel of freedom; how honest saddler Lundy left his leather
+hammering, and walked his ten thousand miles, carrying his types and
+column-rules with him, and printing his "Genius of Universal
+Emancipation" as he went; in what way and to what extent the labors and
+writings of Lucretia Mott, Samuel J. May, Lydia Maria Child, George
+Thompson, James G. Birney, and Gerrit Smith helped on the noble
+cause,--to all these things only allusion can be made. For a full
+account of those perilous times one must go to the pages of Henry
+Wilson's "History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," and to the
+fascinating "Recollections" of Samuel J. May. Let us now return to
+Whittier and consider his own writings, labors, and adventures in the
+service of the cause.
+
+It was in the spring of 1833 that he published at his own expense
+"Justice and Expediency; or, Slavery Considered with a view to its
+Rightful and Effectual Remedy, Abolition." [Haverhill: C. P. Thayer and
+Co.] It is a polemical paper, full of exclamation points and italicized
+and capitalized sentences. The hyperbole speaks well for the author's
+heart, but betrays his juvenility. He shrieks like a temperance lecturer
+or a stump politician. The pamphlet, however, shows diligent and
+systematic study of the entire literature of the subject. Every
+statement is fortified by quotation or reference. He enumerates six
+reasons why the African Colonization Society's schemes were unworthy of
+good men's support, and buttresses up his theses by citations from the
+official literature of his opponents. A thorough familiarity with
+slavery in other lands and times is also manifested. As a specimen of
+the style of the book the following will serve:--
+
+     "But, it may be said that the miserable victims of the System have
+     our sympathies.
+
+     "Sympathy!--the sympathy of the Priest and the Levite, looking on,
+     and acknowledging, but holding itself aloof from mortal suffering.
+     Can such hollow sympathy reach the broken of heart, and does the
+     blessing of those who are ready to perish answer it? Does it hold
+     back the lash from the slave, or sweeten his bitter bread?
+
+     "Oh, my heart is sick--my very soul is weary of this sympathy--this
+     heartless mockery of feeling....
+
+     "No--let the TRUTH on this subject--undisguised, naked, terrible as
+     it is, stand out before us. Let us no longer seek to cover it--let
+     us no longer strive to forget it--let us no more dare to palliate
+     it."
+
+In his sketch of Nathaniel P. Rogers, the anti-slavery editor, Whittier
+remarks incidentally that the voice of Rogers was one of the few which
+greeted him with words of encouragement and sympathy at the time of the
+publication of his "Justice and Expediency."[13]
+
+[Footnote 13: "He gave us a kind word of approval," says Whittier, "and
+invited us to his mountain home, on the banks of the Pemigewasset, an
+invitation which, two years afterwards, we accepted."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the fourth day of December, 1833, the Philadelphia Convention for the
+formation of the American Anti-slavery Society held its first sitting;
+Beriah Green, President, Lewis Tappan and John G. Whittier, Secretaries.
+This assembly, if not so famous as that which framed the Declaration of
+Independence in the same city some two generations previously, was at
+any rate as worthy of fame and respect as its illustrious predecessor.
+A deep solemnity and high consecration filled the heart of every man and
+woman in that little band. Heart answered unto heart in glowing
+sympathy. They did their work like men inspired. Perfect unanimity
+prevailed. They were too eagerly engaged to adjourn for dinner, and
+"baskets of crackers and pitchers of cold water supplied all the bodily
+refreshment." Among those who were present and spoke was Lucretia Mott,
+"a beautiful and graceful woman," says Whittier, "in the prime of life,
+with a face beneath her plain cap as finely intellectual as that of
+Madame Roland." She "offered some wise and valuable suggestions, in a
+clear sweet voice, the charm of which I have never forgotten."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A committee, of which Whittier was a member, with William Lloyd Garrison
+as chairman, was appointed to draw up a Declaration of Principles.
+Garrison sat up all night, in the small attic of a colored man, to draft
+this Declaration. The two other members of the committee, calling in the
+gray dawn of a December day, found him putting the last touches to this
+famous paper, while his lamp burned on unheeded into the daylight. His
+draft was accepted almost without amendment by the Convention, and,
+after it had been engrossed on parchment, was signed by the sixty-two
+members present.[14]
+
+[Footnote 14: Twenty-one of these persons were Quakers, as Mr. Whittier
+and the writer proved by actual count of the names on Mr. Whittier's
+fac-simile copy of the Declaration.]
+
+[Illustration: JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER AT MIDDLE LIFE.]
+
+In the _Atlantic Monthly_ for February, 1874, Mr. Whittier has given an
+interesting account of the Convention. Some of his pictures are so
+graphic that they shall here be given in his own words:--
+
+     "In the gray twilight of a chill day of late November, forty years
+     ago, a dear friend of mine residing in Boston, made his appearance
+     at the old farm-house in East Haverhill. He had been deputed by the
+     Abolitionists of the city, William L. Garrison, Samuel E. Sewall,
+     and others, to inform me of my appointment as a delegate to the
+     Convention about to be held in Philadelphia for the formation of an
+     American Anti-slavery Society; and to urge upon me the necessity of
+     my attendance.
+
+     "Few words of persuasion, however, were needed. I was unused to
+     travelling; my life had been spent on a secluded farm; and the
+     journey, mostly by stage-coach, at that time was really a
+     formidable one. Moreover the few abolitionists were everywhere
+     spoken against, their persons threatened, and, in some instances, a
+     price set on their heads by Southern legislators. Pennsylvania was
+     on the borders of slavery, and it needed small effort of
+     imagination to picture to oneself the breaking up of the Convention
+     and maltreatment of its members. This latter consideration I do not
+     think weighed much with me, although I was better prepared for
+     serious danger than for anything like personal indignity. I had
+     read Governor Trumbull's description of the tarring and feathering
+     of his hero MacFingal, when after the application of the melted
+     tar, the feather-bed was ripped open and shaken over him, until
+
+     Not Maia's son with wings for ears,
+     Such plumes about his visage wears,
+     Nor Milton's six-winged angel gathers
+     Such superfluity of feathers,
+
+     and I confess I was quite unwilling to undergo a martyrdom which
+     my best friends could scarcely refrain from laughing at. But a
+     summons like that of Garrison's bugle-blast could scarcely be
+     unheeded by one who, from birth and education, held fast the
+     traditions of that earlier abolitionism which, under the lead of
+     Benezet and Woolman, had effaced from the Society of Friends every
+     vestige of slaveholding. I had thrown myself, with a young man's
+     fervid enthusiasm, into a movement which commended itself to my
+     reason and conscience, to my love of country, and my sense of duty
+     to God and my fellow-men. My first venture in authorship was the
+     publication, at my own expense, in the spring of 1833, of a
+     pamphlet entitled 'Justice and Expediency,'[15] on the moral and
+     political evils of slavery, and the duty of emancipation. Under
+     such circumstances, I could not hesitate, but prepared at once for
+     my journey. It was necessary that I should start on the morrow, and
+     the intervening time, with a small allowance for sleep, was spent
+     in providing for the care of the farm and homestead during my
+     absence."
+
+[Footnote 15: Mr. Whittier here made a slip of memory. His first
+work was "Legends of New England," as he himself testifies, in
+his own handwriting, in a memorandum sent to the New England
+Historic-Genealogical Society.]
+
+Mr. Whittier proceeds to tell of his journey to the Quaker City, and of
+the organization and work of the Convention. The following pen-portraits
+are too valuable to be omitted:--
+
+     "Looking over the assembly, I noticed that it was mainly composed
+     of comparatively young men, some in middle age, and a few beyond
+     that period. They were nearly all plainly dressed, with a view to
+     comfort rather than elegance. Many of the faces turned toward me
+     wore a look of expectancy and suppressed enthusiasm; all had the
+     earnestness which might be expected of men engaged in an enterprise
+     beset with difficulty, and perhaps with peril. The fine
+     intellectual head of Garrison, prematurely bald, was conspicuous;
+     the sunny-faced young man at his side, in whom all the beatitudes
+     seemed to find expression, was Samuel J. May, mingling in his veins
+     the best blood of the Sewalls and Quincys; a man so exceptionally
+     pure and large-hearted, so genial, tender, and loving, that he
+     could be faithful to truth and duty without making an enemy.
+
+     The de'il wad look into his face,
+     And swear he could na wrang him.'
+
+     That tall, gaunt, swarthy man, erect, eagle-faced, upon whose
+     somewhat martial figure the Quaker coat seemed a little out of
+     place, was Lindley Coates, known in all Eastern Pennsylvania as a
+     stern enemy of slavery; that slight, eager man, intensely alive in
+     every feature and gesture, was Thomas Shipley, who for thirty years
+     had been the protector of the free colored people of Philadelphia,
+     and whose name was whispered reverently in the slave cabins of
+     Maryland as the friend of the black man,--one of a class peculiar
+     to old Quakerism, who, in doing what they felt to be duty, and
+     walking as the Light within guided them, knew no fear and shrank
+     from no sacrifice. Braver men the world has not known. Beside him,
+     differing in creed but united with him in works of love and
+     charity, sat Thomas Whitson, of the Hicksite school of Friends,
+     fresh from his farm in Lancaster County, dressed in plainest
+     homespun, his tall form surmounted by a shock of unkempt hair, the
+     odd obliquity of his vision contrasting strongly with the clearness
+     and directness of his spiritual insight. Elizur Wright, the young
+     professor of a Western college, who had lost his place by his bold
+     advocacy of freedom, with a look of sharp concentration, in keeping
+     with an intellect keen as a Damascus blade, closely watched the
+     proceedings through his spectacles, opening his mouth only to speak
+     directly to the purpose.... In front of me, awakening pleasant
+     associations of the old homestead in Merrimack valley, sat my first
+     school-teacher, Joshua Coffin, the learned and worthy antiquarian
+     and historian of Newbury. A few spectators, mostly of the Hicksite
+     division of Friends, were present in broad-brims and plain bonnets,
+     among them Esther Moore and Lucretia Mott."
+
+The year 1834 was passed by Whittier quietly on the farm at East
+Haverhill. In April of this year the first anti-slavery society was
+organized in Haverhill, with John G. Whittier as corresponding
+secretary. Not long after a female anti-slavery society was organized in
+the same town. The pro-slavery feeling in Haverhill was as bitter as in
+other places.
+
+One Sabbath afternoon in August, 1835, the Rev. Samuel J. May occupied
+the pulpit of the First Parish Society in Haverhill, and in the evening
+attempted to give an anti-slavery lecture in the Christian Union Chapel,
+having been invited to do so by Mr. Whittier. In his "Recollections of
+the Anti-Slavery Conflict" (p. 152), Mr. May says:--
+
+    "I had spoken about fifteen minutes when the most hideous outcries
+    and yells, from a crowd of men who had surrounded the house,
+    startled us, and then came heavy missiles against the doors and
+    blinds of the windows. I persisted in speaking for a few minutes,
+    hoping the blinds and doors were strong enough to stand the siege.
+    But presently a heavy stone broke through one of the blinds,
+    shattered a pane of glass, and fell upon the head of a lady sitting
+    near the centre of the hall. She uttered a shriek, and fell bleeding
+    into the arms of her sister. The panic-stricken audience rose _en
+    masse_, and began a rush for the doors."
+
+Mr. May succeeded in quieting the fears of the audience, and himself
+escaped through the crowd of infuriated ruffians without by walking
+between two ladies, one of them the sister of Mr. Whittier and the other
+the daughter of a wealthy and determined citizen of the place, who, it
+was well known, would take summary vengeance for any disrespect shown to
+his daughter. It was well that the audience dispersed when it did, since
+a loaded cannon was being drawn to the spot by the furious mob.
+
+This year, 1835, was a year of mobs. On the very same evening that Mr.
+May was mobbed in Haverhill, Mr. Whittier and his English friend, the
+orator George Thompson, were treated in a similar manner in Concord, N.
+H. Whether an account of the Concord mob has been elsewhere published or
+not the author cannot say, but the story given here is as he had it from
+the lips of Mr. Whittier himself.
+
+"Oh! we had a dreadful night of it," he said. The inhabitants had heard
+that an Abolition meeting was to be held in the town, and that the arch
+anarchist, George Thompson, was to speak. So on that Sabbath evening
+they were on the alert, an angry mob some five hundred strong. Mr.
+Whittier, knowing nothing of their state of mind, started down the
+street with a friend: the mob surrounded them, thinking that he was
+Thompson. His friend explained to them that he was Mr. Whittier. "Oh!"
+they exclaimed, "so you are the one who is with Thompson, are you?" and
+forthwith they began to assail the two men with sticks and stones. Mr.
+Whittier said that both he and his friend were hurt, but escaped with
+their lives by taking refuge in the house of a friend named Kent, who
+was not an Abolitionist himself, but was a man of honor and bravery. He
+barred his door, and told the mob that they should have Whittier only
+over his dead body.
+
+In the course of the evening Mr. Whittier learned that the house in
+which Thompson was staying was surrounded by the mob. Becoming anxious,
+he borrowed a hat, sallied out among the crowd, and succeeded in
+reaching his friend. The noise and violence of the mob increased; a
+cannon was brought, and at one time the little band in the house feared
+they might suffer violence. "We did not much fear death," said Mr.
+Whittier, "but we did dread gross personal indignities."
+
+It was fortunately a bright moonlight night, suitable for travelling,
+and about one o'clock the two friends escaped by driving off rapidly in
+their horse and buggy. They did not know the road to Haverhill, but were
+directed by their friends with all possible minuteness. Three miles
+away, also, there was the house of an anti-slavery man, and they
+obtained further directions there. Some time after sunrise they stopped
+at a wayside inn to bait their horse, and get a bite of breakfast for
+themselves. While they were at table the landlord said,--
+
+    "They've been having a h--l of a time down at Haverhill."
+
+    "How is that?"
+
+    "Oh, one of them d--d Abolitionists was lecturin' there; he had been
+    invited to the town by a young fellow named Whittier; but they made
+    it pretty hot for him, and I guess neither he nor Whittier will be
+    in a hurry to repeat the thing."
+
+    "What kind of a fellow is this Whittier?"
+
+    "Oh, he's an ignorant sort of fellow; he don't know much."
+
+    "And who is this Thompson they're talking about?"
+
+    "Why, he's a man sent over here by the British to make trouble in
+    our government."
+
+As the two friends were stepping into the buggy, Mr. Whittier, with one
+foot on the step, turned and said to the host, who was standing by with
+several tavern loafers:--
+
+    "You've been talking about Thompson and Whittier. This is Mr.
+    Thompson, and I am Whittier. Good morning."
+
+"And jumping into the buggy," said the poet, with a twinkle in his eye,
+"we whipped up, and stood not on the order of our going." As for the
+host he stood with open mouth, being absolutely tongue-tied with
+astonishment. "And for all I know," said the narrator, "he's standing
+there still with his mouth open."
+
+Mr. Thompson was secreted at the Whittier farm-house in Haverhill for
+two weeks after this affair.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some two months after the disgraceful scenes just described occurred
+the mobbing of William Lloyd Garrison in Boston. He had gone in the
+evening to deliver a lecture before the Female Anti-Slavery Society. A
+furious mob of "gentlemen of property and standing" surrounded the
+building. Mr. Garrison took refuge in a carpenter's shop in the rear of
+the hall, but was violently seized, let down from a window by a rope,
+and dragged by the mob to the City Hall. Mr. Whittier was staying at the
+house of Rev. Samuel J. May. His sister had gone to the lecture, and Mr.
+Whittier, on hearing of the disturbance, had fears for her safety, and
+went out to seek her. He said to the writer that when he reached the
+City Hall he saw before him the best dressed mob imaginable. Presently
+he heard a cry, "They've got him!" After a short, sharp scuffle Garrison
+was got into a carriage by the police, and taken to the Leverett Street
+jail, as the only place where he could be safe that night in Boston. Mr.
+Whittier and Mr. May immediately went down to the jail to see him.
+Garrison said that he could not say, with Paul, that he was dwelling in
+his own hired house, and so he could not ask them to stay all night
+with him! His coat was not entirely gone, but was pretty badly torn. He
+was at first a good deal agitated by the affair, but when they left him
+he had become calm and assured. On the same evening, the mob threatened
+to make an attack upon Mr. May's house. Mr. Whittier got his sister
+Elizabeth safely bestowed for the night in the dwelling of another
+friend. He and Mr. May passed a sleepless night, and at one time half
+thought that, for safety's sake, they should have stayed in the jail
+with Garrison. However, they were not molested.
+
+It is a remarkable testimony to the esteem in which Mr. Whittier must
+have been held by the citizens of Haverhill that, notwithstanding their
+bitter hatred of Abolitionism, they elected him their representative to
+the State Legislature in 1835, and again in 1836. In 1837 he declined
+re-election. In the legislative documents for 1835 he figures as a
+member of the standing committee on engrossed bills. His name does not
+appear in the State records for 1836: it was undoubtedly owing to his
+secretarial duties, mentioned below, that he was unable to take his
+seat as a member of the Legislature in the second year of his election.
+
+In 1836 Whittier published "Mogg Megone," a poem on an episode in Indian
+life. It will be reviewed, with the rest of his poems, in the second
+part of this volume. In the same year he was appointed Secretary of the
+American Anti-Slavery Society, and removed to Philadelphia. In 1838-39,
+while in that city, he edited a paper which he named the _Pennsylvania
+Freeman_. It had formerly been edited by Benjamin Lundy, under the title
+of the _National Enquirer_. The office of the _Pennsylvania Freeman_ was
+in 1838 sacked and burned by a mob. It was about the same time that
+Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia was burned to the ground by the
+citizens, on the very day after its dedication. Mr. Whittier had read an
+original poem on that occasion. The hall had been built at considerable
+sacrifice by the lovers of freedom, in order that one place at least
+might be open for free discussion. And it was just in order that it
+might not be used thus that it was burned by the guilty-thoughted mob.
+The keys had been given to the mayor, but neither he nor the police
+interfered to prevent the atrocious deed.
+
+In 1837 Mr. Whittier edited, and wrote a preface for, the "Letters of
+John Quincy Adams to his Constituents." These stirring letters of Mr.
+Adams were called forth by the attacks that had been made on him by
+members of Congress for defending the right of negroes to petition the
+Government. Mr. Whittier, in his introductory remarks, speaks of the
+"Letters" as follows:--
+
+     "Their sarcasm is Junius-like, cold, keen, unsparing. In boldness,
+     directness, and eloquent appeal, they will bear comparison with
+     O'Connell's celebrated letters to the Reformers of Great
+     Britain.... It will be seen that, in the great struggle for and
+     against the Right of Petition, an account of which is given in the
+     following pages, their author stood in a great measure alone, and
+     unsupported by his northern colleagues. On 'his gray, discrowned
+     head' the entire fury of slaveholding arrogance and wrath was
+     expended. He stood alone,--beating back, with his aged and single
+     arm, the tide which would have borne down and overwhelmed a less
+     sturdy and determined spirit."
+
+In the same year (1837) Mr. Whittier edited a pamphlet called "Views of
+Slavery and Emancipation," taken from Harriet Martineau's "Society in
+America." The whole subject of slavery is canvassed by Miss Martineau in
+the most searching and judicial manner.
+
+In closing this account of our author's anti-slavery labors, we may
+bestow a word on the attitude assumed toward the Abolition movement by
+the Quakers as a sect. Through the labors of John Woolman, Benjamin
+Lundy, Anthony Benezet, and others, they had early been brought to see
+the wickedness of slaveholding, and in 1780 had succeeded in entirely
+ridding their denomination of the wrong. They not only emancipated their
+slaves, but remunerated them for their past services. Indeed, their
+record in this respect is unique for its fine ideal devotion to exact
+justice. They were the first religious body in the world to remove the
+pollution of slavery from their midst. But the cautious, acquisitive,
+peace-loving Quakers seemed content to rest here, satisfied with having
+cleared their own skirts of wrong. They could not see the good side of
+the Abolition movement. They were scandalized by the violence and
+fanaticism of many Abolitionists. Mr. Whittier felt aggrieved by this
+attitude of the Friends, but did not on that account break with the
+denomination, or abandon the religion of his fathers. In 1868 he wrote
+as follows to the _New Bedford Standard_, which had spoken of him in an
+article on Thomas A. Greene: "My object in referring to the article in
+the paper was mainly to correct a statement regarding myself, viz.: That
+in consequence of the opposition of the Society of Friends to the
+anti-slavery movement, I did not for years attend their meetings. This
+is not true. From my youth up, whenever my health permitted, I have been
+a constant attendant of our meetings for religious worship. _This_ is
+true, however, that after our meeting-houses were denied by the yearly
+meeting for anti-slavery purposes, I did not feel it in my way, for some
+years, to attend the annual meeting at Newport. From a feeling of duty I
+protested against that decision when it was made, but was given to
+understand pretty distinctly that there was no 'weight' in my words. It
+was a hard day for reformers; some stifled their convictions; others,
+not adding patience to their faith, allowed themselves to be worried out
+of the Society. Abolitionists holding office were very generally
+'dropped out,' and the ark of the church staggered on with no profane
+anti-slavery hands upon it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+AMESBURY.
+
+
+After the sacking and burning of the office of the _Pennsylvania
+Freeman_, Whittier returned to Haverhill, and soon after (in 1840) he
+sold the old farm and removed with his mother to Amesbury, a small town
+some nine miles nearer the sea than Haverhill. It is a rural town of
+over three thousand inhabitants, and contains nothing of note except the
+poet Whittier. The business of the place is the manufacture of woollen
+and cotton goods, and of carriages. The landscape is rugged and
+picturesque. The town covers a sloping hillside that stretches down to
+the Merrimack. Across this river rises a high hill, crowned with
+orchards and meadows. In summer time a sweet and quiet air reigns in the
+place. There are old vine-covered houses, grassy lawns, cool crofts, and
+sunken orchards; bees are humming, birds singing, and here and there
+through the trees slender columns of blue wood-smoke float upward in
+airy evanescence. Mr. Whittier's residence is on Friend Street, and not
+far beyond, on the same street, or rather in the delta formed by the
+meeting of two streets, stands the Friends' Meeting-House, where the
+poet has been an attendant nearly all his life:--
+
+    "For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,
+      And holy day, and solemn psalm;
+    For me, the silent reverence where
+      My brethren gather, slow and calm."
+
+This old meeting-house is alluded to by the poet in "Abram Morrison," a
+fine humorous poem published in "The King's Missive" (1881). We there
+read how--
+
+          "On calm and fair First Days
+    Rattled down our one-horse chaise
+    Through the blossomed apple-boughs
+    To the old, brown meeting-house."
+
+Whittier's house is a plain, white-painted structure, standing at the
+corner of two streets, and having in front of it numerous forest trees,
+chiefly maple. Since 1876 the poet has passed only a part of each year
+at Amesbury, his other home being Oak Knoll in Danvers, where he resides
+with distant relatives.
+
+[Illustration: THE WHITTIER HOUSE, AMESBURY, MASS.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The study at Amesbury of course possesses great interest for us as the
+place where most of the poet's finest lyrics have been written. It is a
+very cosey little study, and is entered by one door from within and
+another from without. The upper half of the outer door is of glass. This
+door is at the end of the left-hand porch shown in the view on page 125.
+The two windows in the study look out upon a long strip of yard in the
+rear of the house,--very pretty and quiet, and filled with pear-trees
+and other trees and vines. Upon one side of the room are shelves holding
+five or six hundred well-used volumes. Among them are to be noticed
+Charles Reade's novels and the poems of Robert Browning. A side-shelf is
+completely filled with a small blue and gold edition of the poets. On
+the walls hang oil paintings of views on the Merrimack River and other
+Essex County scenes, including Mr. Whittier's birthplace. In one corner
+is a handsome writing-desk, littered with papers and letters. Upon the
+hearth of the Franklin stove, high andirons smile a fireside welcome
+from their burnished brass knobs. Indeed, everything in the room is as
+neat and cosey as the wax cell of a honey-bee. And over all is shed the
+genial glow of the gentlest, tenderest nature in all the land.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the autumn of 1844 was written "The Stranger in Lowell," a series of
+light sketches suggested by personal experiences. The style of these
+essays reminds one of that of "Twice Told Tales," but it is not so pure.
+The thought is developed too rhetorically, and the essays betray the
+limitations attending the life of a recluse. But these sketches are
+interesting as exhibitions of the growth of the author toward this
+peculiar form of essay-writing, and are valuable on that account.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1847 James G. Birney's anti-slavery paper, _The Philanthropist_,
+published in Cincinnati, was merged with the _National Era_, of
+Washington, D. C., with Dr. Gamaliel Bailey as managing editor, and
+John G. Whittier as associate or corresponding editor. Dr. Bailey had
+previously helped edit _The Philanthropist_. Both papers were treated to
+mobocratic attacks. The _Era_ became an important organ of the Abolition
+party in Washington. To it Mr. Whittier contributed his "Old Portraits
+and Modern Sketches" as well as other reform papers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the same year (1847) our author published his "Supernaturalism of New
+England." [New York and London: Wiley and Putnam.] This pleasant little
+volume shows a marked advance upon Whittier's previous prose work. In
+its nine chapters he has preserved a number of oral legends and
+interesting superstitions of the farmer-folk of the Merrimack region.
+Parts of the work have been quoted elsewhere in this volume. One of the
+chapters closes with the following fine passage:--
+
+     "The witches of Father Baxter and 'the Black Man' of Cotton Mather
+     have vanished; belief in them is no longer possible on the part of
+     sane men. But this mysterious universe, through which, half veiled
+     in its own shadow, our dim little planet is wheeling, with its
+     star-worlds and thought-wearying spaces, remains. Nature's mighty
+     miracle is still over and around us; and hence awe, wonder, and
+     reverence remain to be the inheritance of humanity: still are there
+     beautiful repentances and holy death-beds, and still over the
+     soul's darkness and confusion rises star-like the great idea of
+     duty. By higher and better influences than the poor spectres of
+     superstition man must henceforth be taught to reverence the
+     Invisible, and, in the consciousness of his own weakness and sin
+     and sorrow, to lean with childlike trust on the wisdom and mercy of
+     an overruling Providence."
+
+In 1849 Mr. Whittier collected and published his anti-slavery poems,
+under the title "Voices of Freedom." The year 1850 marks a new era in
+his poetical career. He published at that time his "Songs of Labor,"--a
+volume which showed that his mind had become calmed by time, and was now
+capable of interesting itself in other than reform subjects.
+
+There is not much of outward incident and circumstance to record of the
+quiet poetical years passed since 1840 at Amesbury and Danvers. Almost
+every year or two a new volume of poems has been issued, each one
+establishing on a firmer foundation the Quaker Poet's reputation as a
+creator of sweet and melodious lyrical poetry.
+
+In 1868 an institution called "Whittier College" was opened at Salem,
+Henry County, Iowa. It was founded in honor of the poet, and is
+conducted in accordance with the principles of the Society of Friends.
+
+In 1871 Whittier edited "Child-Life: A Collection of Poems," by various
+home and foreign authors. In the same year he edited, with a long
+introduction, the "Journal of John Woolman."
+
+The name John Woolman is not widely known to persons of the present
+generation; and yet, as Whittier says, it was this humble Quaker
+reformer of New Jersey who did more than any one else to inspire all the
+great modern movements for the emancipation of slaves, first in the West
+Indies, then in the United States, and in Russia. Warner Mifflin, Jean
+Pierre Brissot, Thomas Clarkson, Stephen Grellet, William Allen, and
+Benjamin Lundy,--all these philanthropists owed much of their impulse to
+labor for the freedom of the slave to humble John Woolman. His journal
+or autobiography was highly praised by Charles Lamb, Edward Irving,
+Crabb Robinson, and others. "The style is that of a man unlettered, but
+with natural refinement and delicate sense of fitness, the purity of
+whose heart enters into his language."
+
+Woolman was born in Northampton, West Jersey, in 1720. One day, in the
+year 1742, while clerk in a store in the village of Mount Holly,
+township of Northampton, N. J., he was asked by his employer to make out
+the bill of sale of a negro. He drew up the instrument, but his
+conscience was awakened, and some years after he began his life-work as
+a pedestrian anti-slavery preacher. He refused to ride in, or have
+letters sent him by, the stage-coaches, because of the cruelty exercised
+toward the horses by the drivers. Neither would he accept hospitality
+from those who kept slaves, always paying either the owners or the
+slaves for his entertainment. Woolman was most gentle and kind in his
+appeals to slave-owners, and rarely met with any violent remonstrance.
+Much of his work was within the limits of his own sect, and Mr.
+Whittier's introduction gives a valuable and succinct historical
+_resume_ of the steps taken by the Friends to rid their sect of the
+stigma of slaveholding.
+
+Mount Holly, in Woolman's day, says Whittier, "was almost entirely a
+settlement of Friends. A very few of the old houses with their quaint
+stoops or porches are left. That occupied by John Woolman was a small,
+plain, two-story structure, with two windows in each story in front, a
+four-barred fence enclosing the grounds, with the trees he planted and
+loved to cultivate. The house was not painted, but whitewashed. The name
+of the place is derived from the highest hill in the county, rising two
+hundred feet above the sea, and commanding a view of a rich and level
+country of cleared farms and woodlands."
+
+Very amusing is the picture given by Mr. Whittier of the eccentric
+Benjamin Lay, once a member of the Society of Friends in England, and
+afterward an inhabitant for some time of the West Indies, whence he was
+driven away on account of the violence and extravagance of his
+denunciations of slavery. He was a contemporary of Woolman. He lived in
+a cave near Philadelphia, as a sort of Jonah or Elijah, prophesying woe
+against the city on account of its participation in the crime of
+slavery. He wore clothes made of vegetable fibre, and ate only vegetable
+food. "Issuing from his cave, on his mission of preaching 'deliverance
+to the captive,' he was in the habit of visiting the various meetings
+for worship and bearing his testimony against slaveholders, greatly to
+their disgust and indignation. On one occasion he entered the Market
+Street Meeting, and a leading Friend requested some one to take him out.
+A burly blacksmith volunteered to do it, leading him to the gate and
+thrusting him out with such force that he fell into the gutter of the
+street. There he lay until the meeting closed, telling the bystanders
+that he did not feel free to rise himself. 'Let those who cast me here
+raise me up. It is their business, not mine.'
+
+"His personal appearance was in remarkable keeping with his eccentric
+life. A figure only four and a half feet high, hunch-backed, with
+projecting chest, legs small and uneven, arms longer than his legs; a
+huge head, showing only beneath the enormous white hat large, solemn
+eyes and a prominent nose; the rest of his face covered with a snowy
+semicircle of beard falling low on his breast,--a figure to recall the
+old legends of troll, brownie, and kobold. Such was the irrepressible
+prophet who troubled the Israel of slaveholding Quakerism, clinging like
+a rough chestnut-burr to the skirts of its respectability, and settling
+like a pertinacious gad-fly on the sore places of its conscience.
+
+"On one occasion, while the annual meeting was in session at Burlington,
+N. J., in the midst of the solemn silence of the great assembly, the
+unwelcome figure of Benjamin Lay, wrapped in his long white overcoat,
+was seen passing up the aisle. Stopping midway, he exclaimed, 'You
+slaveholders! Why don't you throw off your Quaker coats as I do mine,
+and show yourselves as you are?' Casting off as he spoke his outer
+garment, he disclosed to the astonished assembly a military coat
+underneath, and a sword dangling at his heels. Holding in one hand a
+large book, he drew his sword with the other. 'In the sight of God,' he
+cried, 'you are as guilty as if you stabbed your slaves to the heart, as
+I do this book!' suiting the action to the word, and piercing a small
+bladder filled with the juice of poke-weed (_phytolacca decandra_),
+which he had concealed between the covers, and sprinkling as with fresh
+blood those who sat near him."
+
+There is something overwhelmingly ludicrous about this bladder of
+poke-weed juice! And what a subject for a painter!--the portentous,
+white-bearded dwarf standing there in the midst of the church, in act to
+plunge his gigantic sword tragically into the innermost bowels of the
+crimson poke-juice bladder, and from all parts of the house the
+converging looks of the broad-brimmed and shovel-bonneted Quakers!
+
+Mr. Whittier further says that "Lay was well acquainted with Dr.
+Franklin, who sometimes visited him. Among other schemes of reform he
+entertained the idea of converting all mankind to Christianity. This was
+to be done by three witnesses,--himself, Michael Lovell, and Abel Noble,
+assisted by Dr. Franklin. But, on their first meeting at the doctor's
+house, the three 'chosen vessels' got into a violent controversy on
+points of doctrine, and separated in ill-humor. The philosopher, who had
+been an amused listener, advised the three sages to give up the project
+of converting the world until they had learned to tolerate each other."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1873 Mr. Whittier edited "Child-Life in Prose." It is a collection of
+pretty stories, chiefly about the childhood of various eminent persons.
+One of the stories is by the editor, and is about "A Fish that I Didn't
+Catch."
+
+In 1875 appeared "Songs of Three Centuries." The poet's design in this
+work was (to use his own words) "to gather up in a comparatively small
+volume, easily accessible to all classes of readers, the wisest
+thoughts, rarest fancies, and devoutest hymns of the metrical authors of
+the last three centuries." He says, "The selections I have made
+indicate, in a general way, my preferences." It is a choice collection,
+rich in lyrical masterpieces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+LATER DAYS.
+
+
+About a mile westward from the village of Danvers, Mass., a grassy road,
+named Summer Street, branches off to the right and north. It is a
+pleasant, winding road, bordered by picturesque old stone fences and
+lined with barberry and raspberry bushes and gnarled old apple-trees. On
+either side are cultivated fields. Oak Knoll, the winter residence of
+Whittier, is the second house on the left, some half a mile up the road.
+
+This fine old estate had been occupied for half a century by a man of
+wealth and taste. About the year 1875 it passed into the hands of Col.
+Edmund Johnson, of Boston, whose wife was Whittier's cousin.
+
+It was planned that the poet should be a member of the household; rooms
+were set apart and arranged for him, and he gave the estate its present
+name.
+
+It is a spot full of traditions, and well suited to any poet's
+residence, most of all for one so versed in New England legends. It is
+the very spot once occupied by the Rev. George Burroughs, a clergyman
+who was hung for witchcraft in 1692, on the charge, among other things,
+of "having performed feats of extraordinary physical strength." He could
+hold out a gun seven feet long, tradition says, by putting his finger in
+the muzzle, and could lift a barrel of molasses in the same way by the
+bung-hole. For acts like these--deemed unclerical, at least, if not
+unnatural--he was convicted and hanged; and a well on the premises of
+Oak Knoll is still known as the "witch well."
+
+Here, in the home of relatives, the poet has lived since 1876. A
+lovelier and more poetical place it would be difficult to imagine. The
+extensive, carefully kept grounds, and the antique elegance of the
+house, give to the estate the air of an old English manor, or
+gentleman's country hall. The house is approached by a long,
+upward-sweeping lawn, diversified with stately forest trees, clumps of
+evergreens and shrubs and flowers. Down across the road stands a large
+and handsome barn, which is as neat as paint and care can make it. In
+front of the house the eye ranges downward over an extensive landscape,
+as far as to the town of Peabody, in the direction of Salem. Indeed, on
+every side of the estate there are broad and distant views of the blue
+hills of Essex and Middlesex.
+
+[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE PORCH AT OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, MASS.]
+
+In the summer, as you ascend the carriage-road that winds through the
+grounds, your eye is captured by the rare beauty of the scene. Yonder is
+a tall living wall of verdure, with an archway cut through it. To the
+left the grounds sweep gently down to a deep ravine, where a little
+rivulet, named Beaver Brook, creeps leisurely out and winds seaward
+through green and marish meadows. It is in this portion of the grounds
+that the fine oak-trees grow which give to the place its name. Here,
+too, is a large grove of pines, with numerous seats within it. There are
+trees and trees at Oak Knoll,--smooth and shapely hickories, glistering
+chestnuts with cool foliage, maples, birches, and the purple beech. Add
+to the picture the rural accessories of bee-haunted clover-fields, apple
+and pear orchards, and beds of tempting strawberries. The house is of
+wood, salmon-colored, with tall porches on each side, up-propped by
+stately Doric columns. In front, with wide sweep of closely cropped
+grass intervening, is the magnificent Norway spruce that Oliver Wendell
+Holmes, a year or two before Mr. Whittier's death, on one of those
+periodical visits to his brother poet that so delighted their two souls,
+named "The Poets' Pagoda." A luxuriant vine clusters about the eaves of
+the house. On the long porch a mocking-bird and a canary-bird fill the
+green silence with gushes of melody, and near at hand, in his study in
+the wing of the building, sits one with a singing pen and listens to
+their song. To their song and to the murmur of the tall pines by his
+window he listens, then looks into his heart and writes,--this
+sweet-souled magician,--and craftily imprisons between the covers of his
+books, echoes of bird and tree music, bits of blue sky, glimpses of
+green landscape, winding rivers, and idyls of the snow,--all suffused
+and interfused with a glowing atmosphere of human and divine love, such
+as the poet found in this home of his choosing at Oak Knoll. It will not
+perhaps be intruding upon the privacies of home to say that the members
+of the cultured household at Oak Knoll ever, found in their happy
+circle, their highest pleasure in ministering to all needs, social or
+otherwise, of their loved cousin the poet. Three sisters dispense the
+hospitalities of the house, and a young daughter of Mrs. Woodman's adds
+the charm of girlhood to the family life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Readers of Whittier, who know how deeply his writings are tinged with
+the scenery, legendary lore and folk-life of his native Merrimack
+Valley, will not wonder that a certain _Heimweh_, or home-sickness,
+draws him northward, when
+
+                        "Flows amain
+    The surge of summer's beauty."
+
+and
+
+    "Pours the deluge of the heat
+    Broad northward o'er the land."
+
+It is but one hour's ride by cars from Danvers to Amesbury; and part of
+the time in the latter place, and part of the time at the Isles of
+Shoals, and in the beautiful lake and mountain region of New Hampshire,
+Mr. Whittier passes the warm season. For many years it was his custom to
+spend a portion of each summer at the Bearcamp River House, in West
+Ossipee, N. H., some thirty miles north of Lake Winnipiseogee. The hotel
+was situated on a slight eminence, commanding a view of towering "Mount
+Israel" and of "Whittier Mountain," named after the poet. It is a region
+full of noble prospects, being just in the out-skirts of the White
+Mountain group. Several of the poems of Whittier were inspired by this
+scenery, notably "Among the Hills," "Sunset on the Bearcamp," and "The
+Seeking of the Waterfall." In the first of these we read how--
+
+    "Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang,"
+
+and--
+
+    "Above his broad lake Ossipee,
+      Once more the sunshine wearing,
+    Stooped, tracing on that silver shield
+      His grim armorial bearing."
+
+"Sunset on the Bearcamp" contains a stanza considered by some to be one
+of the poet's finest:--
+
+    "Touched by a light that hath no name,
+      A glory never sung,
+    Aloft on sky and mountain wall
+      Are God's great pictures hung.
+    How changed the summits vast and old!
+      No longer granite-browed,
+    They melt in rosy mist; the rock
+      Is softer than the cloud;
+    The valley holds its breath; no leaf
+      Of all its elms is twirled:
+    The silence of eternity
+      Seems falling on the world."
+
+The Bearcamp River House (now no more) was a hostelry whose site,
+antique hospitality, and eminent guests were every whit as worthy to be
+embalmed in lasting verse as were those of the Wayside Inn of Sudbury.
+Before the red, crackling flames of its huge fireplace such literary
+characters as Whittier, Gail Hamilton, Lucy Larcom, and Hiram Rich used
+to gather on chill summer evenings for the kind of talks that only a
+wood fire can inspire. The Quaker poet is a charming conversationalist,
+and can _tell_ a story as capitally as he can write one. He has a
+goodly _repertoire_ of ghost tales and legends of the marvellous. One of
+his best stories is about a scene that took place in Independence Hall
+in Philadelphia, when the court remanded a negro to slavery. The poet
+says that an old sailor who was present became so infuriated by the
+spectacle that he made the air blue with oaths uttered in seven
+different languages.[16]
+
+[Footnote 16: For these details about days on the Bearcamp, the writer
+is indebted to Dr. Robert R. Andrews, an acquaintance of the poet.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+December 17, 1877, was the poet's seventieth birthday, and the occasion
+was celebrated in a twofold manner, namely, by a Whittier Tribute in the
+_Literary World_, and by a Whittier Banquet given at the Hotel
+Brunswick, in Boston, by Messrs. H. O. Houghton and Co., the publishers
+of Whittier's works. The _Literary World_ tribute contained poems by
+Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Bayard Taylor, E. C. Stedman, O. W. Holmes,
+William Lloyd Garrison, and others. Mr. Longfellow's poem, "The Three
+Silences," is one of unusual beauty.
+
+
+              THE THREE SILENCES OF MOLINOS.
+
+    "Three Silences there are: the first of speech,
+      The second of desire, the third of thought;
+      This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught
+      With dreams and visions, was the first to teach.
+    These Silences, commingling each with each
+      Made up the perfect Silence, that he sought
+      And prayed for, and wherein at times he caught
+      Mysterious sounds from realms beyond our reach.
+    O thou, whose daily life anticipates
+      The life to come, and in whose thought and word
+      The spiritual world preponderates,
+    Hermit of Amesbury! thou too hast heard
+      Voices and melodies from beyond the gates,
+      And speakest only when thy soul is stirred!"
+
+There were letters from the poet Bryant, the historian George Bancroft,
+Colonel T. W. Higginson, and Mrs. H. B. Stowe; and there was a pleasant
+description of the Danvers home by Charles B. Rice. Mr. Whittier's
+"Response" was published in the January number of the paper:--
+
+    "Beside that milestone where the level sun,
+      Nigh unto setting, sheds his last, low rays
+    On word and work irrevocably done,
+    Life's blending threads of good and ill outspun,
+      I hear, O friends! your words of cheer and praise,
+    Half doubtful if myself or otherwise.
+      Like him who, in the old Arabian joke,
+      A beggar slept and crowned Caliph woke."
+
+The anniversary of the founding of the _Atlantic Monthly_ happening to
+be synchronous with Whittier's birthday, the publishers determined to
+make a double festival of the occasion. The gathering at the Hotel
+Brunswick was a brilliant one, and the invitations were not limited by
+any clique or any sectional lines.
+
+In this same month the admirers of Mr. Whittier in Haverhill,
+Newburyport, and neighboring towns, formed a Whittier Club, its annual
+meetings to be held on December 17.
+
+The ladies of Amesbury presented to the poet on his birthday a richly
+finished Russia-leather portfolio, containing fourteen beautiful
+sketches in water-colors of scenes in and about Amesbury, by a talented
+Amesbury artist. The subjects of the sketches are those scenes which he
+has immortalized in his poems, and include his home, birthplace, the old
+school-house, old Quaker Meeting-House, Rivermouth Rocks, etc. The
+portfolio was presented to him at Oak Knoll, accompanied by a basket of
+exquisite flowers.
+
+Since taking up his residence in Danvers, the poet has published "The
+Vision of Echard, and Other Poems,"--including the beautiful ballad,
+"The Witch of Wenham,"--and "The King's Missive, and Other Poems."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+PERSONAL.
+
+
+As a boy, Whittier grew up slender, delicate, and shy, with dark hair
+and dark eyes; his nature silent and brooding, gentle, compassionate,
+religious, and sensitive to the beauty of the external world. He is of
+the nervous temperament, and his health has never been robust. Indeed,
+in later life the state of his health has often been precarious, and his
+plans for work have been at the mercy of his nerves. As a young man, and
+crowned Laureate of Freedom, Whittier must have presented a striking
+appearance, with his raven hair, and glittering black eyes flashing with
+the inspiration of a great cause. Mr. J. Miller McKim, a member with
+Whittier of the famous Anti-Slavery Convention held in Philadelphia in
+1833, thus describes the poet:--
+
+     "He wore a dark frock-coat with standing collar, which, with his
+     thin hair, dark and sometimes flashing eyes, and black
+     whiskers,--not large, but noticeable in those unhirsute days,--gave
+     him, to my then unpractised eye, quite as much of a military as a
+     Quaker aspect. His broad, square forehead and well-cut features,
+     aided by his incipient reputation as a poet, made him quite a
+     noticeable feature in the convention."
+
+Frederika Bremer, in her "Sketches of American Homes," gives an outline
+portrait of Whittier as he appeared when forty years of age:--
+
+    "He has a good exterior, a figure slender and tall, a beautiful head
+    with refined features, black eyes full of fire, dark complexion, a
+    fine smile, and lively but very nervous manner. Both soul and spirit
+    have overstrained the nervous cords and wasted the body. He belongs
+    to those natures who would advance with firmness and joy to
+    martyrdom in a good cause, and yet who are never comfortable in
+    society, and who look as if they would run out of the door every
+    moment. He lives with his mother and sister in a country-house to
+    which I have promised to go. I feel that I should enjoy myself with
+    Whittier, and could make him feel at ease with me. I know from my
+    own experience what this nervous bashfulness, caused by the
+    over-exertion of the brain, requires, and how persons who suffer
+    therefrom ought to be met and treated."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+George W. Bungay, in his "Crayon Sketches" of distinguished Americans,
+published in 1852, gives the following picture of Whittier: "His
+temperament is nervous-bilious; [he] is tall, slender and straight
+as an Indian; has a superb head; his brow looks like a white cloud
+under his raven hair; eyes large, black as sloes, and glowing with
+expression,-- ... those star-like eyes dashing under such a magnificent
+forehead."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A writer in the _Democratic Review_ for August, 1845, speaks of "the
+fine intellectual beauty of his expression, the blending brightness and
+softness of the clear dark eye, the union of manly firmness and courage
+with womanly sweetness and tenderness alike in countenance and
+character."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. David A. Wasson says that Whittier is of the Saracenic or Hebrew
+prophet type: "The high cranium, so lofty, especially in the dome,--the
+slight and symmetrical backward slope of the _whole_ head,--the powerful
+level brows, and beneath these the dark, deep eyes, so full of shadowed
+fire,--the Arabian complexion,--the sharp-cut, intense lines of the
+face,--the light, tall, erect stature,--the quick, axial poise of the
+movement,"--all these traits reveal the fiery Semitic prophet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The long backward and upward slope of the head, alluded to by Mr.
+Wasson, is very striking. It is the head of Walter Scott or of Emerson.
+Whittier is now an old man, somewhat hard of hearing, and with the fixed
+sadness of time upon his pleasant face. But ever and anon, as you
+converse with him, his countenance is irradiated by a sudden smile,
+sweet and strange and full of benignity,--like a waft of perfume from a
+bed of white violets, or a glint of rich sunlight on an April day. His
+is one of those Emersonian natures that everybody loves at first sight.
+The very mole under the right eye seems somehow the birth-mark or
+sign-manual of kindliness. The quaint grammatical solecisms of the
+Quaker and the New England farmer--the "thee's" and the omission of the
+_g_'s from present participles and other words ending in
+"ing"--give to the poet's conversation a certain slight piquancy and
+picturesqueness.[17] About half-past nine every morning, when at
+Amesbury, Mr. Whittier walks down for the mail and the news, and perhaps
+has a chat with some neighbor on the street, or with the country editor
+who is setting up in type his own editorials while he grimly rolls his
+quid of tobacco in his cheek. In the spring and early summer the poet's
+dress will be after this fashion: black coat and vest, gray pantaloons,
+cinnamon-colored overcoat, drab tile hat, and perhaps a small gray
+tippet around his neck. As he walks, he salutes those whom he meets with
+a little jerky bow. A forty years' residence in Amesbury has made him
+acquainted with almost everybody, and he might, therefore, very properly
+be somewhat economical of exertion in his salutations. But his abrupt
+bow is really the expression of that unbending rectitude and noble pride
+in individual freedom that made him the reformer and the poet of
+liberty. As a single instance of Whittier's kind-heartedness, take the
+following incident, narrated by an anonymous writer in the _Literary
+World_ for December, 1877: "When I was a young man trying to get an
+education, I went about the country peddling sewing-silk to help myself
+through college; and one Saturday night found me at Amesbury, a stranger
+and without a lodging-place. It happened that the first house at which I
+called was Whittier's, and he himself came to the door. On hearing my
+request he said he was very sorry that he could not keep me, but it was
+quarterly meeting and his house was full. He, however, took the trouble
+to show me to a neighbor's, where he left me; but that did not seem to
+wholly suit his idea of hospitality, for in the course of the evening he
+made his appearance, saying that it had occurred to him that he could
+sleep on a lounge, and give up his own bed to me,--which it is, perhaps,
+needless to say, was not allowed. But this was not all. The next morning
+he came again, with the suggestion that I might perhaps like to attend
+meeting, inviting me to go with him; and he gave me a seat next to
+himself. The meeting lasted an hour, during which there was not a word
+spoken by any one. We all sat in silence that length of time, then all
+arose, shook hands and dispersed; and I remember it as one of the best
+meetings I ever attended."
+
+[Footnote 17: The writer remembers once speaking with a laborer whom Mr.
+Whittier had employed. The good fellow could not conceal his admiration
+for the poet, "Why," he said, "you wouldn't think it, would you, but he
+talks just like common folks. We was talkin' about the apples one day,
+and he said, 'Some years they ain't wuth pickin','--just like anybody,
+you know; ain't stuck up at all, and yet he's a great man, you know. He
+likes to talk with farmers and common folks; he don't go much with the
+bigbugs;--one of the nicest men, and liberal with his money, too."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dom Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil, is a reader of Mr. Whittier's poems,
+and an ardent admirer of his genius. He has exchanged letters with him,
+both in regard to poetry and to the emancipation of slaves.[18] When
+his Majesty was in this country, in 1876, he expressed a wish to meet
+Mr. Whittier, and on Wednesday evening, June 14, a little reception was
+arranged by Mrs. John T. Sargent at her Chestnut Street home, a few
+prominent persons having been invited to be present. "When the Emperor
+arrived, the other guests had already assembled. Sending up his card,
+his Majesty followed it with the quickness of an enthusiastic
+school-boy; and his first question, after somewhat hastily paying his
+greetings, was for Mr. Whittier. The poet stepped forward to meet his
+imperial admirer, who would fain have caught him in his arms and
+embraced him warmly, with all the enthusiasm of the Latin race. The
+diffident Friend seemed somewhat abashed at so demonstrative a greeting,
+but with a cordial grasp of the hand drew Dom Pedro to the sofa, where
+the two chatted easily and with the familiarity of old friends.
+
+[Footnote 18: The Emperor has translated Whittier's "Cry of a Lost Soul"
+into Portuguese, and has sent to the poet several specimens of the
+Amazonian bird whose peculiar note suggested the poem.]
+
+"The rest of the company allowed them to enjoy their _tete-a-tete_ for
+some half hour, when they ventured to interrupt it, and the Emperor
+joined very heartily in a general conversation."
+
+As the Emperor was driving away, he was seen standing erect in his open
+barouche, and "waving his hat, with a seeming hurrah, at the house which
+held his venerable friend."[19]
+
+[Footnote 19: Mrs. Sargent's "Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical
+Club," pp. 301, 302.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As a specimen of Mr. Whittier's genial and winning epistolary style, it
+is permissible to quote here a letter of his, addressed to Mrs. John T.
+Sargent, and included by her in her sketches of the Radical Club:--
+
+     "AMESBURY, Wednesday Eve.
+
+     "MY DEAR MRS. SARGENT,--Few stronger inducements could be held out
+     to me than that in thy invitation to meet Lucretia Mott and Mary
+     Carpenter. But I do not see that I can possibly go to Boston this
+     week. None the less do I thank thee, my dear friend, in thinking of
+     me in connection with their visit.
+
+     "My love to Lucretia Mott, and tell her I have never forgotten the
+     kind welcome and generous sympathy she gave the young abolitionist
+     at a time when he found small favor with his 'orthodox' brethren.
+     What a change she and I have lived to see! I hope to meet Miss
+     Carpenter before she leaves us. For this, and for all thy kindness
+     in times past, believe me gratefully thy friend,
+
+     "JOHN G. WHITTIER."
+
+The modesty and shyness of the poet have already been more than once
+alluded to. They form his most distinctive personal or constitutional
+peculiarity. It is unnecessary to quote from his writings to illustrate
+what is patent to everybody who reads his books, or knows anything about
+him.
+
+The poet's personal friends know well that he has a good deal of genial,
+mellow humorousness in his nature. To get an idea of it, read his
+charming prose sketches of home and rural life, and such poems as the
+whimsical, enigmatical "Demon of the Study," as well as "The Pumpkin,"
+"To My Old Schoolmaster," and the "Double-Headed Snake of Newbury."
+These poems almost equal Holmes's for rich and _riant_ humor.
+
+It is not so well known as it ought to be that the author of
+"Snow-Bound" has as deep a love of children as had Longfellow. Before
+the Bearcamp House was burned to the ground in 1880, Mr. Whittier used
+sometimes to come up from Amesbury with a whole bevy of little misses
+about him, and at the hotel the wee folk hailed him as one of those dear
+old fellows whom they always love at sight. It is said that Edward
+Lear--the friend of Tennyson, and author of "Nonsense Verses" for
+children--used to make a hobby-horse of himself in the castles of
+Europe, and treat his little friends to a gallop over the carpet on his
+back. If Mr. Whittier never got quite so far as this in juvenile
+equestrianism, he has at least equally endeared himself to the children
+who have had the good fortune to look into his loving eyes and enjoy the
+sunshine of his smile. When sitting by the fireside, or stretched at
+ease on the fragrant hay in the barn or field, or walking among the
+hills, nothing pleases him better than to have an audience of young
+folks eagerly listening to one of his stories. If they are engaged in a
+game of archery, he will take a hand in the sport, and no one is better
+pleased than he to hit the white. His unfailing kindness in answering
+the many letters addressed to him by young literary aspirants, or by
+others who desire his advice and help, is something admirable: no one
+knows how to win hearts better than he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To these notes of personal traits it only remains to add a list of the
+offices of dignity and honor which have been held by Mr. Whittier.
+Besides his various editorial, secretarial, and legislative positions,
+he served as Overseer of Harvard College from 1858 to 1863. He was a
+member of the Electoral College in 1860 and in 1864. The degree of
+Master of Arts was bestowed upon him by Harvard College in 1860, and the
+same degree by Haverford College in the same year. He was elected a
+resident member of the American Philosophical Society in 1864, but never
+accepted the honor, notwithstanding the fact that his name appeared for
+two or three years on the Society's roll. In 1871 he was made a Fellow
+of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+ANALYSIS OF HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE MAN.
+
+    _"Not by the page word-painted
+    Let life be banned or sainted:
+    Deeper than written scroll
+    The colors of the soul."_
+
+    MY TRIUMPH.
+
+
+To analyze and describe the _poetry_ of Whittier is a comparatively easy
+task, for it is all essentially lyrical or descriptive, and is
+resolvable into a few simple elements. His poetry is not profound; but
+it is sweet and melodious,--now flashing with the fire of freedom and
+choked with passionate indignation, and now purling and rippling through
+the tranquil meadows of legend and song. Such a poem as Emerson's
+"Sphinx," groaning with its weight of mystical meaning, Whittier never
+wrote, nor could write. Neither is he dramatic, nor skilled in the
+subtile harmonies of rhythm and metre. As an artist he is easily
+comprehensible. But to fathom the _man_,--to drop one's plummet into
+the infinite depths of the human mind, to peer about with one's little
+candle among the dusty phantoms and spent forces of the past, and
+through the endlessly crossing and interblending meshes trace
+confidently up all the greater and the finer hereditary influences that
+have moulded a human character,--and then discover and weigh the
+post-natal forces that have acted upon that character through a long and
+varied life,--this is a very difficult task, and demands in him who
+would undertake it a union of historic imagination with caution and
+modesty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The moral in Whittier predominates over the aesthetic, the reformer over
+the artist. "I am a man, and I feel that I am above all else a man."
+What is the great central element in our poet's character, if it is not
+that deep, never-smouldering moral fervor, that unquenchable love of
+freedom, that--
+
+    "Hate of tyranny intense,
+    And hearty in its vehemence,"
+
+which, mixed with the beauty and melody of his soul, gives to his pages
+a delicate glow as of gold-hot iron; which crowns him the Laureate of
+Freedom in his day, and imparts to his utterances the manly ring of the
+prose of Milton and Hugo and the poetry of Byron, Swinburne, and
+Whitman,--all poets of freedom like himself?
+
+[Illustration: Handwriting: John G. Whittier]
+
+And what is love of freedom but the mainspring of Democracy? And what is
+Democracy but the rallying-cry of the age, the one word of the present,
+the one word of the future, the word of all words, and the white,
+electric beacon-light of modern life?
+
+At the apex of modern Democracy stands Jesus of Nazareth; at its base
+stand the poets and heroes of freedom of the past hundred years.
+Christian Democracy has had its revolutions, its religious ferments and
+revolts, and its emancipations of slaves. Quakerism is one of its
+outcomes. Democracy produced George Fox; George Fox produced Quakerism;
+Quakerism produced Whittier; Whittier helped destroy slavery. He could
+not help doing so, for with slavery both Democracy and Quakerism are
+incompatible. Whittier fought slavery as a Quaker, he has lived as a
+Quaker, and written as a Quaker; he has never fully emancipated himself
+from the shackles of the sect. To understand him, therefore, we must
+understand his religion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The principles of the sect are all summed up in the phrases _Freedom_
+and the _Inner Light_. Historically considered, Quakerism is a product
+of the ferment that followed the civil war in England two centuries ago.
+Considered abstractly, or as a congeries of principles, it has a
+sociological and a philosophical root, both of these running back into
+the great tap-root, love of freedom, whose iron-tough, writhen fibres
+enwrap the dark foundation rocks of human nature itself.
+
+Sociologically speaking, Quakerism is pure democracy, an exaltation of
+the majesty of the individual and of the mass of the people. It is the
+pure precipitate of Christianity. It is a protest against the hypocrisy,
+formalism, tyranny, of priestcraft, king-craft, and aristocracy.
+
+Philosophically, its theory of the Inner Light is identical with the
+doctrine of idealism or innate ideas, held by Descartes, Fichte,
+Schelling, Cousin. It means individualism, a return to the primal
+sanities of the soul. "I think, therefore I am." My thinking soul is the
+ultimate source of ideas and truth. In that serene holy of holies
+full-grown ideas leap into being,--subjective, _a priori_, needing no
+sense-perception for their genesis.
+
+But Transcendentalism differed from Quakerism in this: the former held
+that the illumination of the mind was a natural process; but Quakerism
+maintains that it is a supernatural process, the work of the "Holy
+Ghost." And herein Quakerism is inferior to Transcendentalism. But it is
+superior to it in that it does not believe in the infallibility of
+individual intuitions, but considers the true criterion of truth to be
+the universal reason, the "consensus of the competent." Yet the great
+danger that pertains to all moonshiny, or subjective, systems of
+philosophy is that their individualism will spindle out into wild
+extravagances of theory, and foolish eccentricities of manner and dress;
+and we shall find that, practically, Quakerism has as Quixotic a record
+as Transcendentalism. To say that both systems have performed noble and
+indispensable service in the development of mind is but to utter a
+truism.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We may now consider a little more closely the peculiarities of doctrine
+and life which characterize the Friends. The doctrine of the Inner
+Light, or pure spirituality, resulted in such tenets as these: the
+freedom of conscience; the soul the fountain of all truth, worthlessness
+of tradition and unsanctified learning; the conscience or voice within
+the judge of the Bible or Written Word; disbelief in witchcraft, ghosts,
+and other superstitions; love of friends and enemies, the potency of
+moral suasion, moral ideas, and as a consequence the wickedness of war,
+and a belief in human progress as the result of peaceable industry;
+universal enfranchisement, every man and woman may be enlightened by the
+Inner Light,--hence equality of privilege, no distinction between clergy
+or laity or between sex and sex,--the right of woman to develop her
+entire nature as she sees fit. In the principles which define the
+attitude of the Quaker toward social conventions, we find a queer jumble
+of the doctrines of primitive Christianity with the ideas of individual
+independence innate in the Germanic mind, and especially in the popular
+mind.[20] The Christian gospel of love forbids the Quakers to
+countenance war, capital punishment, imprisonment for debt, slavery,
+suppressment of the right of free speech and the right of petition.
+Their doctrine of equality in virtue of spiritual illumination forbids
+them to remove their hats in presence of any human being, even a king;
+leads them to avoid the use of the plural "you," as savoring of
+man-worship, and to refuse to employ a hired priesthood. Their doctrine
+of pure spirituality is inconsistent with sacerdotal rites and
+mummeries, such as baptism, the eucharist, forms of common prayer, etc.
+Music, poetry, painting, and dancing also have a worldly savor and tend
+to distract the mind from its spiritual life. So do rich and gaudy
+robes: we must therefore have simplicity of dress. Hear William Penn on
+this subject:[21]--
+
+    "I say, if sin brought the first coat, poor Adam's offspring have
+    little reason to be proud or curious in their clothes.... It is all
+    one as if a man who had lost his nose by a scandalous distemper,
+    should take pains to set out a false one, in such shape and splendor
+    as should give the greater occasion for all to gaze upon him; as if
+    he would tell them he had lost his nose, for fear they would think
+    he had not. But would a wise man be in love with a false nose,
+    though ever so rich, and however finely made?"
+
+[Footnote 20: The same sterling material that went to the making of the
+Quaker went also to the making of the Puritan farmer-and-artisan victors
+of Naseby, and Worcester, and Marston Moor. The same faults
+characterized each class. In stiff-backed independence and scorn of the
+gilt-edged poetry of conventional manners, and in the absurd extreme to
+which they carried that independence and scorn, the Quaker and the
+Puritan were alike. Only the Quaker out-puritaned the Puritan,--was much
+more consistent in his fanatical purism, scrawny asceticism, and
+contempt for distinguished manners and the noble imaginative arts.]
+
+[Footnote 21: In his work "No Cross, No Crown."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A natural corollary of the Friends' doctrine of inward supernatural
+illumination is their habit of silent worship, or silent waiting.[22]
+It is probable that this feature of their religious gatherings has done
+much to cultivate that peculiar tranquillity of demeanor which
+distinguishes them.[23] They meet the burdens, bereavements, and
+disappointments of life with a placid equanimity in strong antithesis to
+the often passionate grief and rebellion of other classes of religious
+people. Finally, we may add to the list of their characteristics their
+great moral sincerity. "With calm resoluteness they tell you your faults
+face to face, and without exciting your ill-will."
+
+[Footnote 22: Their ideas on this subject are very well stated in the
+following words taken from a Quaker pamphlet by Mary Brook: "Solomon
+saith, 'The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the
+tongue, are from the Lord.' If the Lord alone can prepare the heart,
+stir it up, or incline it towards unfeigned holiness, how can any man
+approach him acceptably, till his heart be prepared by him?--and how can
+he know this preparation except he wait in silence to feel it?"]
+
+[Footnote 23: See Appendix I.]
+
+The objections to the Quakerism of our day are that it is retractile,
+stationary, negative; it is selfish, narrow, ascetic, tame; it has no
+iron in its blood; it rarely adds anything to the world's thought. The
+Quakers are a hopelessly antiquated sect, a dying branch almost wholly
+severed from connection with the living forces of the tree of modern
+society. There are, it is true, a goodly number of liberal Quakers, who,
+in discarding the peculiar costume of the time of Charles II., which
+many of them even yet wear, have also thrown off the intellectual
+mummy-robes of the sect. Many adopt the tenets of Unitarianism, or make
+that religious body the stepping-stone to complete emancipation from an
+obsolete system of thought. But the mass of them are immovable. They
+have been characterized substantially in the following words by Mr. A.
+M. Powell, himself a Quaker by birth, and an unwilling witness to the
+faults of a system of doctrines in which he sees much to admire:--
+
+    "In its merely sectarian aspect, Quakerism is as uninteresting,
+    narrow, timid, selfish, and conservative as is mere sectarianism
+    under any other name. The Quakers have little comprehension of the
+    meaning of Quakerism beyond a blind observance of the peculiarities
+    of dress and speech and the formality of the Meeting. They cling to
+    the now meaningless protests of the past. They are inaccessible to
+    new conceptions of truth. They have dishonored the important
+    fundamental principle [of the Inner Light] and tarnished the
+    Society's good name by subordinating it to narrow views of religion,
+    to commercial selfishness, and to the prevalent palsying
+    conservatism of the outside world."[24]
+
+[Footnote 24: Mrs. John T. Sargent's "Sketches and Reminiscences of the
+Radical Club."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In all that is said in these pages by way of criticism of the Quakers,
+reference is had solely to their doctrines as a system of thought. Of
+their sweet and beautiful _lives_ it is hardly necessary to speak at
+length. Volumes might be filled with instances of their large-hearted
+benevolence and personal self-sacrifice in care for others. The
+loveliness of their lives is like a beautiful perfume in the society in
+which they move. As you see the Quaker women of Philadelphia, with their
+pure, tranquil faces, and plain, immaculate dress, moving about among
+the greedy and vile-mannered non-Quaker _canaille_ of that democratic
+city, they seem like Christian and Faithful amid the crowds of Vanity
+Fair. Their faces are like a benediction, and you thank heaven for them.
+The liberal Friends in America have many great and noble names on their
+roll of honor. And surely a sect that has produced such characters as
+Lucretia Mott, John Bright, and John G. Whittier, must win our
+intellectual respect. But it is only because these persons, like Milton,
+were in most respects above their sect that we admire them. There are
+proofs manifold, however, throughout the prose and poetry of Whittier
+that he has nominally remained within the pale of Quakerism all his
+days. Doubtless such a course was essential to the very existence in him
+of poetic inspiration. His genius is wholly lyrical. A song or lyric is
+the outgushing of pure emotion. Especially in the case of the religious
+and ethical lyrist is faith life, and doubt death. Doubt, in Whittier's
+case, would have meant the cessation of his songs. To break away
+entirely from the faith of his fathers would have chilled his
+inspiration. He has not, it is true, escaped the conflict with doubt. As
+we shall see, no man has had a severer struggle to reconcile his faith
+with the terror and mystery of life. But, although his religious views
+have been liberalized by science, yet he has never ceased to retain a
+hearty sympathy with, and belief in, the Quaker principles of the Inner
+Light, silent waiting, etc.
+
+That he has remained within the pale of Quakerism has been an injury to
+him as well as a help. It makes him obtrude his sectarianism too
+frequently, especially in his prose writings. By the very nature of the
+creed, he must either be blind to its faults, or constantly put on the
+defensive against the least assault, from whatever quarter it may come.
+When he dons the garb of the sectary, he naturally becomes weakened, and
+loses his chief charm. We see then that he is a man hampered by a creed
+which forbids a catholic sympathy with human nature. He is shut up in
+the narrow field of sectarian morals and religion. He cannot, for
+example, enter, by historical imagination, into poetical sympathy with
+the gorgeous ritual and dreamy beauty of a European cathedral service.
+And yet so pure, gentle, and sweet is his nature that it is hard to
+censure him for this peculiarity. It is regret rather than censure that
+we feel, regret that he has been so bound by circumstances that
+prevented his breaking wholly away from hampering limitations, and to be
+always, what he so often is, the strong and sweet-voiced spokesman of
+the heart of humanity.
+
+Let us hear his gentle confessions of faith. In the autobiographical
+poem, "My Namesake," we read:--
+
+    "He worshipped as his fathers did,
+      And kept the faith of childish days,
+    And, howsoe'er he strayed or slid,
+      He loved the good old ways.
+
+    The simple tastes, the kindly traits,
+      The tranquil air, and gentle speech,
+    The silence of the soul that waits
+      For more than man to teach."
+
+In "The Meeting" he has given us an "Apologia pro Vita Sua,"--a defence
+of his religious habits. He says he is accustomed to meet with the
+Friends twice a week in the little "Meeting" at Amesbury, chiefly for
+two reasons: first, because in the silent, unadorned house, with
+"pine-laid floor," his religious communings are not distracted by
+outward things as they would be if he worshipped always amid the
+solitudes of nature; and, secondly, he finds in "The Meeting" a
+heart-solace in the memories of dear ones passed away, who once sat by
+his side there. He says, in reference to the Quaker service:--
+
+    "I ask no organ's soulless breath
+    To drone the themes of life and death,
+    No altar candle-lit by day,
+    No ornate wordsman's rhetoric-play,
+    No cool philosophy to teach
+    Its bland audacities of speech,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    No pulpit hammered by the fist
+    Of loud-asserting dogmatist."
+
+In "Memories" he says:--
+
+    "Thine the Genevan's sternest creed,
+    While answers to my spirit's need
+      The Derby dalesman's simple truth.
+    For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,
+      And holy day and solemn psalm;
+    For me, the silent reverence where
+      My brethren gather slow and calm."
+
+There are two epochs in the religious or philosophical development of
+Whittier. The first--that of simple piety unclouded by doubt, the epoch
+of unhesitating acceptance of the popular mythology--seems to have
+lasted until about 1850, or the period of early Darwinism and
+Spencerianism,--the most momentous epoch in the religious history of
+the world. This pivotal point is very well marked by the publication, in
+1853, of "The Chapel of the Hermits" and "Questions of Life." It is now
+that harrowing doubt begins, and restless striving to retain the faith
+amid new conditions and a vastly widened mental horizon.
+Transcendentalism, too, had just passed the noon meridian of its
+splendor. Emerson had written many of his exquisite philosophical poems,
+and Parker had blown his clear bugle-call to a higher religious life. It
+is evident that Whittier was--as, indeed, he could not help
+being--profoundly moved by the new spirit of the times.
+
+With Transcendentalism he must have had large sympathy, owing to the
+similarity of its principles to those of Quakerism. And that he was
+profoundly agitated by the revelations of science his poetry shows. In
+"My Soul and I" (a poem remarkable for its searching subjective
+analysis), and in the poem "Follen," he had given expression to
+religious doubt, over which, as always in his case, faith was
+triumphant. But it is in "The Chapel of the Hermits" and succeeding
+poems that he first gave free and full utterance to the doubt and
+struggle of soul that was not his alone, but which was felt by all
+around him. In respect of doubt "My Soul and I" and "Questions of Life"
+resemble "Faust," as well as Tennyson's "Two Voices" and the "In
+Memoriam."
+
+    "Life's mystery wrapped him like a cloud;
+      He heard far voices mock his own,
+    The sweep of wings unseen, the loud,
+      Long roll of waves unknown.
+
+    The arrows of his straining sight
+      Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage
+    Like lost guides calling left and right,
+      Perplexed his doubtful age.
+
+    Like childhood, listening for the sound
+      Of its dropped pebbles in the well,
+    All vainly down the dark profound
+      His brief-lined plummet fell."
+
+    _My Namesake_
+
+The "Questions of Life" are such as these:--
+
+    "I am: but little more I know!
+    Whence came I? Whither do I go?
+    A centred self, which feels and is;
+    A cry between the silences."
+
+    *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "This conscious life,--is it the same
+    Which thrills the universal frame?"
+
+    *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Do bird and blossom feel, like me,
+    Life's many-folded mystery,--
+    The wonder which it is _To Be_?
+    Or stand I severed and distinct,
+    From Nature's chain of life unlinked?"
+
+Such questions as these he confesses himself unable to answer. He
+shrinks back terrified from the task. He will not dare to trifle with
+their bitter logic. He will take refuge in faith; he will trust the
+Unseen; let us cease foolish questioning, and live wisely and well our
+present lives. He comes out of the struggle purified and chastened,
+still holding by his faith in God and virtue. A good deal of the old
+Quakerism is gone,--the belief in hell, in the Messianic and atonement
+machinery, in local and special avatars, etc. Again and again, in his
+later poems, he asserts the humanity of Christ and the co-equal divinity
+of all men: see "Miriam," for example. His opinion about hell he
+embodies in the sweet little poem, "The Minister's Daughter," published
+in "The King's Missive." In short, his religion is a simple and
+trustful theism. But there is no evidence that he has ever incorporated
+into his mind the principles of the development-science,--the evolution
+of man, the correlation of forces, the development of the universe
+through its own inner divine potency; or, in fine, any of the
+unteleological, unanthropomorphic explanations of things which are
+necessitated by science, and admitted by advanced thinkers, both in and
+out of the Churches.
+
+As witnesses to his trustful attitude, we may select such a cluster of
+stanzas as this:--
+
+    "Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight,
+    Through present wrong, the eternal right;
+    And, step by step, since time began,
+    I see the steady gain of man;
+
+    That all of good the past hath had
+    Remains to make our own time glad,--
+    Our common daily life divine,
+    And every land a Palestine.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Through the harsh noises of our day
+    A low, sweet prelude finds its way;
+    Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear,
+    A light is breaking calm and clear."
+
+    _Chapel of the Hermits_
+
+
+    "Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
+      And tossed by storm and flood,
+    To one fixed stake my spirit clings;
+      I know that God is good!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "I know not where His islands lift
+      Their fronded palms in air;
+    I only know I cannot drift
+      Beyond His love and care."
+
+    _The Eternal Goodness._
+
+
+    "When on my day of life the night is falling,
+      And in the winds from unsunned spaces blown,
+    I hear far voices out of darkness calling
+      My feet to paths unknown,
+
+    Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant,
+      Leave not its tenant when its walls decay;
+    O love divine, O Helper ever present,
+      Be Thou my strength and stay!"
+
+    _At Last._
+
+
+    "Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
+      Forgive our foolish ways!
+    Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
+    In purer lives thy service find,
+      In deeper reverence, praise."
+
+    _The Brewing of Soma._
+
+But Whittier is as remarkable for his faith in man as for his faith in
+God. He is in the highest degree patriotic, American. He loves America
+because it is the land of freedom. It has been charged against him that
+he is no true American poet, but a Quaker poet. The American, it is
+said, is eager, aggressive, high-spirited, combative; the Quaker,
+subdued and phlegmatic. The American is loud and boastful and daring and
+reckless; the Quaker, cautious, timid, secretive, and frugal. This is
+undoubtedly true of the classes as types, but it is far from being true
+of Whittier personally. He has blood militant in him. He comes of
+Puritan as well as Quaker stock. The Greenleafs and the Batchelders were
+not Quakers. The reader will perhaps remember the Lieutenant Greenleaf,
+already mentioned, who fought through the entire Civil War in
+England.[25] But his writings alone furnish ample proof of his martial
+spirit. The man and the Quaker struggle within him for the mastery; and
+the man is, on the whole, triumphant. Whenever his Quakerism permits, he
+stands out a normal man and a genuine American. As Lowell says:--
+
+    "There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart
+    Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart,
+    And reveals the live Man still supreme and erect
+    Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect."
+
+[Footnote 25: Hear Whittier himself on the subject:--
+
+"Without intending any disparagement of my peaceable ancestry for many
+generations, I have still strong suspicions that somewhat of the old
+Norman blood, something of the grim Berserker spirit, has been
+bequeathed to me. How else can I account for the intense childish
+eagerness with which I listened to the stories of old campaigners who
+sometimes fought their battles over again in my hearing? Why did I, in
+my young fancy, go up with Jonathan, the son of Saul, to smite the
+garrisoned Philistines of Michmash, or with the fierce son of Nun
+against the cities of Canaan? Why was Mr. Greatheart, in Pilgrim's
+Progress, my favorite character? What gave such fascination to the grand
+Homeric encounter between Christian and Apollyon in the valley? Why did
+I follow Ossian over Morven's battle-fields, exulting in the
+vulture-screams of the blind scald over his fallen enemies? Still,
+later, why did the newspapers furnish me with subjects for hero-worship
+in the half-demented Sir Gregor McGregor, and Ypsilanti at the head of
+his knavish Greeks? I can account for it only on the supposition that
+the mischief was inherited,--an heirloom from the old sea-kings of the
+ninth century."--_Prose Works, II._, 390, 391.]
+
+If anybody will take the trouble to glance over the complete works of
+Whittier, he or she will find that one of the predominant
+characteristics of his writings is their indigenous quality, their
+national spirit. Indeed, this is almost too notorious to need mention.
+He, if any one, merits the proud title of "A Representative American
+Poet." His whole soul is on fire with love of country. As in the case
+of Whitman, his country is his bride, and upon it he has showered all
+the affectional wealth of his nature. The Quaker may be too obtrusive in
+his prose writings, but it is not so in the greater and better portion
+of his poetry. When the rush and glow of genuine poetical inspiration
+seize him, he invariably rises in spirit far above the weltering and
+eddying dust-clouds of faction and sect into the serene atmosphere of
+genuine patriotism. Read his "Last Walk in Autumn," where he says:--
+
+    "Home of my heart! to me more fair
+      Than gay Versailles or Windsor's halls,
+    The painted, shingly town-house where
+      The freeman's vote for Freedom falls!"
+
+Read his "Eve of Election":--
+
+            "Not lightly fall
+            Beyond recall
+    The written scrolls a breath can float;
+            The crowning fact,
+            The kingliest act
+    Of Freedom is the freeman's vote!"
+
+Or take "After Election," a poem that cannot be read without a thrill of
+the nerves and a leaping of the heart. You have concentrated in that
+wild lyric burst the purest essence of democratic patriotism,--the
+trembling anxiety and yearning of a mother-heart. It is a poem
+celebrating a victory of peace with all the fiery energy of a war-ode (a
+significant fact that the advocates of gory war, as a source of poetic
+inspiration, would do well to ponder):--
+
+    "The day's sharp strife is ended now,
+    Our work is done, God knoweth how!
+    As on the thronged, unrestful town
+    The patience of the moon looks down,
+    I wait to hear, beside the wire,
+    The voices of its tongues of fire.
+
+    Slow, doubtful, faint, they seem at first:
+    Be strong, my heart, to know the worst!
+    Hark!--there the Alleghanies spoke;
+    That sound from lake and prairie broke,
+    That sunset gun of triumph rent
+    The silence of a continent!
+
+    That signal from Nebraska sprung,
+    This, from Nevada's mountain tongue!
+    Is that thy answer, strong and free,
+    O loyal heart of Tennessee?
+    What strange, glad voice is that which calls
+    From Wagner's grave and Sumter's walls?
+
+    From Mississippi's fountain-head
+    A sound as of the bison's tread!
+    There rustled freedom's Charter Oak!
+    In that wild burst the Ozarks spoke!
+    Cheer answers cheer from rise to set
+    Of sun. We have a country yet!"
+
+To sum up now our analysis of the poet's character. We have seen that
+the central trait of his mind is love of freedom. (Even his religion,
+which is so profound an element in his nature, and so all-pervasive in
+his writings, will be found, on a deep analysis, to be a yearning for
+freedom from the trappings of sense and time, in order to attain to a
+spiritual union with the Infinite.) This love of freedom, this hatred of
+oppression, intensified by persecution, both ancestral and personal,
+stimulated by contact with Puritan democracy, as well as by the New
+England Transcendental movement, and flowering out luxuriantly in the
+long struggle against slavery,--this noble sentiment, and that long
+self-sacrificing personal warfare in behalf of the oppressed, form the
+true glory of Whittier's character. Shy, timid, almost an invalid,
+having a nervous horror of mobs and personal indignities, he yet forgot
+himself in his love of Man, overcame and underwent,--suffered social
+martyrdom for a quarter of a century, never flinching, never holding
+his peace for bread's sake or fame's sake, not stopping to count the
+cost, taking his life in his hand, and never ceasing to express his
+high-born soul in burning invective and scathing satire against the
+oppressor, or in words of lofty hope and cheer for the suffering
+idealist and lover of humanity, whoever and wherever he was. Whittier is
+a hero as well as a poet. He will be known to posterity by a few
+exquisite poems, but chiefly by his moral heroism and patriotism. As a
+thinker and a poet he belongs, with Bryant and Longfellow, to the
+pre-scientific age. The poetry of the future (of the new era of
+self-consciousness) will necessarily differ widely from that of the
+first half of this century. It will not be distinctively the poetry of
+Wordsworth, or Cowper, or Byron, or Longfellow, or Whittier. When the
+present materialistic and realistic temper of mind disappears from
+literature, and really noble ideal poetry returns, it will be vast in
+its scope and range, robust in its philosophy, unfettered by petty
+rhymes and classicisms, but powerfully rhythmic and harmonious. The
+writings of Shakspere, Goethe, Jean Paul, Hugo, Tennyson, Whitman, and
+Emerson are the magnificent proem to it. It will be built upon a
+scientific and religious cosmism. It will not discuss Apollo and Luna
+and Neptune, and the nymphs and muses, but will draw its imagery from
+the heaven-staining red-flames of the sun, the gulfs of space, the
+miracles of organic and inorganic life, and human society. It will draw
+its inspiration not more from the storied past than from the storied
+future foreseen by its prophetic eye. It will idealize human life and
+deify nature. It will fall in the era of imagination. (After it will
+come another age of criticism.) It will fall in the age of splendid
+democracies. And in that age men will look back with veneration, not so
+much, perhaps, to the scholar-poets as to the hero-poets, like Whittier,
+who put faith in the rights of man and woman, who did believe in divine
+democracy, and were not ashamed of it, but nursed it patiently through
+its puling infancy, well assured of its undying grandeur when it should
+come to man's estate.
+
+We subjoin fittingly to this chapter a characteristic letter of Mr.
+Whittier's, in which he speaks lovingly of Robert Burns, that other
+poet of freedom and independence of thought for all men.
+
+At the Burns festival in Washington, 1869, the following letter from
+John G. Whittier was read:
+
+     "AMESBURY, 1st month, 18th day, 1869.
+
+     "DEAR FRIEND,--I thank the club represented by thee for remembering
+     me on the occasion of its annual festival. Though I have never been
+     able to trace my ancestry to the Land o' Cakes, I have--and I know
+     it is saying a great deal--a Scotchman's love for the poet whose
+     fame deepens and broadens with years. The world has never known a
+     truer singer. We may criticise his rustic verse and compare his
+     brief and simple lyrics with the works of men of longer scrolls and
+     loftier lyres; but after rendering to Wordsworth, Tennyson and
+     Browning the homage which the intellect owes to genius, we turn to
+     Burns, if not with awe and reverence, [yet] with a feeling of
+     personal interest and affection. We admire others; we love him. As
+     the day of his birth comes round, I take down his well-worn volume
+     in grateful commemoration, and feel that I am communing with one
+     whom living I could have loved as much for his true manhood and
+     native nobility of soul as for those wonderful songs of his which
+     shall sing themselves forever.
+
+     "They know little of Burns who regard him as an aimless
+     versifier--'the idle singer of an idle lay.' Pharisees in the
+     Church, and oppressors in the State, knew better than this. They
+     felt those immortal sarcasms which did not die with the utterer,
+     but lived on to work out the divine commission of Providence. In
+     the shout of enfranchised millions, as they lift the untitled
+     Quaker of Rochdale into the British Cabinet, I seem to hear the
+     voice of the Ayrshire poet:--
+
+     "'For a' that and a' that,
+     It's comin' yet for a' that;
+     That man to man the world o'er
+     Shall brothers be for a' that.'
+
+     "With hearty sympathy and kind greetings for the Burns Club of
+     Washington,
+
+     "I am, very truly, thy friend,
+     "JOHN G. WHITTIER."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE ARTIST.
+
+
+The title of this chapter is almost a misnomer; for the style, or
+technique, of the poet whose works we are considering is so very simple
+and unoriginal that he can hardly be said to have a distinctive style of
+his own,--unless a few persistent mannerisms establish a claim to it.
+His diction, however, is always pictorial, and glows with an intense
+Oriental fervor. Fused in this interior vital heat, his thoughts do not
+sink, like powerful Jinn, into the deep silence-sphere of the mind, to
+fetch thence sparkling treasures, rich and strange: rather, they run to
+and fro with lightning swiftness amid the million surface-pictures of
+the intellect; rearranging, recombining, and creatively blending its
+images, and finally pouring them out along the page to charm our fancy
+and feeling with old thoughts and scenes painted in fresh colors and
+from new points of view. There is more of fancy than of creative
+imagination in Whittier.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The artistic quality, or tone, of his mind is a fusion of that of
+Wordsworth and that of Byron. In his best ballads and other lyrics you
+have the moral sincerity of Wordsworth and the sweet Wordsworthian
+simplicity (with a difference); and in his reform poems you have the
+Byronic indignation, and scorn of Philistinism and its tyrannies. As a
+religious poet, he reveals the quiet piety and devoutness of Cowper; and
+his rural and folk poems show that he is a debtor to Burns.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He has been a diligent reader,--"a close-browed miser of the scholar's
+gains,"--and his writings are full of bookish allusions. But, if the
+truth must be told, his doctor's gown does not often sit gracefully upon
+his shoulders. His readers soon learn to know that his strength lies in
+his moral nature, and in his power to tell a story melodiously, simply,
+and sweetly. Hence it is, doubtless, that they care little for his
+literary allusions,--think, perhaps, that they are rather awkwardly
+dragged in by the ears, and at any rate hasten by them impatiently that
+they may inhale anew the violet-freshness of the poet's own soul. What
+has just been said about bookish allusions does not apply to the
+beautiful historical ballads produced by Whittier in the mellow maturity
+of his powers. These fresh improvisations are as perfect works of art as
+the finest Greek marbles. In them Whittier at length succeeds in freeing
+himself completely from the shackles of didacticism. Such ballads as
+"The Witch's Daughter" and "Telling the Bees" are as absolutely
+faultless productions as Wordsworth's "We are Seven" and his "Lucy
+Gray," or as Uhland's "Des Saenger's Fluch," or William Blake's "Mary."
+There is in them the confident and unconscious ease that marks the work
+of the highest genius. A shower of lucid water-drops falls in no truer
+obedience to the law of perfect sphericity than flowed from the pen of
+the poet these delicate creations in obedience to the law of perfect
+spontaneity. Almost all of Whittier's lyrics have evidently been rapidly
+written, poured forth in the first glow of feeling, and not carefully
+amended and polished as were Longfellow's works. And herein he is at
+fault, as was Byron. But the delicate health of Whittier, and his
+toilsome early days, form an excuse for his deficiency in this respect.
+His later creations, the product of his leisure years, are full of pure
+and flawless music. They have no harmony or rhythmic volume of sound, as
+in Tennyson, Swinburne, Milton, and Shakspere; but they set themselves
+to simple melodious airs spontaneously. As you read them, your feet
+begin to tap time,--only the music is that of a good rural choir rather
+than that of an orchestra.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The thought of each poem is generally conveyed to the reader's
+understanding with the utmost lucidity. There is no mysticism, no
+obscurity. The story or thought unfolds itself naturally, and without
+fatigue to our minds. A great many poems are indeed spun out at too
+great length; but the central idea to be conveyed is rarely lost sight
+of.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To the list of his virtues as an artist, it remains to add his frequent
+surprising strength. This is naturally most marked in the anti-slavery
+poems. When he wrote these, he was in the flush of manhood, his soul at
+a white heat of moral indignation. He is occasionally nerved to almost
+super-human effort: it is the battle-axe of Richard thundering at the
+gates of Front de Boeuf. For nervous energy, there is nothing in the
+Hebrew prophets finer than such passages as these:--
+
+    "Strike home, strong-hearted man!
+              Down to the root
+    Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel."
+
+    _To Ronge._
+
+
+    "Maddened by Earth's wrong and evil,
+      'Lord!' I cried in sudden ire,
+    'From thy right hand, clothed with thunder,
+      Shake the bolted fire!'"
+
+    _What the Voice Said._
+
+
+    "Hands off! thou tithe-fat plunderer! play
+      No trick of priestcraft here!
+    Back, puny lordling! darest thou lay
+      A hand on Elliott's bier?
+    Alive, your rank and pomp, as dust,
+      Beneath his feet he trod:
+    He knew the locust-swarm that cursed
+      The harvest-fields of God.
+
+    "On these pale lips, the smothered thought
+      Which England's millions feel,
+    A fierce and fearful splendor caught,
+      As from his forge the steel.
+    Strong-armed as Thor,--a shower of fire
+      His smitten anvil flung;
+    God's curse, Earth's wrong, dumb Hunger's ire,--
+      He gave them all a tongue!"
+
+    _Elliott._
+
+
+    "And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,
+      Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,
+      Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God
+    The blasphemy of wrong."
+
+    _The Rendition._
+
+
+    "All grim and soiled, and brown with tan,
+      I saw a Strong One, in his wrath,
+    Smiting the godless shrines of man
+      Along his path."
+
+    _The Reformer._
+
+
+     As Whittier has grown older, and the battles of his life have
+     become (as he expressed it to the writer) like "a remembered
+     dream," his genius has grown mellow and full of graciousness. His
+     art culminated in "Home Ballads," "Snow-Bound," and "The Tent on
+     the Beach." He has kept longer than most poets the lyric glow; only
+     in his later poems it is "emotion remembered in tranquillity."
+
+     If asked to name the finest poems of Whittier, would not the
+     following instinctively recur to the mind: "Snow-Bound," "Maud
+     Muller," "Barbara Frietchie," "The Witch's Daughter," "Telling the
+     Bees," "Skipper Ireson's Ride," "King Volmer and Elsie," and "The
+     Tent on the Beach"?
+
+     To these one would like to add several exquisite hymns and short
+     secular lyrics. But the poems mentioned would probably be regarded
+     by most critics as Whittier's finest works of art. They merit this
+     distinction certainly; and they furnish remarkable instances for
+     those who desire to study the poet's greater versatility in the
+     ballad line, as they are all good representatives of his
+     wonderfully long range.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     The foregoing remark must be our cue for beginning to pass in
+     review the artistic deficiencies of Whittier. He has three crazes
+     that have nearly ruined the mass of his poetry. They are the reform
+     craze, the religious craze, and the rhyme craze. Of course, as a
+     man, he could not have a superfluity of the first of these; but, as
+     a poet, they have been a great injury to him. We need not deny that
+     he has taken the manlier course in subordinating the artist to the
+     reformer and preacher; but in estimating his poetic merits we ought
+     to regard his work from an absolute point of view. Let us not be
+     misunderstood. It is gladly and freely conceded that the theory
+     that great poetry is not necessarily moral, and that the aim of
+     poetry is only to please the senses, is a petty and shallow one,
+     and that the true function of the great poet is also to bear
+     witness to the ideal and noble, to the moral and religious. Let us
+     heartily agree with Principal Shairp when he says that the true end
+     of the poet "is to awaken men to the divine side of things; to bear
+     witness to the beauty that clothes the outer world, the nobility
+     that lies hid, often obscured, in human souls; to call forth
+     sympathy for neglected truths, for noble but oppressed persons, for
+     downtrodden causes, and to make men feel that through all outward
+     beauty and all pure inward affection God himself is addressing
+     them." We may admit all this, and yet find fault with the
+     moralizations and homilies of Whittier. The poetry of Dante and
+     Milton is full of ethical passion, and occasionally a little sermon
+     is wedged in; yet they do not treat us to endless broadsides of
+     preaching, as Whittier does in his earlier poems, and in some of
+     his later ones. But there is this distinction: the moral in Dante
+     and Milton and Shakspere and Emerson is so garnitured with beauty
+     that while our souls are ennobled our imaginations are gratified.
+     But in many of Whittier's poems we have the bare skeleton of the
+     moral, without the rounded contour and delicate tints of the living
+     body of beauty. His reform poems have been called stump-speeches in
+     verse. His anti-slavery poems are, with a few exceptions, devoid of
+     beauty. They should have been written in the manner he himself
+     commends in a review of Longfellow's "Evangeline": he should have
+     depicted the truth strongly and attractively, and left to the
+     reader the censure and the indignation. Mr. Whittier seems to know
+     his peculiar limitations as well as his critics. He speaks of
+     himself as one--
+
+                       "Whose rhyme
+      Beat often Labor's hurried time,
+    Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife,"
+
+     and he has once or twice expressed himself in prose in a way that
+     seems to show that he recognizes the artistic mistake in the
+     construction of his earlier poems. The omission of the moral
+     _envoi_ from so many of his maturer creations strengthens one in
+     this surmise. In 1867 Whittier published the following letter in
+     the New York _Nation_:
+
+     "TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:
+
+     "I am very well aware that merely personal explanations are not
+     likely to be as interesting to the public as to the parties
+     concerned; but I am induced to notice what is either a
+     misconception on thy part, or, as is most probable, a failure on my
+     own to make myself clearly understood. In the review of 'The Tent
+     on the Beach' in thy paper of last week, I confess I was not a
+     little surprised to find myself represented as regretting my
+     life-long and active participation in the great conflict which has
+     ended in the emancipation of the slave, and that I had not devoted
+     myself to merely literary pursuits. In the half-playful lines upon
+     which this statement is founded, if I did not feel at liberty to
+     boast of my anti-slavery labors and magnify my editorial
+     profession, I certainly did not mean to underrate them, or express
+     the shadow of a regret that they had occupied so large a share of
+     my time and thought. The simple fact is that I cannot be
+     sufficiently thankful to the Divine Providence that so early called
+     my attention to the great interests of humanity, saving me from the
+     poor ambitions and miserable jealousies of a selfish pursuit of
+     literary reputation. Up to a comparatively recent period my
+     writings have been simply episodical, something apart from the real
+     object and aim of my life; and whatever of favor they have found
+     with the public has come to me as a grateful surprise rather than
+     as an expected reward. As I have never staked all upon the chances
+     of authorship, I have been spared the pain of disappointment and
+     the temptation to envy those who, as men of letters, deservedly
+     occupy a higher place in the popular estimation than I have ever
+     aspired to.
+
+     "Truly thy friend,
+     "John G. Whittier.
+     "AMESBURY, 9th, 3d mo., 1867."
+
+One is reminded by this letter that Wordsworth once said to Dr. Orville
+Dewey, of Boston, that, "although he was known to the world only as a
+poet, he had given twelve hours' thought to the condition and prospects
+of society for one to poetry." In a letter read at the third decade
+meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia, Mr.
+Whittier said: "I am not insensible to literary reputation; I love,
+perhaps too well, the praise and good-will of my fellow-men; but I set a
+higher value on my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of
+1833 than on the title-page of any book."
+
+In his earlier years our poet was wholly ignorant of the fact that an
+artist should love beauty for its own sake. The simple-hearted Quaker
+and Puritan farmer-youth thought it almost a sin to spend his time in
+the cultivation of the beautiful. In his dedication of the
+"Supernaturalism of New England" to his sister, he says:--
+
+    "And knowing how my life hath been
+    A weary work of tongue and pen,
+    A long, harsh strife with strong-willed men,
+        Thou wilt not chide my turning,
+    To con, at times, an idle rhyme,
+    To pluck a flower from childhood's clime,
+    Or listen, at Life's noon-day chime,
+        For the sweet bells of Morning!"
+
+"Poor fellow!" we say at first. And yet there is something refreshing
+and noble in such a spirit. It is with difficulty that the Germanic mind
+can bring itself to the study of the beautiful as something of co-equal
+worth with the moral. Let us leave that, says the Teuton, to the nation
+whose word for love of art is "virtue." How Whittier would have abhorred
+in his youth and early manhood the following sentiment by one of the
+Latin race:--
+
+    "The arts require idle, delicate minds, not stoics, especially not
+    Puritans, easily shocked by dissonance, inclined to sensuous
+    pleasure, employing their long periods of leisure, their free
+    reveries, in harmoniously arranging, and with no other object but
+    enjoyment, forms, colors, and sounds." (Taine's _English
+    Literature_, II. 332.)
+
+Or the following from the same work:--
+
+    "The Puritan destroys the artist, stiffens the man, fetters the
+    writer, and leaves of artist, man, writer, only a sort of abstract
+    being, the slave of a watchword. If a Milton springs up among them,
+    it is because, by his wide curiosity, his travels, his comprehensive
+    education, and by his independence of spirit, loftily adhered to
+    even against the sectarians, Milton passes beyond sectarianism." (I.
+    397, 398.)
+
+Here is another passage from Whittier on this same subject. It is almost
+a pity to give it, since the author has apparently repudiated the
+sentiment by omitting the lines from his complete works. In the
+introduction to "Supernaturalism of New England" he says:--
+
+    "If in some few instances, like Burns in view of his national
+    thistle, I have--
+
+      'Turned my weeding-hook aside,
+       And spared the symbol dear,'
+
+    I have been influenced by the comparatively innocent nature and
+    simple poetic beauty of the traditions in question; yet not even for
+    the sake of poetry and romance would I confirm in any mind a
+    pernicious credulity, or seek to absolve myself from that stern duty
+    which the true man owes to his generation, to expose error whenever
+    and wherever he finds it."
+
+One more instance. In one of his sketches he is describing an old custom
+called "Pope Night," which has been kept up in the Merrimack Valley in
+unbroken sequence from the time of the Guy Fawkes plot. The plot is
+commemorated by bonfires and effigies of the Pope and others, and
+Whittier quotes these lines of a song which is sung on the occasion:--
+
+    "Look here! from Rome
+    The Pope has come,
+      That fiery serpent dire;
+    Here's the Pope that we have got,
+    The old promoter of the plot;
+    We'll stick a pitchfork in his back,
+      And throw him in the fire."
+
+Mr. Whittier was so broad-minded in regard to all matters pertaining to
+true growth, and withal so conscientious a student of the best
+versification, that is, the most natural, that we soon find him
+striving, at least, to free himself from all these minor faults.
+
+Consequently his mannerisms more and more drop away. He is a born
+preacher. And presently we see in him a decided advance toward the
+delineation of what is simply true and beautiful, without the
+appreciable pause by the way, "to point a moral and adorn a tale." For a
+preacher is not a poet; and true poetic fire must be dimmed at once,
+and the divine afflatus be a lack-lustre thing, when appeals by pious
+exhortation are brought in to fill out rhyme and metre. Many of
+Whittier's purely religious poems are the most exquisite and beautiful
+ever written. The tender feeling, the warm-hearted trustfulness, and the
+reverent touch of his hymns speak directly to our hearts. The
+prayer-hymn at the close of "The Brewing of Soma" ("Dear Lord and Father
+of mankind," etc.), and such poems as "At Last" and "The Wish of
+To-day," are unsurpassed in sacred song. Some one has said that in
+Whittier's books we rarely meet with ideas expressed in such perfection
+and idiosyncrasy of manner that ever afterward the same ideas must recur
+to our minds in the words of this author and no other; that is to say,
+there are few dicta, few portable and universally-quoted passages in his
+writings. But exception must be made in favor of his best hymns. Their
+stanzas haunt the mind with their beauty, and you are obliged to learn
+them by heart before you can have peace. These purely religious
+productions show Whittier's work at high-water mark, and as long as the
+English language is spoken, they will be employed by those who require a
+vehicle for thought, by which the true worship may be served. There is
+only one poet in the world whose works will not suffer by reading his
+entire poetical productions in consecutive perusal, and that is
+Shakspere. Poetry should be read solely for the refreshment and
+elevation of the mind, and only when one's mood requires it.
+Unquestionably, if so read, all mannerisms that Mr. Whittier might have
+been accused of at an early stage in his authorship would not appear so
+conspicuous.
+
+One of the mannerisms of our poet is his inclination toward the
+four-foot line with consecutive or alternate rhymes. Almost all of
+Burns's poetry is written as just described; and it is evident Mr.
+Whittier's ear was naturally inclined to it, from his early love for
+Burns, his patron saint, as it were, in those then untrodden fields. An
+ear educated by Tennyson, and the other Victorian poets, might be unable
+to grasp even the beauty of thought unless conveyed by their especial
+methods. One is pleased when rhymes are so masked, so subtly
+intertwined, and parted by intervening lines, that each shall seem like
+a delicate echo of that which preceded it,--the assonance just
+remembered, and no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A minor mannerism of Whittier is his frequent use of the present
+participle in ing, with the verb _to be_; "is flowing," "is shining,"
+etc. The jingle of the _ing_ evidently caught the poet's rhyme-loving
+ear, and sometimes it really has a very pretty effect. Certain it is he
+has used it with great skill, and given his readers insight into another
+of his versatile gifts.
+
+As to the originality of our poet there is this to be said: He has a
+distinctively national spirit or vision; he is democratic in his
+feelings, and treats of indigenous subjects. His vehicle, his poetic
+forms and handling, he has treated as minor subjects for thought. He is
+democratic, not so powerfully and broadly as Whitman, but more
+unaffectedly and sincerely. He has not the magnificent prophetic vision,
+or Vorstellungskraft, of Whitman, any more than he has the crushing
+mastodon-steps of Whitman's ponderous rhythm. But he has thrown himself
+with trembling ardor and patriotism, into the life of his country. It is
+this fresh, New-World spirit that entitles him to be called original: he
+is non-European. He has not travelled much, nor mingled in the seething
+currents of Western and Southern life; but his strong sympathy has gone
+forth over the entire land. He also reflects faithfully the quiet scenes
+of his own Merrimack Valley. From his descriptions of these scenes we
+receive the impression of freshness and originality; and we recognize a
+master hand that can so portray them as to make us see the same places,
+though only on the printed page.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One regrets using a critical pen at all in discussing such a writer. It
+would be ungracious to call to a severe account one who places the most
+modest estimate upon his own work, and who has distinctly stated that,
+up to "about the year 1865, his writings were simply episodical,
+something apart from the real object and aim of [his] life." It is hard
+to criticise severely one who is unjust to himself through excess of
+diffident humility. In the exquisite Proem to his complete poems he
+would fain persuade us that he cannot breathe such notes as those of--
+
+                    "The old melodious lays
+    Which softly melt the ages through,
+            The songs of Spenser's golden days,
+            Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase,
+    Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew."
+
+But not so, O gentle minstrel of Essex! There are poems of thine which
+thousands prefer to the best of Spenser's or Sidney's, and which will
+continue to exist as long as beauty is its own excuse for being. Thou
+too hast been in Paradise, to fetch thence armfuls of dewy roses for our
+delight; not mounting thither by the "stairway of surprise," but along
+the common highway of daily duty and noble endeavor, unmindful of the
+dust and heat and chafing burdens, but singing aloud thy songs of lofty
+cheer, all magically intertwined with pictures of wayside flowers, and
+the homely beauty of lowliest things. And thou hast imparted to us the
+"groping of the keys of the heavenly harmonies," that no one who loves
+thy songs, ever loses from his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+POEMS SERIATIM.
+
+
+Among the three or four critical papers on Whittier that have up to this
+time been published, there is one that is marked by exceptional vigor;
+namely, the admirable philosophical analysis by Mr. David A. Wasson,
+published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for March, 1864. The author gladly
+acknowledges his indebtedness to this paper for several things,--chiefly
+for its keen _apercu_ into the nature of Whittier's genius, and the
+proper psychological grouping of his poems. Mr. Wasson's classification
+can hardly be improved upon in its general features. He divides the
+literary life of the poet into three epochs,--The Struggle for Life, The
+Culture Epoch, and The Epoch of Poetic Realism; and between each of
+these he places transitional periods. The lines of his classification,
+however, are too sharply drawn, and the epochs seem too minutely
+subdivided. Moreover, the present writer would add an introductory or
+preparatory period; in other respects it seems to him that the grouping
+is as correct as such mathematical measurements of a poet's development
+can be. Suppose we group and name the poet's mental epochs as follows:--
+
+             FIRST PERIOD.--INTRODUCTORY. 1830-1833.
+
+     During this quiet, purely literary epoch, Whittier published
+     "Legends of New England" and "Moll Pitcher," and edited the
+     "Literary Remains of Brainard."
+
+
+           SECOND PERIOD.--STORM AND STRESS. 1833-1853.
+
+     The beginning of this period was marked by the publication of
+     "Justice and Expediency," and during its continuance were written
+     most of the anti-slavery productions, the Indian poems, many
+     legendary lays and prose pieces, religious lyrics, and "Songs of
+     Labor." The latter, being partially free from didacticism, leads
+     naturally up to the third period.
+
+
+                  THIRD PERIOD.--TRANSITION. 1853-1860
+
+     This Mr. Wasson calls the epoch of culture and religious doubt, the
+     central poems of which are "Chapel of the Hermits" and "Questions
+     of Life." We now begin to see a love of art for art's sake, and
+     there are fewer moral stump-speeches. The indignation of the
+     reformer is giving place to the calm repose of the artist. And such
+     ballads as "Mary Garvin" and "Maud Muller" form the introduction to
+     the culminating (or fourth) epoch in the poet's creative life.
+
+
+           FOURTH PERIOD.--RELIGIOUS AND ARTISTIC REPOSE. 1860-
+
+     During this time have been written nearly all the author's great
+     works, namely, his beautiful ballads, as well as "Snow-Bound" and
+     "The Tent on the Beach." The literary style is now mature. The
+     beautiful is sought for its own sake, both in nature and in lowly
+     life. It is a season of trust and _naive_ simplicity.
+
+The works produced during the Introductory period have already been
+discussed in the biographical portion of this volume.
+
+Before passing rapidly in review some of the more important detached
+poems of the three latter periods (reserving a number of poems for
+consideration by groups), we must be allowed to offer a few criticisms
+on the earlier poems in general, meaning by this the ones published
+previous to the "Songs of Labor" in 1850. These earlier productions are
+to be commended chiefly for two things: (1) the subjects are drawn from
+original and native sources, and (2) the slavery poems are full of moral
+stamina and fiery indignation at oppression. There are single poems of
+great merit and beauty. But the style of most of them is unoriginal,
+being merely an echo of that of the English Lake School. Whittier's
+poetical development has been a steady growth. His genius matured late,
+and in his early poems there is little promise of the exquisite work of
+his riper years, unless it is a distinct indication of his rare power of
+telling a story in verse. It must be remembered that when Whittier began
+to write, American literature had yet to be created. There was not a
+single great American poem, with the exception of Bryant's
+"Thanatopsis." The prominent poets of that time--Percival, Brainard,
+Trumbull, Joel Barlow, Hillhouse, Pierpont, Dana, Sprague--are all
+forgotten now. The breath of immortality was not upon anything they
+wrote. A national literature is a thing of slow growth. Every writer is
+insensibly influenced by the intellectual tone of his neighbors and
+contemporaries. Judged in the light of his early disadvantages, and
+estimated by the standard of that time, Whittier's first essays are
+deserving of much credit, and they have had a distinct aesthetic and
+moral value in the development of American literature and the American
+character. But their deficiencies are very grave. There is a good deal
+of commonplace, and much extravagance of rhetoric. There are a great
+many "Lines" called forth by circumstances not at all poetical in their
+suggestions. Emotion and rhyme and commonplace incident are not enough
+to make a poem. One cannot embalm the memory of all one's friends in
+verse. In casting about for an explanation of the circumstance that our
+poet has so often chosen tame and uninspiring themes for his poems, we
+reach the conclusion that it is due to his solitary and uneventful
+life, and to the subdued and art-chilling atmosphere of his Quaker
+religion. You get, at any rate, no true impression of the intellectual
+breadth of the poet's mind from many of the productions of the period we
+are considering: the theme is too weak to support the poetical structure
+reared upon it. The poems and essays are written by one untoughened and
+unvitalized by varied and cheerful intercourse with men and affairs, a
+state of mind that was changed considerably as Mr. Whittier emerged from
+his semi-obscurity into a larger comprehension of his own powers.
+
+A minor fault of this period is the too frequent interruption of
+explanatory notes, that break and mar the free-flowing melody of
+versified thought. We find the same blemish in Longfellow's early work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the opening of the complete poetical works of Whittier stand two long
+Indian poems, with their war-paint and blood--like scarlet maples at the
+entrance of an aboriginal forest. The first of these poems, "Mogg
+Megone," is every way inferior to the second, or "The Bridal of
+Pennacook." "Mogg Megone" was published in 1836, and "The Bridal of
+Pennacook" in 1848. Mr. Whittier half apologizes for retaining the
+former of these in his complete works. There is, amongst much that,
+eliminated, might not be missed, a certain fresh and realistic diction,
+or nomenclature. It is picturesque, in portions somewhat dramatic and
+thrilling, and now is valuable as a link between the early stage of his
+authorship and the advanced culture of later years. In style it is an
+echo of Scott's "Lady of the Lake" or "Marmion."
+
+In "The Bridal of Pennacook" we have an Indian idyl of unquestionable
+power and beauty, a descriptive poem full of the cool, mossy sweetness
+of mountain landscapes, and although too artificial and subjective for a
+poem of primitive life, yet saturated with the imagery of the wigwam and
+the forest. A favorite article of food with the Indians of Northern Ohio
+was dried bear's-meat dipped in maple syrup. There is a savor of the
+like ferity and sweetness in this poem. It is almost wholly free from
+the strongly-marked faults of "Mogg Megone," and (that test of all
+tests) it is pleasant reading. Its two cardinal defects are lack of
+simplicity of treatment, and tenuity or triviality of the subject, or
+plot. The story is sometimes lost sight of in a jungle of verbiage and
+description. In contrasting such a poem with "Hiawatha," we see the
+wisdom of Longfellow in choosing an antique vehicle, or rhythmic style.
+Aborigines have a dialect of their own; the sentences of an Indian brave
+being as abrupt and sharp as the wild screams of an eagle. The set
+speeches of the North American Indians are always full of divers stock
+metaphors about natural scenery, wild animals, totems, and spirits, and
+are so different from those of civilized life that an expert can
+instantly detect a forgery or an imitation, so that all incongruities
+that attribute the complex and refined emotions of civilized life to the
+savage, seriously mar the pleasure of the reader. The descriptions of
+natural scenery in these Indian legends of Mr. Whittier's are fine, as
+all such writing by his facile pen was ever felicitous. And by virtue of
+this descriptive power, these idyls will be held long in grateful
+remembrance.
+
+In plan the poem is like the "Decameron," the "Princess," the
+"Canterbury Tales," and "Tales of a Wayside Inn." The different portions
+are supposed to be related by five persons,--a lawyer, a clergyman, a
+merchant and his daughter, and the poet,--who are all sight-seeing in
+the White Mountains. The opening description, in blank verse, conveys a
+vague but not very powerful impression of sublimity. The musical
+nomenclature of the red aborigines is finely handled, and such words as
+Pennacook, Babboosuck, Contoocook, Bashaba, and Weetamoo chime out here
+and there along the pages with as silvery a sweetness as the Tuscan
+words in Macaulay's "Lays." At the wedding of Weetamoo we have--
+
+    "Pike and perch from the Suncook taken,
+    Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken,
+    Cranberries picked from the Squamscot bog,
+    And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog:
+
+    And, drawn from that great stone vase which stands
+    In the river scooped by a spirit's hands,
+    Garnished with spoons of shell and horn,
+    Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn."
+
+The following stanza on the heroine, Weetamoo, is a fine one:--
+
+    "Child of the forest!--strong and free,
+      Slight-robed, with loosely flowing hair,
+    She swam the lake, or climbed the tree,
+      Or struck the flying bird in air.
+    O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon
+      Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way;
+    And, dazzling in the summer noon,
+      The blade of her light oar threw off its shower of spray!"
+
+The "Song of Indian Women," at the close of "The Bridal of Pennacook,"
+is admirable for melody, weird and wild beauty, and naturalness. It is a
+lament for the lost Weetamoo, who, unfortunate in her married life, has
+committed suicide by sailing over the rapids in her canoe:--
+
+               "The Dark Eye has left us,
+                The Spring-bird has flown;
+              On the pathway of spirits
+                She wanders alone.
+    The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore,--
+    _Mat wonck kunna-monee!_--We hear it no more!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+                 O mighty Sowanna!
+                Thy gateways unfold,
+              From thy wigwams of sunset
+                Lift curtains of gold!
+    Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er,--
+    _Mat wonck kunna-monee!_--We see her no more!"
+
+There are two minor Indian poems by Whittier that have the true ring;
+namely, the "Truce of Piscataqua" and "Funeral Tree of the Sokokis." The
+latter well-known poem is pitched in as high and solemn a key as
+Platen's "Grab im Busento," a poem similar in theme to Whittier's:--
+
+    "They heave the stubborn trunk aside,
+    The firm roots from the earth divide,--
+    The rent beneath yawns dark and wide.
+
+    And there the fallen chief is laid,
+    In tasselled garbs of skins arrayed,
+    And girded with his wampum-braid."
+
+    _Whittier._
+
+
+    "In der wogenleeren Hoehlung wuehlten sie empor die Erde,
+    Senkten tief hinein den Leichnam, mit der Ruestung auf dem Pferde.
+    Deckten dann mit Erde wieder ihn und seine stolze Habe."
+
+    _Platen._
+
+
+    In the empty river-bottom hurriedly they dug the death-pit,
+    Deep therein they sank the hero with his armor and his war-steed,
+    Covered then with earth and darkness him and all his splendid
+      trappings.
+
+When the reader, who has worked gloomily along through Whittier's
+anti-slavery and miscellaneous poems, reaches the "Songs of Labor," he
+feels at once the breath of a fresher spirit,--as a traveller who has
+been toiling for weary leagues through sandy deserts bares his brow with
+delight to the coolness and shade of a green forest through whose thick
+roof of leaves the garish sunlight scarcely sifts. We feel that in these
+poems a new departure has been made. The wrath of the reformer has
+expended itself, and the poet now returns, with mind elevated and more
+tensely keyed by his moral warfare, to the study of the beautiful in
+native themes and in homely life. "The Shipbuilders," "The Shoemakers,"
+"The Fishermen," and "The Huskers" are genuine songs; and more shame to
+the craftsmen celebrated if they do not get them set to music, and sing
+them while at their work. One cannot help feeling that Walt Whitman's
+call for some one to make songs for American laborers had already been
+met in a goodly degree by these spirited "Songs of Labor." What workman
+would not be glad to carol such stanzas as the following, if they were
+set to popular airs?
+
+    "Hurrah! the seaward breezes
+      Sweep down the bay amain;
+    Heave up, my lads, the anchor!
+      Run up the sail again!
+    Leave to the lubber landsmen
+      The rail-car and the steed:
+    The stars of heaven shall guide us,
+      The breath of heaven shall speed."
+
+    _The Fishermen._
+
+
+    "Ho! workers of the old time styled
+      The Gentle Craft of Leather!
+    Young brothers of the ancient guild,
+      Stand forth once more together!
+    Call out again your long array,
+      In the olden merry manner!
+    Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day,
+      Fling out your blazoned banner!
+
+    Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stone
+      How falls the polished hammer!
+    Rap, rap! the measured sound has grown
+      A quick and merry clamor.
+    Now shape the sole! now deftly curl
+      The glossy vamp around it,
+    And bless the while the bright-eyed girl
+      Whose gentle fingers bound it!"
+
+    _The Shoemakers._
+
+The publication of "The Chapel of the Hermits" and "Questions of Life,"
+in 1853, marks (as has been said) the period of culture and of
+religious doubt,--doubt which ended in trust. In this period we have
+such genuine undidactic poems as "The Barefoot Boy."
+
+    "Blessings on thee, little man,
+    Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
+    With thy turned-up pantaloons,
+    And thy merry whistled tunes;
+    With thy red lip, redder still
+    Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
+    With the sunshine on thy face,
+    Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace."
+
+Also, such fine poems as "Flowers in Winter" and "To My Old
+Schoolmaster;" as well as the excellent ballads, "Maud Muller,"
+"Kathleen," and "Mary Garvin."
+
+The period in Whittier's life from about 1858 to 1868 we may call the
+Ballad Decade,[26] for within this time were produced most of his
+immortal ballads. We say immortal, believing that if all else that he
+has written shall perish, his finest ballads will carry his name down to
+a remote posterity. "The Tent on the Beach" is mainly a series of
+ballads; and "Snow-Bound," although not a ballad, is still a narrative
+poem closely allied to that species of poetry, the difference between a
+ballad and an idyl being that one is made to be sung and the other to be
+read: both narrate events as they occur, and leave to the reader all
+sentiment and reflection.
+
+[Footnote 26: The beginning of this decade nearly coincides with the
+fourth or final period in our classification, upon the consideration of
+which we shall now enter.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The finest ballads of Whittier have the power of keeping us in
+breathless suspense of interest until the _denouement_ or the
+catastrophe, as the case may be. The popularity of "Maud Muller" is well
+deserved. What a rich and mellow translucence it has! How it appeals to
+the universal heart! And yet "The Witch's Daughter" and "Telling the
+Bees" are more exquisite creations than "Maud Muller": they have a
+spontaneity, a subtle pathos, a sublimated sweetness of despair that
+take hold of the very heart-strings, and thus deal with deeper emotions
+than such light, objective ballads as "Maud Muller" and "Skipper
+Ireson's Ride." But the surface grace of the two latter have of course
+made them the more popular, just as the "Scarlet Letter" finds greater
+favor with most people than does "The House of the Seven Gables,"
+although Hawthorne rightly thought the "Seven Gables" to be his finest
+and subtlest work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mark the Chaucerian freshness of the opening stanzas of "The Witch's
+Daughter":--
+
+    "It was the pleasant harvest time,
+      When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
+      And garrets bend beneath their load,
+
+    And the old swallow-haunted barns--
+      Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
+      Through which the moted sunlight streams.
+
+    And winds blow freshly in, to shake
+      The red plumes of the roosted cocks,
+      And the loose hay-mow's scented locks--
+
+    Are filled with summer's ripened stores,
+      Its odorous grass and barley sheaves,
+      From their low scaffolds to their eaves."
+
+A companion ballad to "The Witch's Daughter" is "The Witch of Wenham," a
+poem almost equal to it in merit, and like it ending happily. These
+ballads do not quite attain the almost supernatural simplicity of
+Wordsworth's "Lucy Gray" and "We are Seven"; but they possess an equal
+interest, excited by the same poetical qualities. "Telling the Bees,"
+however, seems to the writer as purely Wordsworthian as anything
+Wordsworth ever wrote:--
+
+    "Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
+      Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"
+
+How the tears spring to the eyes in reading this immortal little poem!
+The bee-hives ranged in the garden, the sun "tangling his wings of fire
+in the trees," the dog whining low, the old man "with his cane to his
+chin,"--we all know the scene: its every feature appeals to our
+sympathies and associations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Double-headed Snake of Newbury" is a whimsical story, in which the
+poet waxes right merry as he relates how--
+
+    "Far and wide the tale was told,
+    Like a snowball growing while it rolled.
+    The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry;
+    And it served, in the worthy minister's eye,
+    To paint the primitive serpent by.
+
+    Cotton Mather came galloping down
+    All the way to Newbury town,
+    With his eyes agog and his ears set wide,
+    And his marvellous inkhorn at his side;
+    Stirring the while in the shallow pool
+    Of his brains for the lore he learned at school,
+    To garnish the story, with here a streak
+    Of Latin, and there another of Greek:
+    And the tales he heard and the notes he took,
+    Behold! are they not in his Wonder-Book?"
+
+A word about Whittier's "Prophecy of Samuel Sewall." It seems that old
+Judge Sewall made the prophecies of the Bible his favorite study. One of
+his ideas was that America was to be the site of the New Jerusalem.
+Toward the end of his book entitled "Phenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica; ...
+or ... a Description of the New Heaven as it makes to those who stand
+upon the New Earth" (1697), he gives utterance to the triumphant
+prophecy that forms the subject of Whittier's poem. His language is so
+quaint that the reader will like to see the passage in Sewall's own
+words:--
+
+    "As long as Plum Island shall faithfully keep the commanded post,
+    notwithstanding till the hectoring words and hard blows of the
+    proud and boisterous ocean; as long as any salmon or sturgeon shall
+    swim in the streams of Merrimac, or any perch or pickerel in Crane
+    Pond; as long as the sea-fowl shall know the time of their coming,
+    and not neglect seasonably to visit the places of their
+    acquaintance; as long as any cattle shall be fed with the grass
+    growing in the meadows, which do humbly bow down themselves before
+    Turkey Hill; as long as any sheep shall walk upon Old-Town Hills,
+    and shall from thence pleasantly look down upon the River Parker,
+    and the fruitful marshes lying beneath; as long as any free and
+    harmless doves shall find a white oak or other tree within the
+    township, to perch, or feed, or build a careless nest upon, and
+    shall voluntarily present themselves to perform the office of
+    gleaners after barley-harvest; as long as Nature shall not grow old
+    and dote, but shall constantly remember to give the rows of Indian
+    corn their education by pairs; so long shall Christians be born
+    there, and being first made meet, shall from thence be translated to
+    be made partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."
+
+Moses Coit Tyler, in his "History of American Literature," II., p. 102
+(note), says: "Whittier speaks of Newbury as Sewall's 'native town,' but
+Sewall was born at Horton, England. He also describes Sewall as an 'old
+man,' propped on his staff of age when he made this prophecy; but Sewall
+was then forty-five years old."
+
+There are two or three other ballads in which Whittier is said to have
+made historical blunders. It really does not seem of much importance
+whether he did or did not get the precise facts in each case. The
+important point is that he made beautiful ballads. But it will be right
+to give, in brief, the objections that have been brought against
+"Skipper Ireson's Ride" and "Barbara Frietchie." "The King's Missive"
+will be discussed in another place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Apropos of Skipper Ireson, Mr. John W. Chadwick has spoken as follows in
+_Harper's Monthly_ for July, 1874:--
+
+    "In one of the queerest corners of the town [Marblehead], there
+    stands a house as modest as the Lee house was magnificent. So long
+    as he lived it was the home of 'Old Flood Oirson,' whose name and
+    fame have gone farther and fared worse than any other fact or fancy
+    connected with his native town. Plain, honest folk don't know about
+    poetic license, and I have often heard the poet's conduct in the
+    matter of Skipper Ireson's ride characterized with profane severity.
+    He unwittingly departed from the truth in various particulars. The
+    wreck did not, as the ballad recites, contain any of 'his own
+    town's-people.' Moreover, four of those it did contain _were_ saved
+    by a whale-boat from Provincetown. It was off Cape Cod, and not in
+    Chaleur Bay, that the wreck was deserted; and the desertion was in
+    this wise: It was in the night that the wreck was discovered. In the
+    darkness and the heavy sea it was impossible to give assistance.
+    When the skipper went below, he ordered the watch to lie by the
+    wreck till 'dorning'; but the watch wilfully disobeyed, and
+    afterward, to shield themselves, laid all the blame upon the
+    skipper. Then came the tarring and feathering. The women, whose
+    _role_ in the ballad is so striking, had nothing to do with it. The
+    vehicle was not a cart, but a dory; and the skipper, instead of
+    being contrite, said, 'I thank you for your ride.' I asked one of
+    the skipper's contemporaries what the effect was on the skipper.
+    'Cowed him to death,' said he, 'cowed him to death.' He went skipper
+    again the next year, but never afterward. He had been dead only a
+    year or two when Whittier's ballad appeared. His real name was not
+    Floyd, as Whittier supposes, but Benjamin, 'Flood' being one of
+    those nicknames that were not the exception, but the rule, in the
+    old fishing-days. For many years before his death the old man earned
+    a precarious living by dory-fishing in the bay, and selling his
+    daily catch from a wheelbarrow. When old age and blindness overtook
+    him, and his last trip was made, his dory was hauled up into the
+    lane before his house, and there went to rot and ruin.... The hoarse
+    refrain of Whittier's ballad is the best-known example of the once
+    famous Marblehead dialect, and it is not a bad one. To what extent
+    this dialect was peculiar to Marblehead it might be difficult to
+    determine. Largely, no doubt, it was inherited from English
+    ancestors. Its principal delight consisted in pronouncing _o_ for
+    _a_, and _a_ for _o_. For example, if an old-fashioned Marbleheader
+    wished to say he 'was born in a barn,' he would say, he 'was barn in
+    a born.' The _e_ was also turned into _a_, and even into _o_, and
+    the _v_ into _w_. 'That vessel's stern' became 'that 'wessel's
+    starn,' or 'storn.' I remember a school-boy declaiming from
+    Shakspere, 'Thou little walliant, great in willany.' There was a
+    great deal of shortening. The fine name Crowninshield became
+    Grounsel, and Florence became Flurry, and a Frenchman named
+    Blancpied found himself changed into Blumpy. Endings in _une_ and
+    _ing_ were alike changed into _in_. Misfortune was misfartin', and
+    fishing was always fishin'. There were words peculiar to the place.
+    One of these was planchment for ceiling. Crim was another, meaning
+    to shudder with cold, and there was an adjective, crimmy. Still
+    another was _clitch_, meaning to stick badly, surely an
+    onomatopoetic word that should be naturalized before it is too late.
+    Some of the swearing, too, was neither by the throne nor footstool,
+    such as 'Dahst my eyes!' and 'Godfrey darmints.' The ancient
+    dialect in all its purity is now seldom used. It crops out here and
+    there sometimes where least expected, and occasionally one meets
+    with some old veteran whose speech has lost none of the ancient
+    savor."
+
+Now for "Barbara Frietchie." The incident of the poem was given to
+Whittier by the novelist, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, whose letter we
+append. The philanthropist, Dorothea Dix, investigated the case in
+Frederick, and she says that Barbara did wave the flag, etc. An army
+officer also made affidavit of the truth of the lines. A young Southern
+soldier has declared that he was present, and that his was one of the
+shots that hit the flagstaff!
+
+On the other side are Samuel Tyler and Jacob Engelbrecht, the latter an
+old and greatly respected citizen of Frederick, and living directly
+opposite Barbara's house. Jacob wrote to the Baltimore _Sun_, saying
+that Stonewall Jackson's corps marched through another street, and did
+not approach Dame Frietchie's house at all. Lee's column did pass it, he
+says; but he, who stood watching at his window, saw no flag whatever at
+_her_ window.
+
+He says that when ten days later General McClellan passed through the
+town she did exhibit a flag.
+
+Finally, General Jubal Early comes upon the witness stand, and testifies
+that as the Southern troops passed through Frederick, there were only
+two cases of waving of Union flags; one of these was by a little girl,
+about ten years old, who stood on the platform of a house and waved
+incessantly a little "candy flag," and cried in a dull, monotonous
+voice: "Hurrah for the Stars and Stripes! Down with the Stars and Bars!"
+No one molested her. The other case was that of a coarse,
+slovenly-looking woman, who rushed up to the entrance of an alley and
+waved a dirty United States flag.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Pipes at Lucknow" is a poem full of martial fire and lyric
+rush,--the subject a capital one for a poet. A little band of English,
+besieged in a town in the heart of India, and full of despair, hear in
+the distance the sweetest sound that ever fell upon their ears, namely,
+the shrill pibroch of the MacGregor Clan; and--
+
+        "When the far-off dust-cloud
+      To plaided legions grew,
+    Full tenderly and blithesomely
+      The pipes of rescue blew!"
+
+Another group of ballads comprises "Cobbler Keezar's Vision," "Amy
+Wentworth," and "The Countess."
+
+In the first of these, old Cobbler Keezar, of the early Puritan times,
+by virtue of a mystic lapstone, sees a vision of our age of religious
+tolerance, and wonders greatly thereat:--
+
+        "Keezar sat on the hillside
+      Upon his cobbler's form,
+    With a pan of coals on either hand
+      To keep his waxed-ends warm.
+
+    And there, in the golden weather,
+      He stitched and hammered and sung;
+    In the brook he moistened his leather,
+      In the pewter mug his tongue."
+
+The ballad of "Amy Wentworth" treats of the same subject as "Among The
+Hills," namely, a superior woman, of the white-handed caste, falling in
+love with and marrying a broad-shouldered, brown-handed hero, with a
+right manly heart and brain.
+
+Many and many a poem of Whittier's is spoiled by its too great
+length,--a thing that is fatal in a lyric. The long prelude to "Amy
+Wentworth" should have been omitted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The scene of the lovely poem entitled "The Countess" is laid in Rocks
+Village, a part of East Haverhill, and lying on the Merrimack, where--
+
+    "The river's steel-blue crescent curves
+      To meet, in ebb and flow,
+    The single broken wharf that serves
+      For sloop and gundelow.
+
+    With salt sea-scents along its shores
+      The heavy hay-boats crawl,
+    The long antennae of their oars
+      In lazy rise and fall.
+
+    Along the gray abutment's wall
+      The idle shad-net dries;
+    The toll-man in his cobbler's stall
+      Sits smoking with closed eyes."
+
+Whittier dedicates his poem to his father's family physician, Elias
+Weld, of Rocks Village. The story which forms the subject of the poem is
+a romantic one, and exquisitely has our poet embalmed it in verse. From
+a sketch by Rebecca I. Davis, of East Haverhill, the following facts
+relating to the personages that figure in the poem have been culled:--
+
+The Countess was Miss Mary Ingalls, daughter of Henry and Abigail
+Ingalls, of Rocks Village. She was born in 1786, and is still remembered
+by a few old inhabitants as a young girl of remarkable beauty. She was
+of medium height, had long golden curls, violet eyes, fair complexion,
+and rosy cheeks, and was exceedingly modest and lovable. It was in the
+year 1806 that a little company of French exiles fled from the Island of
+Guadaloupe on account of a bloody rebellion or uprising of the
+inhabitants. Among the fugitives were Count Francis de Vipart and Joseph
+Rochemont de Poyen. The company reached Newburyport. The two gentlemen
+just mentioned settled at Rocks Village, and both married there. Mary
+Ingalls was only a laborer's daughter, and of course her marriage with
+the count created a sensation in the simple, rustic community. The
+count was a pleasant, stately man, and a fine violinist. The bridal
+dress, says Miss Davis, was of a pink satin, with an overdress of white
+lace; her slippers also were of white satin. The count delighted to
+lavish upon her the richest apparel, yet nothing spoiled the sweet
+modesty of her disposition. After one short year of happy married life
+the lovely wife died. Assiduous attention to a sick mother had brought
+on consumption. In the village God's-acre her gray tombstone is already
+covered with moss.
+
+The count returned to his native island overwhelmed with grief. In after
+years, however, he married again. When he died he was interred in the
+family burial-place of the De Viparts at Bordeaux. He left several
+children.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Stedman, in his fine synthetic survey of American poetry, published
+in _The Century_, has remarked that most of our early poetry and
+painting is full of landscape. The loveliest season in America is the
+autumn, when, as Whittier beautifully says, the woods "wear their robes
+of praise, the south winds softly sigh,"--
+
+    "And sweet, calm days in golden haze
+      Melt down the amber sky."
+
+We have plenty of idyls of autumn color, like Buchanan Read's "Closing
+Scene," and portions of Longfellow's "Hiawatha." But American winter
+landscapes are as poetical as those of autumn.[27] It is probable that
+the scarcity of snow-idyls hitherto is due to the supposed cheerlessness
+of the snow. But with the rapid multiplication of winter comforts, our
+nature-worship is cautiously broadening so as to include even the stern
+beauty of winter. There are already a good many signs of this in
+literature. We have had, of late, lovely little snow-and-winter
+vignettes in prose by John Burroughs of New York, and Edith Thomas of
+Ohio; and there is plenty of room for further study of winter in other
+regions of the United States. The most delicate bit of realistic winter
+poetry in literature is Emerson's "Snow-Storm." Mr. Whittier is an
+ardent admirer of that writer--as what poet is not?--and his own
+productions show frequent traces of Emersonianisms. He has prefixed to
+"Snow-Bound" a quotation from the "Snow-Storm," and there can scarcely
+be a doubt that to the countless obligations we all owe Emerson must be
+added this: that he inspired the writing of Whittier's finest poem, and
+the best idyl of American rural life. It is too complex and diffusive
+fully to equal in artistic purity and plastic proportion the "Cotter's
+Saturday Night" of Burns; but it is much richer than that poem in
+felicitous single epithets, which, like little wicket doors, open up to
+the eye of memory many a long-forgotten picture of early life.
+
+[Footnote 27: What is the subtle fascination that lurks in such bits of
+winter poetry as the following, collected by the writer out of his
+reading?
+
+    "Yesterday the sullen year
+    Saw the snowy whirlwind fly."--_Gray._
+
+    "All winter drives along the darkened air."--_Thomson._
+
+    "High-ridged the whirled drift has almost reached
+    The powdered keystone of the churchyard porch;
+    Mute hangs the hooded bell; the tombs lie buried."--_Grahame._
+
+    "Alas! alas! thou snow-smitten wood of
+    Troy, and mountains of Ida."--_Sophocles._
+
+    "O hard, dull bitterness of cold."--_Whittier._
+
+    "And in the narrow house o' death
+    Let winter round me rave."--_Burns._
+
+    "The mesmerizer, Snow,
+    With his hand's first sweep
+    Put the earth to sleep."--_Robert Browning._
+
+    "And the caked snow is shuffled
+    From the plough-boy's heavy shoon."--_Keats._]
+
+"Snow-Bound" was published in 1860, and was written, Mr. Whittier has
+said, "to beguile the weariness of a sick-chamber." The poet has obeyed
+the canon of Lessing, and instead of giving us dead description wholly,
+has shown us his characters in action, and extended his story over three
+days and the two intervening nights,--that is to say, the main action
+covers that time: the whole time mentioned in the poem is a week. It is
+unnecessary to give here any further account of the idyl than has
+already been furnished in the account of Whittier's boyhood.
+
+"The Tent on the Beach" is a cluster of ballads. In accordance with a
+familiar fiction, they are supposed to be sung, or told, by several
+persons, in this case three, namely, the poet himself, "a lettered
+magnate" (James T. Fields), and a traveller (Bayard Taylor). All of the
+poems are readable, and many of them are to be classed among Whittier's
+best lyrics. "The Wreck of Rivermouth," "The Changeling," and
+"Kallundborg Church" are masterpieces in the line of ballads. In "The
+Dead Ship of Harpswell" we have the fine phrase,--
+
+    "O hundred-harbored Maine!"
+
+Whittier has now become almost a perfect master of verbal melody.
+Hearken to this:--
+
+    "Oho!" she muttered, "ye're brave to-day!
+    But I hear the little waves laugh and say,
+    'The broth will be cold that waits at home;
+    For it's one to go, but another to come!'"
+
+There is a light and piquant humor about some of the interludes of the
+"Tent on the Beach." The song in the last of these contains a striking
+and original stanza concerning the ocean:--
+
+    "Its waves are kneeling on the strand,
+       As kneels the human knee,
+    Their white locks bowing to the sand,
+       The priesthood of the sea!"
+
+"Among the Hills" is a little farm-idyl, or love-idyl, of the New
+Hampshire mountain land, and bearing some resemblance to Tennyson's
+"Gardener's Daughter." It is an excellent specimen of the poems of
+Whittier that reach the popular heart, and engage its sympathies. In the
+remotest farm-houses of the land you are almost sure to find among their
+few books a copy of Whittier's Poems, well-thumbed and soiled with use.
+The opening description of the prelude to "Among the Hills" could not be
+surpassed by Bion or Theocritus. In this poem a fresh interest is
+excited in the reader by the fact that the city woman falls in love with
+a manly farmer, thus happily reversing the old, old story of the city
+man wooing and winning the rustic beauty. The farmer accuses the fair
+city maid of coquetry. She replies:
+
+    "'Nor frock nor tan can hide the man;
+      And see you not, my farmer,
+    How weak and fond a woman waits
+      Behind this silken armor?
+
+    'I love you: on that love alone,
+      And not my worth, presuming,
+    Will you not trust for summer fruit
+      The tree in May-day blooming?'
+
+    Alone the hangbird overhead,
+      His hair-swung cradle straining,
+    Looked down to see love's miracle,--
+      The giving that is gaining."
+
+In "Lines on a Fly-Leaf," the author of "Snow-Bound" gives in his hearty
+adherence to that movement for the elevation of woman, and the securing
+of her rights as a human being, which is perhaps the most significant
+and important of the many agitations of this agitated age.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The poem "Miriam," like "The Preacher," is one of those long sermons, or
+meditations in verse, which Whittier loves to spin out of his mind in
+solitude. It contains in "Shah Akbar" a fine Oriental ballad.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The narrative poem called "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim," published in 1872,
+has no striking poetical merit, but is valuable and readable for the
+pleasant light in which it sets forth the doings of the quaint people of
+Germantown and the Wissahickon, near Philadelphia, nearly two hundred
+years ago. It introduces us to the homes and hearts of the little
+settlements of German Quakers under Francis Daniel Pastorius, the
+Mystics under the leadership of Magister Johann Kelpius, and the
+Mennonites under their various leaders. "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim" is a
+poem for Quakers, for Philadelphians who love their great park and its
+Wissahickon drives, and for antiquarian historical students. We may
+regret, if we choose, that the poet has not succeeded in embalming the
+memory of the Germantown Quakers in such felicitous verse as other poets
+have sung the virtues and ways of the Puritans, but we cannot deny that
+he has garnished with the flowers of poetry a dry historical subject,
+and so earned the gratitude of a goodly number of students and scholars.
+
+In "The King's Missive, and Other Poems," published in 1881, the most
+notable piece is "The Lost Occasion," a poem on Daniel Webster, finer
+even than the much-admired "Ichabod," published many years previously.
+"The Lost Occasion" is pitched in a high, solemn, and majestic strain.
+It is a superb eulogy, full of magnanimity and generous forgiveness.
+Listen to a few stanzas:--
+
+                    "Thou
+    Whom the rich heavens did endow
+    With eyes of power and Jove's own brow,
+    With all the massive strength that fills
+    Thy home-horizon's granite hills,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Whose words, in simplest home-spun clad,
+    The Saxon strength of Caedmon had,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Sweet with persuasion, eloquent
+    In passion, cool in argument,
+    Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes
+    As fell the Norse god's hammer blows,
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Too soon for us, too soon for thee,
+    Beside thy lonely Northern sea,
+    Where long and low the marsh-lands spread,
+    Laid wearily down thy august head."
+
+The poem of "The King's Missive" calls for such extended discussion that
+a brief chapter shall be devoted to it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE KING'S MISSIVE.
+
+    "_Under the great hill sloping bare
+      To cove and meadow and Common lot,
+    In his council chamber and oaken chair,
+      Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott._"
+
+
+So run the opening lines of the historical poem contributed by Whittier
+to the first volume of the Memorial History of Boston (1880). While the
+governor is thus sitting, in comes Clerk Rawson with the unwelcome news
+that banished Quaker Shattuck, of Salem, has returned from abroad. The
+choleric governor swears that he will now hew in pieces the pestilent,
+ranting Quakers. Presently Shattuck is ushered in: "Off with the knave's
+hat," says the governor. As they strike off his hat he smilingly holds
+out the Missive, or mandamus, of Charles II. The governor immediately
+asks him to cover, and humbly removes his own hat. The king's letter
+commands him to cease persecuting the Quakers. After consultation with
+the deputy governor, Bellingham, he obeys, and the then imprisoned
+Quakers file out of jail with words of praise on their lips.
+
+The poem fascinates us, for the incident is dramatic, and focusses in a
+single picturesque situation all the features of that little historical
+episode of two hundred years ago, _i. e._, the persecution of the
+Quakers by the Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A brief setting
+forth of the facts connected with this persecution will not only be full
+of intrinsic interest, but is indispensable to a right understanding of
+the Quaker poet's inherited character, as well as to a comprehension of
+his prose and poetry. One whose ancestors have been persecuted for
+generations will inherit a loathing of oppression, as Whittier has done.
+And this hatred of tyranny will be intensified in the case of one who is
+thoroughly read in the literature of that persecution, and is in quick
+and intimate sympathy with the victims, as Whittier is.
+
+But first a word more about the "King's Missive." Joseph Besse, in his
+"Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers" (a sort of
+"Fox's Book of Martyrs," in two huge antique volumes), says [II., p.
+226] that the principal instrument in procuring the royal mandamus
+(styled by Whittier the King's Missive) was Edward Burroughs,[28] who
+went to the king and told him that "There was a Vein of innocent Blood
+open'd in his Dominions, which if it were not stopt might over-run all.
+To which the king replied, 'But I will stop that Vein.'" Accordingly, in
+the autumn of 1661, Samuel Shattuck was selected to bear a letter to
+America. The London Friends hired Ralph Goldsmith, also a Friend, to
+convey Shattuck to his destination. They paid him L300 for the service.
+The ship entered Boston Harbor on a Sunday in the latter part of
+November, 1661.
+
+[Footnote 28: "There is a story," says Dr. George E. Ellis, "that
+Burroughs got access to the king out of doors, while his Majesty was
+playing tennis. As Burroughs kept on his hat while accosting the king,
+the latter gracefully removed his plumed cap and bowed. The Quaker, put
+to the blush, said, 'Thee need'st not remove thy hat.' 'Oh,' replied the
+king, 'it is of no consequence, only that when the king and another
+gentleman are talking together it is usual for one of them to take off
+his hat.'"]
+
+"The Townsmen," says Besse, "seeing a Ship with _English_ Colours, soon
+came on board, and asked for the Captain? _Ralph Goldsmith_ told them,
+_He was the Commander_. They asked, _Whether he had any Letters_? He
+answered, _Yes_. But withal told them, _He would not deliver them that
+Day_. So they returned on shore again, and reported, that _There were
+many_ Quakers _come, and that_ Samuel Shattock (who they knew had been
+banished on pain of Death) _was among them_. But they knew nothing of
+his Errand or Authority. Thus all was kept close, and none of the Ship's
+Company suffered to go on shore that Day. Next morning _Ralph
+Goldsmith_, the Commander, with _Samuel Shattock_, the King's Deputy,
+went on shore, and sending the Boat back to the Ship, they two went
+directly through the Town to the Governour's House, and knockt at the
+Door: He sending a Man to know their Business, they sent him Word, that
+_Their Message was from the King of_ England, _and that they would
+deliver it to none but himself_. Then they were admitted to go in, and
+the Governour came to them, and commanded _Samuel Shattock's_ Hat to be
+taken off, and having received the Deputation and the _Mandamus_, he
+laid off his own Hat; and ordering Shattock's Hat to be given him again,
+perused the Papers, and then went out to the Deputy-Governour's, bidding
+the King's Deputy and the Master of the Ship to follow him: Being come
+to the Deputy-Governour, and having consulted him, he returned to the
+aforesaid two Persons and said, _We shall obey his Majesty's Command_.
+After this, the Master of the Ship gave Liberty to his Passengers to
+come on shore, which they did, and had a religious Meeting with their
+Friends of the Town, where they returned Praises to God for his Mercy
+manifested in this wonderful Deliverance."
+
+The persecution, it is true, only ceased for about a year (the next
+recorded whipping-order bearing date of December 22, 1662). But the
+Quakers were greatly encouraged by the interposition in their favor.
+
+In an address before the Massachusetts Historical Society, Dr. George E.
+Ellis, of Boston, read a paper criticising Mr. Whittier's "King's
+Missive." This address was published in the Proceedings of the Society
+for March, 1881. In the "Memorial History of Boston" [I., p. 180] he
+asserts that the Quakers were all "of low rank, of mean breeding, and
+illiterate." He says that they courted persecution, and that they were a
+pestilent brood of ranters, disturbers of the public peace, and dreaded
+by the leaders of the infant Commonwealth as they would have dreaded the
+cholera. He quotes Roger Williams, who wrote of the Quakers that they
+were "insufferably proud and contentious," and advised a "due and
+moderate restraint of their incivilities." Dr. Ellis, it is true, takes
+the theoretical ground of "the equal folly and culpability of both
+parties in the tragedy," but seems entirely to nullify this statement by
+his apparently unbiassed, but really partisan treatment of the subject.
+When you have finished his paper you perceive that the impression left
+on your mind is that the really bitter and unrelenting Puritan
+persecutors were long-suffering, angelic natures, while their victims,
+the Quakers, were mere gallows' dogs. His theoretical position is summed
+up in the following words:--
+
+    "The crowning folly or iniquity in the course of the Puritans was in
+    following up their penal inflictions, through banishments,
+    imprisonments, fines, scourgings, and mutilations, to the execution
+    on the gallows of four martyr victims. But what shall we say of the
+    persistency, the exasperating contemptuousness and defiance, the
+    goading, maddening obstinacy, and reproaching invectives of those
+    who drove the magistrates, against their will, to vindicate their
+    own insulted authority, and to stain our annals with innocent
+    blood?"--Memorial History of Boston, I., 1882.
+
+Dr. Ellis is right in holding that some of the Quakers were gadflies of
+obstinacy, and full of self-righteous pride; but he fails to tell us of
+the patience, Christian sweetness, and meekness of character of the
+majority of them; and it is only when we turn to the pages of Fox and
+Besse that we see the inadequate character of such a picture as that
+drawn by Dr. Ellis. In the plain, _naive_ annals of Besse, the
+hard-heartedness and haughty pride of the Puritan magistrates (traits
+still amply represented in their descendants) are thrown into the most
+striking relief. They glower over their victims like tigers; they are
+choked with their passions; they spurn excuses and palliatives; they
+demand blood.
+
+In the _Boston Daily Advertiser_ for March 29, 1881, Mr. Whittier
+published a long reply to Dr. Ellis, in which he fortified the positions
+taken by him in his ballad, showing that he did not mean to hold up
+Charles II. as a consistent friend of toleration, and that there must
+have been a general jail delivery in consequence of the receipt of the
+mandamus. He says:--
+
+    "The charge that the Quakers who suffered were 'vagabonds' and
+    'ignorant, low fanatics,' is unfounded in fact. Mary Dyer, who was
+    executed, was a woman of marked respectability. She had been the
+    friend and associate of Sir Henry Vane and the ministers Wheelwright
+    and Cotton. The papers left behind by the three men who were hanged
+    show that they were above the common class of their day in mental
+    power and genuine piety. John Rous, who, in execution of his
+    sentence, had his right ear cut off by the constable in the Boston
+    jail, was of gentlemanly lineage, the son of Colonel Rous of the
+    British army, and himself the betrothed of a high-born and
+    cultivated young English lady. Nicholas Upsall was one of Boston's
+    most worthy and substantial citizens, yet was driven in his age and
+    infirmities, from his home and property, into the wilderness."
+
+Mr. Whittier further remarks:--
+
+    "Dr. Ellis has been a very generous, as well as ingenious defender
+    of the Puritan clergy and government, and his labors in this respect
+    have the merit of gratuitous disinterestedness. Had the very worthy
+    and learned gentleman been a resident in the Massachusetts colony in
+    1660, one of his most guarded doctrinal sermons would have brought
+    down upon him the wrath of clergy and magistracy. His Socinianism
+    would have seemed more wicked than the 'inward light' of the
+    Quakers; and, had he been as 'doggedly obstinate' as Servetus at
+    Geneva (as I do him the justice to think he would have been), he
+    might have hung on the same gallows with the Quakers, or the same
+    shears which clipped the ears of Holder, Rous, and Copeland might
+    have shorn off his own."
+
+Let us look a little more closely at the evidence on both sides.
+
+In the fourth chapter of the seventh book of Cotton Mather's "Magnalia"
+we have a specimen of Quaker rant. After stating that he is opposed to
+the capital punishment of Quakers, but advises shaving of the head, or
+blood-letting, the proud and scornful old doctor concludes as follows:--
+
+    "_Reader_, I can foretell what usage I shall find among the
+    _Quakers_ for this chapter of our _church-history_; for a worthy man
+    that writes of them has observed, _for pride and hypocrisie, and
+    hellish reviling against the painful ministers of Christ, I know no
+    people can match them_. Yea, prepare, friend _Mather_, to be
+    assaulted with such language as _Fisher_ the Quaker, in his
+    pamphlets, does bestow upon such men as _Dr. Owen; thou fiery
+    fighter and green-headed trumpeter; thou hedgehog and grinning dog;
+    thou bastard that tumbled out of the mouth of the Babilonish bawd;
+    thou mole; thou tinker; thou lizzard; thou bell of no metal, but the
+    tone of a kettle; thou wheelbarrow; thou whirlpool; thou whirlegig.
+    O thou firebrand; thou adder and scorpion; thou louse; thou
+    cow-dung; thou moon-calf; thou ragged tatterdemallion; thou Judas;
+    thou livest in philosophy and logick which are of the devil_. And
+    then let _Penn_ the Quaker add, Thou gormandizing Priest, one of the
+    abominable tribe; _thou bane of reason, and beast of the earth; thou
+    best to be spared of mankind; thou mountebank priest_. These are the
+    very words, (I wrong them not!) which they vomit out against the
+    best men in the _English_ nation, that have been so hardy as to
+    touch their _light within_: but let the _quills_ of these
+    _porcupines_ fly as fast as they will, I shall not feel them! Yea,
+    every _stone_ that these _Kildebrands_ throw at me, I will wear as a
+    _pearl_."
+
+As an offset to this quaint and amusing tirade, and to the charges of
+Dr. Ellis, one may read the following words of Whittier, and, by
+striking a general average between all the speakers, get a tolerable
+approximation to the exact truth. Mr. Whittier says:--
+
+    "Nor can it be said that the persecution grew out of the
+    'intrusion,' 'indecency,' and 'effrontery' of the persecuted.
+
+    "It owed its origin to the settled purpose of the ministers and
+    leading men of the colony to permit no difference of opinion on
+    religious matters. They had banished the Baptists, and whipped at
+    least one of them. They had hunted down Gorton and his adherents;
+    they had imprisoned Dr. Child, an Episcopalian, for petitioning the
+    General Court for toleration. They had driven some of their best
+    citizens out of their jurisdiction, with Ann Hutchinson, and the
+    gifted minister, Wheelwright. Any dissent on the part of their own
+    fellow-citizens was punished as severely as the heresy of strangers.
+
+    "The charge of 'indecency' comes with ill-grace from the authorities
+    of the Massachusetts Colony. The first Quakers who arrived in
+    Boston, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, were arrested on board the ship
+    before landing, their books taken from them and burned by the
+    constable, and they themselves brought before Deputy Governor
+    Bellingham, in the absence of Endicott. This astute magistrate
+    ordered them to be _stripped naked and their bodies to be carefully
+    examined, to see if there was not the Devil's mark on them as
+    witches_. They were then sent to the jail, their cell window was
+    boarded up, and they were left without food or light, until the
+    master of the vessel that brought them was ordered to take them to
+    Barbadoes. When Endicott returned, he thought they had been treated
+    too leniently, and declared that he would have had them whipped.
+
+    "After this, almost every town in the province was favored with the
+    spectacle of aged and young women stripped to the middle, tied to a
+    cart-tail and dragged through the streets and scourged without mercy
+    by the constable's whip. It is not strange that these atrocious
+    proceedings, in two or three instances, unsettled the minds of the
+    victims. Lydia Wardwell of Hampton, who, with her husband, had been
+    reduced to almost total destitution by persecution, was summoned by
+    the church of which she had been a member to appear before it to
+    answer to the charge of non-attendance. She obeyed the call by
+    appearing in the unclothed condition of the sufferers whom she had
+    seen under the constable's whip. For this she was taken to Ipswich
+    and stripped to the waist, tied to a rough post, which tore her
+    bosom as she writhed under the lash, and severely scourged to the
+    satisfaction of a crowd of lookers-on at the tavern. One, and only
+    one, other instance is adduced in the person of Deborah Wilson of
+    Salem. She had seen her friends and neighbors scourged naked through
+    the street, among them her brother, who was banished on pain of
+    death. She, like all Puritans, had been educated in the belief of
+    the plenary inspiration of Scripture, and had brooded over the
+    strange 'signs' and testimonies of the Hebrew prophets. It seemed to
+    her that the time had arrived for some similar demonstration, and
+    that it was her duty to walk abroad in the disrobed condition to
+    which her friends had been subjected, as a sign and warning to the
+    persecutors. Whatever of 'indecency' there was in these cases was
+    directly chargeable upon the atrocious persecution. At the door of
+    the magistrates and ministers of Massachusetts must be laid the
+    insanity of the conduct of these unfortunate women.
+
+    "But Boston, at least, had no voluntary Godivas. The only disrobed
+    women in its streets were made so by Puritan sheriffs and
+    constables, who dragged them amidst jeering crowds at the cart-tail,
+    stripped for the lash, which in one instance laid open with a
+    ghastly gash the bosom of a young mother!"[29]
+
+[Footnote 29: Mr. Whittier stated to a member of the Massachusetts
+Historical Society that it was his intention "at some time to prepare a
+full and exhaustive history of the relations of Puritan and Quaker in
+the seventeenth century." It may be added that the newspaper articles
+quoted above, with the several replications of their authors, may all be
+found in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for
+1880-81 (see the index of that volume).]
+
+We may conclude this discussion by giving a few instances of Quaker
+persecutions, in addition to those mentioned by Mr. Whittier. In England
+the members of the sect suffered a whole Jeremiad of woes: they were
+dragged through the streets by the hair of the head, incarcerated in
+loathsome dungeons, beaten over the head with muskets, pilloried,
+whipped at the cart's-tail, branded, their tongues bored with red-hot
+irons, and their property confiscated to the State. One First Day,
+George Fox went into the "steeple-house" of Tickhill. "I found," he says
+in his Journal, "the priest and most of the chief of the parish together
+in the chancel. I went up to them and began to speak; but they
+immediately fell upon me; the clerk got up with his Bible, as I was
+speaking, and struck me in the face with it, so that my face gushed out
+with blood, and I bled exceedingly in the steeple-house. The people
+cried, 'Let us have him out of the church.' When they had got me out,
+they beat me exceedingly, threw me down, and threw me over a hedge. They
+afterwards dragged me through a house into the street, stoning and
+beating me as they dragged me along; so that I was all over besmeared
+with blood and dirt. They got my hat from me, which I never had again."
+Fox was at various times thrust into dungeons filled ankle-deep with
+ordure, and was shot at, beaten with stones and clubs, etc.
+
+One evening he passed through Cambridge: "When I came into the town, the
+scholars, hearing of me, were up and exceeding rude. I kept on my
+horse's back, and rode through them in the Lord's power; but they
+unhorsed Amor Stoddart before he could get to the inn. When we were in
+the inn, they were so rude in the courts and in the streets, that the
+miners, colliers, and carters could never be ruder. The people of the
+house asked us what we would have for supper. 'Supper!' said I, 'were it
+not that the Lord's power is over them, these rude scholars look as if
+they would pluck us in pieces and make a supper of us.' They knew I was
+so against the trade of preaching, which they were there as apprentices
+to learn, that they raged as bad as ever Diana's craftsmen did against
+Paul."
+
+In the declaration made by the Quakers to Charles II. it appears that in
+New England, up to that time, "thirty Quakers had been whipped;
+twenty-two had been banished on pain of death if they returned;
+twenty-five had been banished upon the penalty of being whipped, or
+having their ears cut, or being branded in the hand if they returned;
+three had their right ears shorn off by the hangman; one had been
+branded in the hand with the letter H; many had been imprisoned; many
+fined; and three had been put to death, and one (William Leddra) was
+soon after executed."
+
+Besse, in his "Sufferings of the Quakers," states that one William
+Brand, a man in years, was so brutally whipped by an infuriated jailer,
+in Salem, that "His Back and Arms were bruised and black, and the Blood
+hanging as it were in Bags under his Arms, and so into one was his Flesh
+beaten that the Sign of a particular Blow could not be seen." And the
+surgeon said that "His Flesh would rot from off his Bones e'er the
+bruized Parts would be brought to digest." To all this must be added the
+humiliating fact that four persons were hanged on Boston Common for the
+crime of being Quakers. Their names were Marmaduke Stephenson, William
+Robinson, William Leddra, and Mary Dyer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+POEMS BY GROUPS.
+
+
+Besides "The King's Missive," Whittier has written numerous other Quaker
+poems, the finest of which are "Cassandra Southwick," "The Old South,"
+and the spirited, ringing ballad of "The Exiles." In the first two of
+these the poet shows a delicate intuition into the feelings that might
+have prompted the Quaker women who witnessed for the truth in Boston two
+hundred years ago.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is nothing in American literature, unless it be the anti-slavery
+papers of Thoreau, which equals the sevenfold-heated moral indignation
+of Whittier's poems on slavery,--a wild melody in them like that of
+Highland pibrochs; now plaintively and piteously pleading, and now
+burning with passion, irony, satire, scorn; here glowing with tropical
+imagery, as in "Toussaint L'Ouverture," and "The Slaves of Martinique,"
+and there rising into lofty moral atmospheres of faith when all seemed
+dark and hopeless. Every one knows the power of a "cry" (a song like
+"John Brown's Body," or a pithy sentence or phrase) in any great popular
+movement. There can be no doubt that Whittier's poems did as much as
+Garrison's editorials to key up the minds of people to the point
+required for action against slavery. Some of these anti-slavery pieces
+still possess great intrinsic beauty and excellence, as, for example,
+"Toussaint L'Ouverture," "The Farewell," "The Slave Ships," and "The
+Slaves of Martinique." In these four productions there is little or none
+of the dreary didacticism of most of the anti-slavery poems, but a
+simple statement of pathetic, beautiful fact, which is left to make its
+own impression. Another powerful group of these slavery poems is
+constituted by the scornful, mock-congratulatory productions, such as
+"The Hunters of Men," "Clerical Oppressors," "The Yankee Girl," "A
+Sabbath Scene," "Lines suggested by Reading a State Paper wherein the
+Higher Law is Invoked to Sustain the Lower One," and "The Pastoral
+Letter."[30] The sentences in these stanzas cut like knives and sting
+like shot. The poltroon clergy, especially, looks pitiful, most pitiful,
+in the light of Whittier's noble scorn and contempt.
+
+[Footnote 30: "The Pastoral Letter" was an idiotic manifesto of the
+clergy of Massachusetts aimed at the Grimke sisters.]
+
+"Randolph of Roanoke" is a noble tribute to a political enemy by one who
+admired in him the man. The long poem, "The Panorama," must be
+considered a failure, poetically speaking. Its showman's pictures and
+preachings do not get hold of our sympathies very strongly.
+
+The Tyrtaean fire in Whittier was so thoroughly kindled by the
+anti-slavery conflict that it has never wholly gone out. All through his
+life his hand has instinctively sought the old war-lyre whenever a voice
+was to be raised in honor of Freedom. The formal close of the
+anti-slavery period with him may be said to be marked by "Laus Deo," a
+triumphant, almost ecstatic shout of joy uttered on hearing the bells
+ring when the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery was passed.
+
+Naturally, the war poems of a Quaker--and even of our martial
+Whittier--could not be equal to his peace poems. Still there are many
+strong passages in the lyrics written by Whittier during the civil war
+of 1861-65. At first he counsels that we allow disunion rather than
+kindle the lurid fires of fratricidal war:--
+
+                            "Let us press
+    The golden cluster on our brave old flag
+    In closer union, and, if numbering less,
+    Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain."
+
+    _A Word for the Hour._
+
+So he wrote in January, 1861. But afterward he becomes a pained but
+sadly approving spectator of the inevitable conflict:--
+
+    "Then Freedom sternly said: 'I shun
+    No strife nor pang beneath the sun,
+    When human rights are staked and won.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The moor of Marston felt my tread,
+    Through Jersey snows the march I led,
+    My voice Magenta's charges sped.'"
+
+    _The Watchers._
+
+As a Friend, he and his brethren could not personally engage in war. But
+they could minister to the sick and dying, and care for the slave.
+
+    "THE SLAVE IS OURS!"
+
+he says,--
+
+    "And we may tread the sick-bed floors
+        Where strong men pine,
+    And, down the groaning corridors,
+    Pour freely from our liberal stores
+        The oil and wine."
+
+    _Anniversary Poem._
+
+"Barbara Frietchie" is, of course, the best of these war lyrics. The
+"Song of the Negro Boatmen" was set to music and sung from Maine to
+California during the war days:--
+
+    "De yam will grow, de cotton blow,
+      We'll hab de rice an' corn;
+    O nebber you fear, if nebber you hear
+      De driver blow his horn!"
+
+After "Voices of Freedom," in the complete edition of Whittier's poems,
+come a cluster of Biblical, or Old Testament poems,--"Palestine,"
+"Ezekiel," "The Wife of Manoah to her Husband," "The Cities of the
+Plain," "The Crucifixion," and "The Star of Bethlehem." The best of
+these, perhaps, are "Cities of the Plain," and "Crucifixion,"--the
+former intense and thrilling in style, and suggesting the "Sennacherib"
+and "Waterloo" of Byron; the latter a high, solemn chant, and well
+calculated to touch the religious heart. Whittier has drawn great
+refreshment and inspiration from the thrice-winnowed wheat and the
+living-water wells of Old Testament literature.
+
+Allusion has already been made to the hymns of our poet. Hymn-book
+makers have had in his poems a very quarry to work. The hymn tinkers,
+too, have not spared Whittier even while he was alive, and many of his
+sacred lyrics have been "adapted" after the manner of hymn-book makers.
+Dr. Martineau's "Hymns of Praise" (1874) contains seven of Whittier's
+religious songs; the "Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book" (1868) also has
+seven; the Plymouth Collection (1855) has eleven, and Longfellow and
+Johnson's "Hymns of the Spirit" (1864) has twenty-two.
+
+The Essex minstrel has written quite a number of children's poems, such
+as "The Robin," "Red Riding Hood," and "King Solomon and the Ants." He
+has also compiled two books of selections for children, as has already
+been mentioned.
+
+Like many authors, Whittier has been attracted, in the autumn of his
+life, to the rich fields of Oriental literature. His Oriental poems show
+careful and sympathetic study of eastern books. "The Two Rabbis" and
+"Shah Akbar" are especially fine. The little touch in the former of "the
+small weeds that the bees bow with their weight" is a very pretty one.
+In "The King's Missive" we have a few "Oriental Maxims," being
+paraphrases of translations from the Sanscrit. "The Dead Feast of the
+Kol-Folk," and "The Khan's Devil," are also included in the same volume.
+
+Mr. Whittier has also made successful studies in Norse literature, for
+which his beautiful ballads, the "Dole of Jarl Thorkell," "Kallundborg
+Church," and "King Volmer and Elsie" are vouchers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+PROSE WRITINGS.
+
+
+It is to be feared that the greater portion of the prose writings of
+Whittier will be _caviare_ to many readers of this day. He himself
+almost admits as much in the prefatory note to the second volume of the
+complete edition of his essays. That many of the papers are entertaining
+reading, and that they are written often in a light and genial and
+vivacious style, is true; and, as he himself hints, they will at least
+be welcomed and indulgently judged by his personal friends and admirers.
+His prose work was done in a time seething with moral ideas; the air was
+full of reforms; the voice of duty sounded loud in men's consciences,
+and the ancestral buckler called--
+
+    "Self-clanging, from the walls
+    In the high temple of the soul!"
+
+    _Lowell._
+
+That particular era is now passed. The great secular heart is now in its
+diastole, or relaxation. Hence it is that the philanthropic themes
+discussed by Mr. Whittier thirty years ago (and most of his essays are
+of a philanthropic character) possess but a languid interest for the
+present reading public. The artistic essays, however, are charming, and
+possess permanent interest. Let us except from these the long
+productions, "Margaret Smith's Journal" and "My Summer with Dr.
+Singletary." Some have thought these to be the best papers in the
+collection. But to many they must appear frigid and old-fashioned in the
+extreme. They seem aimless and sprawling, mere _esquisses_, tentative
+work in a field in which the author was doubtful of his powers. They
+would ordinarily be classed under the head of Sunday-school literature.
+It has been suggested that the idea of "Margaret Smith's Journal" might
+have been derived from the "Diary of Lady Willoughby," which appeared
+about the same time. "The Journal" is a reproduction of the antique in
+style and atmosphere, and is said to be very successful as far as that
+goes. But certainly the iteration of the archaism, "did do," "did
+write," etc., gets to be very wearisome. The "Journal" purports to be
+written by a niece of Edward Rawson, Secretary of Massachusetts from
+1650-1686. The scene is laid in Newbury, where Rawson settled about
+1636. We have pleasant pictures of the colonial life of the day, of the
+Quakers and Indians and Puritans, and, on the whole, the sketch is well
+worth reading by historical students.
+
+"Old Portraits and Modern Sketches" consists chiefly of newspaper
+articles on modern reformers. They were originally contributed to the
+_National Era_. The portraits drawn are those of John Bunyan, Thomas
+Ellwood, James Nayler, Andrew Marvell, John Roberts, Samuel Hopkins,
+Richard Baxter,--and, among Americans, William Leggett and Nathaniel
+Peabody Rogers,--both anti-slavery reformers and journalists; and,
+lastly, Robert Dinsmore, the rustic Scotch-American poet of Haverhill.
+The last three papers mentioned are the best.
+
+The second volume of Mr. Whittier's prose writings bears the title
+"Literary Recreations and Miscellanies," and consists of various
+reviews, thumb-nail essays, and indigenous folk-and-nature studies, made
+in the region of the Merrimack. These last are of most interest, and
+indicate the field which Mr. Whittier would have cultivated with most
+success. In the reviews of the volume the newspapery tone and journalist
+diction are rather unpleasantly conspicuous. As a critic, our poet is
+not very successful, because he is too earnest a partisan, too merciless
+and undistinguishing in his invective or too generous in his praise. For
+example, what he says about Carlyle, in reviewing that author's infamous
+"Discourse on the Negro Question," is true as far as it goes. But of the
+elementary literary canon, that the prime function of the critic is to
+put himself in the place of the one he is criticising,--of this law Mr.
+Whittier has not, practically, the faintest notion. He considers
+everything from the point of view of the Quaker or of the reformer.
+
+Numerous specimens of Mr. Whittier's prose have already been given in
+various parts of this volume, but for the sake of illustration we may
+add two more. For an example of his serious style take the following
+from "Scottish Reformers": "He who undertakes to tread the pathway of
+reform--who, smitten with the love of truth and justice, or, indignant
+in view of wrong and insolent oppression, is rashly inclined to throw
+himself at once into that great conflict which the Persian seer not
+untruly represented as a war between light and darkness--would do well
+to count the cost in the outset. If he can live for Truth alone, and,
+cut off from the general sympathy, regard her service as its own
+'exceeding great reward'; if he can bear to be counted a fanatic and
+crazy visionary; if, in all good nature, he is ready to receive from the
+very objects of his solicitude abuse and obloquy in return for
+disinterested and self-sacrificing efforts for their welfare; if, with
+his purest motives misunderstood and his best actions perverted and
+distorted into crimes, he can still hold on his way and patiently abide
+the hour when 'the whirligig of Time shall bring about its revenges';
+if, on the whole, he is prepared to be looked upon as a sort of moral
+outlaw or social heretic under good society's interdict of food and
+fire; and if he is well assured that he can, through all this, preserve
+his cheerfulness and faith in man,--let him gird up his loins and go
+forward in God's name. He is fitted for his vocation; he has watched all
+night by his armor.... Great is the consciousness of right. Sweet is the
+answer of a good conscience. He who pays his whole-hearted homage to
+truth and duty,--who swears his life-long fealty on their altars, and
+rises up a Nazarite consecrated to their service,--is not without his
+solace and enjoyment when, to the eyes of others, he seems the most
+lonely and miserable. He breathes an atmosphere which the multitude know
+not of; 'a serene heaven which they cannot discern rests over him,
+glorious in its purity and stillness.'"
+
+For a specimen of our author's vein of pleasantry take the following bit
+of satire on "The Training": "What's now in the wind? Sounds of distant
+music float in at my window on this still October air. Hurrying
+drum-beat, shrill fife-tones, wailing bugle-notes, and, by way of
+accompaniment, hurrahs from the urchins on the crowded sidewalks. Here
+come the citizen-soldiers, each martial foot beating up the mud of
+yesterday's storm with the slow, regular, up-and-down movement of an
+old-fashioned churn-dasher. Keeping time with the feet below, some
+threescore of plumed heads bob solemnly beneath me. Slant sunshine
+glitters on polished gun-barrels and tinselled uniform. Gravely and
+soberly they pass on, as if duly impressed with a sense of the deep
+responsibility of their position as self-constituted defenders of the
+world's last hope,--the United States of America, and possibly Texas.
+They look out with honest, citizen faces under their leathern vizors
+(their ferocity being mostly the work of the tailor and tinker), and, I
+doubt not, are at this moment as innocent of bloodthirstiness as yonder
+worthy tiller of the Tewksbury Hills, who sits quietly in his wagon
+dispensing apples and turnips without so much as giving a glance at the
+procession. Probably there is not one of them who would hesitate to
+divide his last tobacco-quid with his worst enemy. Social, kind-hearted,
+psalm-singing, sermon-hearing, Sabbath-keeping Christians; and yet, if
+we look at the fact of the matter, these very men have been out the
+whole afternoon of this beautiful day, under God's holy sunshine, as
+busily at work as Satan himself could wish in learning how to butcher
+their fellow-creatures, and acquire the true scientific method of
+impaling a forlorn Mexican on a bayonet, or of sinking a leaden missile
+in the brain of some unfortunate Briton, urged within its range by the
+double incentive of sixpence per day in his pocket and the cat-o'-nine
+tails on his back!"
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL.
+
+
+The passing away from earth of John Greenleaf Whittier occurred on
+September 7, 1892, at four-thirty A. M., at Hampton Falls, N. H., in the
+very heart of the region he has immortalized by his ballads. The hour
+was just as the reddening east was mingling its light with that of the
+full harvest moon. Around his bedside were numerous relatives and
+friends. He fell asleep in an unconscious state, after an illness of a
+week. Let us now go back and, taking up the thread of the narrative
+where it was dropped on page 152, run over the incidents that have
+intervened in the decade since 1882 in the life of this pleasant
+singer--this plain Quaker farmer, who drew such soul-thrilling strains
+from his home-made rustic flute as to concentrate upon himself the
+attention of the whole world.
+
+In 1883 (January 7) died, in Boston, Whittier's brother, Matthew
+Franklin Whittier, whose daughter Elizabeth, before her marriage to
+Samuel T. Pickard, was house-keeper for a number of years for her uncle,
+the poet, at Amesbury. "Frank," as his associates called him, obtained,
+it is said, his position in the Boston Custom House through the
+influence of his brother. Says a friend (Mr. Charles O. Stickney):--
+
+    "Frank was not a poet, and being of a practical turn of mind, had
+    the good sense not to attempt the impossible; but he was a man of
+    intellect, an omnivorous reader, was well posted, and, though
+    inclined to seclusion and taciturnity, was nevertheless genial and
+    companionable; his conversation spiced with his quiet, quaint humor,
+    which bubbled up in some happy _mot_, neat fun, or well-turned bit
+    of satire which raised a laugh, but left no sting behind." His
+    quaint, humorous dialect articles, over the signature "Ethan Spike,"
+    are said to have given Nasby and Artemus Ward their cue. They were
+    chiefly contributed to the Portland _Transcript_, the Boston _Carpet
+    Bag_, and New York _Vanity Fair_. They all purported to emanate
+    from "Hornby," a "smart town" in Maine--"a veritable down-east
+    wonderland, whose wide-awake citizens were up to the times and ready
+    to settle any great question of the day at 'a special town
+    meetin'.'" Mr. Spike was as intense in his anti-slavery views as his
+    brother Greenleaf. Specimens of his work may be found in the
+    Portland _Transcript_, January 10, 1846, the _Carpet Bag_, October
+    14, 1850, and November, 1851.
+
+In 1884 Whittier's seventy-seventh birthday was observed at Oak Knoll,
+when the genial old bachelor received with courtesy and hospitality all
+who called. Gifts of flowers poured in to serve as foil to the two huge
+birthday cakes from relatives.
+
+An editorial writer in one of Boston's chief dailies thus describes a
+visit to Mr. Whittier, made in 1884:--
+
+    "Mr. Whittier met us at the door of the pleasant house at Oak Knoll.
+    He came out on the piazza, and shook us each by the hand, and said,
+    'I am glad to see thee.' He concerned himself about our rubbers and
+    waterproofs in the hall-way, and said that we were kind to come. I
+    had taken a great fit of shyness on seeing him, and was surprised
+    to hear my friend speaking to him in the same quiet tone that she
+    had used when alone with me. I listened, and reveled in silence as
+    the old poet and the young artist spoke together. He led us into the
+    parlor, and they talked of a landscape on the wall, of pictures, and
+    of a portrait.
+
+    "Presently he said: 'It is a little cold here. Shall we go into my
+    room?' He led the way to the bright library where most of his days
+    are now spent. Mr. Whittier happened to glance from the window as we
+    stood for a moment speaking with him: he saw our cab waiting for us
+    on the drive. The rain had begun again. Then a wonderful thing
+    befell.
+
+    "He forbade us to go away within the quarter hour; he forbade us to
+    go for three hours. He went out and sent the cabman away, then he
+    took us into the library. We sat down in front of the cheery open
+    fire, and Mr. Whittier talked with us. He spoke of the claims of
+    young people on life, it was different from any talk I had heard; in
+    the face of my poets, I used to think that all good people believed
+    that life is our creditor and hard taskmaster."
+
+On October 24, 1884, a portrait of Whittier was presented by Charles F.
+Coffin, of Lynn, Mass., a devoted friend and admirer of his, to the
+Friends' School of Providence, R.I. It was painted by Edgar Parker, of
+Boston, and represents Whittier sitting in an arm-chair in an attitude
+of peaceful thought.
+
+It is hung in Alumni Hall, between busts of Elizabeth Fry and John
+Bright, and is considered to be a worthy memorial of the poet. Letters
+on this occasion were read from James Russell Lowell, Dr. Holmes, E. P.
+Whipple, John Bright, George William Curtis, Boyle O'Reilly, Matthew
+Arnold, and others. From Mr. Whipple's letter the following is an
+extract:--
+
+    "I have had the privilege of knowing him intimately for many years,
+    and of doing all I could through the press to point out his
+    exceptional and original merits as a writer. My admiration of his
+    genius and character has increased with every new volume he has
+    published and every new manifestation of that essential gentleness
+    which lies at the root of his nature, even when some of his poems
+    suggest the warrior rather than the Quaker. One thing is certain:
+    that the reader feels that the writer possesses that peculiar
+    attribute of humanity which we instinctively call by the high name
+    of soul; and, whether he storms into the souls of others or glides
+    into them, his hot invectives equally with his soft persuasions mark
+    him as a man; a man, too, of might; a man whose force is blended
+    with his insight, and who can win or woo his way into hostile or
+    recipient minds by innate strength or delicacy of nature."
+
+In 1885 the poet's birthday was again quietly celebrated at Oak Knoll,
+and in the afternoon Mr. Whittier's portrait was unveiled before a large
+audience in the Town Hall of Haverhill.
+
+In September, 1885, occurred a most interesting festival--the reunion of
+the graduates of the old Haverhill Academy, for whom the poet cherished
+to the end of his life an earnest and outspoken affection. It was here
+that Whittier got all the scholastic education he ever had outside of
+the district school; the reunion was thoroughly enjoyed therefore by
+him, although it was in his honor. For his health was pretty good, and
+he was in fine spirits. An interesting letter was received from the
+aged Miss Arethusa Hall, a preceptress in the Academy when Whittier
+attended it. Among others, Dr. Holmes wrote: "The class of 1829
+[Harvard] has a bright record; but how much brighter it would have been
+if we could have read upon the triennial and quinquennial catalogues:
+Johannes Greenleaf Whittier, A. B., A. M., LL. D., etc! But what, after
+all, can all the degrees of all the colleges do for him whose soul has
+been kindled by that 'ae spark of Nature's fire,' which Burns caught
+from her torch on the banks of Ayr, and Whittier among the mists that
+rise from the Merrimack?"
+
+Mr. Whittier presented photographs of himself with his autograph to his
+school-mates, promised to think over the sitting for an oil portrait,
+and entered with zest into any bit of mirthfulness that sparkled out
+during the evening, although, as will be seen from the following
+description of a representative of the Boston _Advertiser_, he could
+scarcely understand the situation:--
+
+    "In the company was one man who seemed neither to accept nor to
+    comprehend the situation. That man was John G. Whittier. His face
+    and demeanor that day would have afforded study for a psychologist.
+    That it was fifty-seven years since he entered Haverhill Academy he
+    remembered with a certain sweet melancholy. That everybody was vying
+    with everybody else in making love to him he could not help
+    observing. But what it was all about, and why people should persist
+    in talking of him when he wanted other, more congenial topics to be
+    uppermost--these questions evidently puzzled him. A countenance on
+    which was a look of shyness, of surprise, of perplexity; withal, a
+    countenance irradiated by reciprocal affection and pleasure in
+    seeing others pleased--if any one of the present artists could have
+    caught and delineated those features, the painter would have been
+    destined to share the immortality of the poet. On such a subject the
+    temptation to indulge in reminiscence is strong. But space will
+    permit me to mention only two or three characteristic incidents. A
+    gifted vocalist had just sung a composition prepared for that day;
+    and Mr. Whittier, turning to her, said, 'Friend, I wish that I could
+    write a song for thee to sing.' An elocutionist of note read aloud
+    one of the author's poems. He listened eagerly, as if it was wholly
+    new to him; and a little mist gathered in those deep, dreamy eyes at
+    the lines beginning,
+
+         'I mourn no more my vanished years,'
+
+    but there was an answering gleam at the words,
+
+         'The windows of my soul I throw Wide open to the sun.'
+
+    "Two circumstances made that one of the few red-letter days in the
+    memory of the present writer. I had known in Kansas a lady who
+    belonged to that band of Haverhill Academy pupils whose boast and
+    joy it was to have studied and played with the Quaker poet. On
+    mentioning this lady's name, I found myself instantly accepted as
+    her proxy. For some minutes Mr. Whittier seemed to have no other
+    interest than to learn all possible particulars of her and send to
+    her all possible expressions of regard.
+
+    "The other circumstance was the result of my connection with the
+    _Advertiser_. Taking me into one corner of the room, he asked me to
+    sit beside him on the sofa. Then, drawing from his pocket the
+    manuscript of the poem which he had written for that occasion and on
+    portions of which the ink was not yet dry, the author, in a manner
+    irresistibly winning, seemed to take his humble brother of the
+    pen-craft into confidence, explaining the motive for various lines
+    and passing on to speak of those boyhood days which the poem and the
+    occasion recalled."
+
+December 17 again came round in 1886, and found Whittier receiving
+friends, presents, and congratulatory telegrams at Oak Knoll. Wendell
+Phillips, for example, sent him a handsome cane, and some one else sent
+a great frosted cake and a basket that strained its sides to hold the
+gift of fruit it contained.
+
+In December, 1887, it occurred to a young lady journalist on the staff
+of the Boston _Advertiser_ (Miss Minna C. Smith) that it would be a good
+idea to have a "Whittier number" of that journal. The thought was a
+fertile one and was put into execution in great haste, but with eminent
+success. Poems were contributed by Walt Whitman, Dr. Holmes, James
+Jeffrey Roche, Hezekiah Butterworth, Herbert D. Ward, Minot J. Savage,
+Margaret Sidney (Mrs. D. Lothrop), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and others,
+and there was a great array of letters from other writers and eminent
+persons. Edward Everett Hale told the story of Whittier's Kansas
+"Emigrants' Song," how it was sung _en route_ and in the West by brave
+pioneers of New England. James Parton, of Newburyport, Whittier's
+Amesbury neighbor, wrote that Whittier was carrying his burthen of
+eighty years "with considerable ease and constant cheerfulness." He
+continued:--
+
+    "I am sometimes asked, 'Is the poet Whittier really a Quaker or only
+    one by inheritance?' He is really a Quaker. He wears, it is true, a
+    silk hat of the kind familiarly called the stove-pipe, which gleams
+    in the brilliant sun of winter, and seems to indicate at once the
+    man of Boston and the man of the world. But it is not the
+    broad-brimmed hat that makes the Quaker. The poet does actually keep
+    a Quaker coat for Sundays and other dress occasions, which coat was
+    made by a firm of Orthodox Friends in Philadelphia, the metropolitan
+    city of the gentle sect. He also uses the _thee_ and _thou_ in
+    conversation, although without attaching the least importance to
+    these trifles. But he is also a Friend from heartfelt conviction. A
+    few miles from his home is one of the smallest meeting-houses in New
+    England, standing alone in a land of farms and fields. It is painted
+    white, and looks a little like a small school-house. This edifice
+    will seat perhaps forty persons, but the usual congregation numbers
+    about fourteen, who on winter Sundays dwindle often to seven and
+    sometimes to three. This is the meeting-house which the poet
+    Whittier attends whenever he is at home, unless prevented by the
+    weather.
+
+    "What an extraordinary thing is this! The poet who has most deeply
+    felt and most beautifully expressed the sentiment and soul of New
+    England is a member of the sect to which New England was so
+    intolerant and so cruel! When the essential New England has ceased
+    to exist, it will live again, and live long, in Whittier's poems;
+    and he a Quaker! Was there ever before a revenge so complete and so
+    sublime?"
+
+Mr. Charles M. Thompson sent for this octogenarian birthday a fine
+poetical stanza:--
+
+    "A thousand stars swim on through time,
+      Unknown and unregarded in the skies.
+    But one, kings followed; one, thy rhyme,
+      Led on a land of kings in liberty's emprise!"
+
+Mr. James H. Carleton knew Whittier in connection with a circle of
+intellectual and social people that centred around the family of Judge
+Pitman in the years just preceding the rise of the abolition movement.
+"The Pitmans were neighbors of mine," said Mr. Carleton, "and I (I
+hardly know why) was admitted to the meetings of the people who gathered
+there. They were the leaders in everything that was progressive. They
+have since become widely scattered.
+
+"I remember Mr. Whittier as a leader of these leaders. These people
+formed to a large extent his social world at that time. It was the one
+place at which Mr. Whittier threw off his natural reserve and took his
+proper place. He was a good conversationalist on occasion, and when he
+spoke he was worth listening to. I remember him as intensely interested
+in whatever subject occupied the attention of the circle. He was never
+the first to begin a discussion, but rather bided his time for an
+especial opportunity."
+
+Mr. George C. How wrote of Mr. Whittier's friendliness, his cordiality,
+and his unassuming manner: "In the few delightful days I spent in his
+company in the White Mountain region, I saw no signs of formality or
+reserve. He told me, under the trees, many stories of his life and of
+his earliest successes. He impresses you strongly as a true and generous
+friend to everything and every man he believes good and honest. He does
+not like to be lionized, and refused to be introduced to a man whose
+only claim to his friendship was that he had read all his works. When,
+however, Mr. Whittier learned that this same man was an ardent admirer
+of the poet Hayne, a chord of sympathy was struck that made them firm
+friends during this stranger's stay."
+
+At Oak Knoll the winter day was clear and sunshiny, if cold, and warm
+hearts within laughed the season to scorn. The ladies of Boston, at the
+suggestion of Mrs. D. Lothrop, sent up a most unique and exquisite gift;
+eighty beautiful roses edged a large basket fringed with fern-sprays,
+that held an open book of white roses, across whose face lay a pen of
+violets, and on the wide satin book-mark was inscribed the closing
+stanza of "My Triumph." The Essex Club of Boston presented a large
+album; fruit and flowers flanked a mighty birthday cake in the
+dining-room. Mr. Charles F. Coffin, of Lynn, sent a large overflowing
+basket of fruit, arranged under his personal supervision, "every fruit
+in its season," of exquisite colors and shapes, to express his affection
+for his life-long friend, the poet.
+
+The new town of Whittier, in California, sent an advance copy of the
+first issue of the town's newspaper; the Governor of the Commonwealth,
+as the winter afternoon quickly declined, cut and distributed to the
+guests slices of the birthday cake, while all through the day Whittier
+passed to and fro from room to room, conversing with young and old, and
+hospitable to all.
+
+Whittier himself is reported as saying on his eightieth birthday: "When
+a man is eighty years old, it is time to give up active mental work. Oh!
+I am able to go about these grounds pretty well. I have never attempted
+to imitate Gladstone and chop down trees, but I like to split wood."
+
+This was James Russell Lowell's verse for Mr. Whittier on his eightieth
+birthday:--
+
+    "How fair a pearl chain, eighty strong,
+      Lustrous and hallowed every one
+    With saintly thoughts and sacred song,
+      As 'twere the rosary of a nun!"
+
+The excitement and nervous exhaustion attendant upon these birthday
+occasions, it always took Mr. Whittier three or four weeks fully to
+recover from. Hence in 1889 (and partly on account of the recent death
+of a beloved cousin), the poet announced, through the press, that he
+should have to ask his friends to spare him any public reception.
+However, December 17 was observed as "Whittier Day" very generally
+throughout the country, as it had been in 1887, in accordance with the
+custom that has grown up of celebrating the birthdays of eminent men in
+the schools, and introducing into their courses of supplementary reading
+selected portions of the writings of each. Among the gifts received at
+Oak Knoll was a painting of a golden vase by Mr. Herman Marcus, of New
+York City, to whom the poet had appeared in a dream, bearing in his
+hand an elegant portfolio of red morocco, containing a picture of a vase
+of Grecian design, richly ornamented, and inscribed with the legend,
+"May in the smallest part thy sorrows lie concealed and all the rest be
+filled with joy overflowing." The portfolio and the picture on its page
+are a close realization of what the donor saw in his dream.
+
+Speaking of visitors, Col. Higginson tells two incidents in point. He
+says two nice little boys called one day on Whittier, saying that they
+had recently called on Longfellow, and, as he had died soon after, they
+thought it best to call at once on Mr. Whittier. One of the poet's
+housekeepers once asked him in severe tones whether all "these people"
+came on business or whether they were relatives. When told that neither
+was the case, she said she did not see what they came for then. "Neither
+did I," said Whittier, with laughing eye.
+
+In December, 1890, Mr. Whittier, who had gone down to Amesbury to vote,
+had been taken ill there, and hardly expected to be able to get back to
+Oak Knoll by the seventeenth. He did arrive, however, on a sunny day.
+Many of his friends spared him visits, merely leaving their cards or
+sending remembrances. His mail was very large, as usual on this day.
+
+In the summer of 1891 Mr. Whittier's health was so feeble that he was
+obliged to abandon his daily walks, except about the grounds at Oak
+Knoll. Driving was too fatiguing for him, and his hearing had grown so
+bad that he could converse only with difficulty.
+
+In Whittier's poem, "The Red River Voyageur," there is a beautiful
+allusion to the "bells of the Roman mission," now the Archepiscopate of
+St. Boniface. Archbishop Tache was reminded by Lieut.-Gov. Schultz that
+December 17, 1891, was the eighty-fourth birthday of the poet, the
+suggestion being made that the anniversary should be greeted by a
+joy-peal from the tower of the Cathedral of St. Boniface, in Winnipeg,
+Manitoba. His Grace cordially concurred, and the graceful tribute was
+rendered at midnight with the last stroke of the clock ushering the
+natal day. Mr. Whittier, having been informed of the incident by United
+States Consul Taylor, wrote to the Archbishop: "I have reached an age
+when literary success and manifestations of popular favor have ceased
+to satisfy one upon whom the solemnity of life's sunset is resting; but
+such a delicate and beautiful tribute has deeply moved me. I shall never
+forget it. I shall hear the bells of St. Boniface sounding across the
+continent, and awakening a feeling of gratitude for thy generous act."
+
+Our poet's eighty-fourth birthday (1891), and alas! his last on earth,
+was delightfully observed at the home of the Cartlands, his cousins, in
+Newburyport, with whom he was spending the winter. Mr. Joseph Cartland
+is himself a Quaker, and his white hair and genial cheery temperament
+are quite of the old regime. He and his wife were teachers in the
+Friends' School at Providence, R. I. Their fine old mansion on High
+Street is the identical one built and lived in by Judge Livermore,
+father of the shrewish saint and devotee of "Snow-Bound." It may be
+stated, too, that it was to succeed one of the Cartlands in the
+editorial chair of the _Pennsylvania Freeman_ that Whittier went to
+Philadelphia in 1838. In this house is kept the old maple-wood desk,
+made by Joseph Whittier, grandfather of the poet, who, by the way,
+"wrote on it his first poem." The desk is about one hundred and eighty
+years old now. On the back are carved the initials "J. W., 1786," in
+large letters. The wood has been smoothed down a little and a coat of
+shellac applied. On the back of the drawers are memoranda in chalk and
+pencil made by Greenleaf's father. On December 17, 1891, the old piece
+of furniture was covered with hundreds of congratulatory letters which
+would have made the old farmer Quaker, its builder, rub his eyes in
+astonishment, could he have seen them.
+
+"As he walks slowly down the broad stairs of the Cartlands at
+Newburyport," says one who saw him on his birthday, "there is much to
+suggest his years, it is true, yet no signs of unusual feebleness. He is
+erect for a man of eighty-four; his early litheness has not degenerated
+into the hopeless leanness of an ill-nourished and uncared-for old age;
+his step does not drag after his body as if unwilling to carry the
+burden longer; his head is not lowered, awaiting the smite of Time."
+
+Another thus describes Whittier in 1891: "In personal appearance he is
+remarkable. Tall, and as straight as one of the young pines in his
+favorite grove, it seems impossible that he is at the end of fourscore
+years. The crown of his head is bald, and his hair is glossy silver; but
+his great black eyes are as clear, bright and piercing as if he were in
+the prime of life. He walks with the deliberation and dignity of age,
+but without a suggestion of physical feebleness, and while he remains
+standing his head is as finely poised as a soldier's. The straightness
+of his figure is the more noticeable on account of his Quaker dress, the
+coat of which fits him as neatly and closely as if it were the
+conventional 'swallow-tail.' When seated and listening, his head drops
+slightly forward and aside--a pose which seems peculiar to poetic
+natures the world over. He is a most appreciative reader of other men's
+books and poems, and talks admirably of all good writings except his
+own, of which he can scarcely be persuaded to speak, even to his dearest
+intimates."
+
+Mr. S. T. Pickard, and Mr. and Mrs. Cartland received the guests in the
+wide hall of the old-fashioned hospitable Quaker home; and the poet
+himself wandered here and there about the room, so said the Boston
+_Advertiser_, "greeting every guest informally and pleasantly, from the
+old and tried comrades of anti-slavery's earliest days to the little
+girl in cream-white dress and wide hat, his little friend Margaret
+Lothrop, who had to stand on tip-toe to greet the bowed head with her
+childish kiss; and whose small hand he held closely as he kept her by
+his side."
+
+A pleasant note was received from Phillips Brooks:--
+
+     "DEAR MR. WHITTIER:
+
+     "I have no right save that which love and gratitude and reverence
+     may give, to say how devoutly I thank God that you have lived, that
+     you are living, and that you will always live. May his peace be
+     with you more and more.
+
+     "Affectionately your friend,
+
+     "PHILLIPS BROOKS."
+
+The first guests to arrive were a deputation of fifty from Haverhill,
+members of the Whittier Club of that town. Whittier made them a little
+speech, saying it was evident that sometimes a prophet was honored in
+his own country.
+
+The house was filled with cut flowers--in the window-seats, on the
+tables, in the poet's bedroom, up-stairs--all gifts from friends. The
+Whittier Club of Haverhill brought eighty-four roses. There was a basket
+of English violets from Mr. and Mrs. D. Lothrop. Mr. C. F. Coffin, of
+Lynn, sent, as usual, his generous basket of fruit. From Mr. E. C.
+Stedman came a painting "High Tide, Hampton Meadows," by Carroll D.
+Brown. And some kindly old soul sent a half-dozen pairs of socks--the
+spirit that prompted the gift as deeply appreciated as that of others.
+Other gifts were: an oil painting of a scene at York Harbor, painted by
+J. L. Smith, of Boston, the frame carved by A. G. Smith; a ruler of
+various inlaid woods from California, the gift of pupils of the workshop
+at West Point, Calaveras County, who wrote a letter, saying that they
+would devote the birthday to reading and speaking selections from his
+works; a paper-cutter made from the wood of Fort Loudon, of Winchester,
+Penn., and sent by the ladies of that place; a hand-painted tray from
+artist Florence Cammett of Amesbury; a late photograph of Dr. Holmes,
+"with his hat in his hand, and his most man-of-the-world air;" a
+souvenir spoon of Independence Hall from W. H. and S. B. Swazey, of
+Newburyport; a picture of the old Mission at Santa Barbara, done on
+native olive-wood, from Professor John Murray, of California; a handsome
+footstool from Elizabeth Cavazza, of Portland, Me.; photogravures of
+scenes about the Whittier homestead in Haverhill; a transparency
+("Snow-Bound") from Austin P. Nichols; eighty-four roses from the girls
+of Lasell Seminary near Boston, and a wreath of evergreens from Mrs.
+Annie Fields.
+
+Among the messages was one from a little Indian maiden whom Whittier had
+befriended: "Your young Mohawk friend asks for you to-day the Great
+Spirit's blessing"--signed, E. Pauline Johnson; a letter came from Abby
+Hutchinson, of the Hutchinson singers.
+
+Among those present were, Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, Sarah Orne Jewett,
+"Margaret Sidney," Mrs. James T. Fields, Mrs. William Claflin, Harriet
+McEwen Kimball, T. E. Burnham, Mayor of Haverhill, and others.
+
+Among the company, conspicuous by those natural gifts that make one a
+centre for intellectual and genial comradeship, was Mr. D. Lothrop--the
+eminent publisher--(since passed away, mourned by all) who probably has
+done more than any other man of present times to create a new literature
+for children and young people, all achieved when it cost to do it, and
+that consumed years of patient, persistent struggling, till his splendid
+success was won.
+
+Mr. Whittier writes to his widow, "Thy husband and Mr. Coffin" (the
+old-time friend referred to), "were the life of my birthday reception,
+and now both are gone before me." (Mr. Coffin died the week after the
+birthday.)
+
+Again, to quote one of the many extracts of Mr. Whittier's letters
+concerning Mr. Lothrop: "Let me sit in the circle of thy mourning, for I
+too have lost in him a friend."
+
+There was much to draw the two men together; both sprang from New
+England ancestry, sturdy as the granite hills of their native State;
+each possessed the same indomitable will, where a question of right was
+involved, and the same breadth of charity for all, of whatsoever creed
+or divergence of opinion.
+
+Mr. Whittier partook of but little food in the dining-room, nibbling a
+bit here and there, and refusing firmly all offers of tea or coffee. His
+eyes, every one noticed, flamed with old-time lustre, whenever he was
+interested.
+
+Letters of congratulation were received from Robert C. Winthrop, Celia
+Thaxter, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Andrew P. Peabody,
+Rose Terry Cooke (who has since died), George W. Cable, T. W. Higginson,
+Charles Eliot Norton, and others.
+
+Donald G. Mitchell wrote that above Whittier's literary art he admired
+the broad and cheery humanities of the man.
+
+For the eighty-fourth birthday the Boston _Advertiser_ printed a superb
+illustrated Whittier number, as did also the Boston _Journal_. For the
+latter Dr. Holmes contributed the following letter:
+
+     MY DEAR WHITTIER:--I congratulate you on having climbed another
+     glacier and crossed another crevasse in your ascent of the white
+     summit which already begins to see the morning twilight of the
+     coming century. A life so well filled as yours has been cannot be
+     too long for your fellow-men and women. In their affections you are
+     secure, whether you are with them here or near them in some higher
+     life than theirs. I hope your years have not become a burden, so
+     that you are tired of living. At our age we must live chiefly in
+     the past. Happy is he who has a past like yours to look back upon.
+
+     It is one of the felicitous incidents--I will not say accidents--of
+     my life that the lapse of time has brought us very near together,
+     so that I frequently find myself honored by seeing my name
+     mentioned in near connection with your own. We are lonely, very
+     lonely, in these last years. The image which I have used before
+     this in writing to you recurs once more to my thought. We were on
+     deck together as we began the voyage of life two generations ago. A
+     whole generation passed, and the succeeding one found us in the
+     cabin, with a goodly company of coevals. Then the craft which held
+     us began going to pieces, until a few of us were left on the raft
+     pieced together of its fragments. And now the raft has at last
+     parted, and you and I are left clinging to the solitary spar, which
+     is all that still remains afloat of the sunken vessel.
+
+     I have just been looking over the headstones in Mr. Griswold's
+     cemetery, entitled "The Poets and Poetry of America." In that
+     venerable receptacle, just completing its half-century of
+     existence--for the date of the edition before me is 1842--I find
+     the names of John Greenleaf Whittier and Oliver Wendell Holmes next
+     each other, in their due order, as they should be. All around are
+     the names of the dead--too often of forgotten dead. Three which I
+     see there are still among those of the living. Mr. John Osborne
+     Sargent, who makes Horace his own by faithful study and ours by
+     scholarly translation; Isaac McLellan, who was writing in 1830, and
+     whose last work is dated 1886; and Christopher P. Cranch, whose
+     poetical gift has too rarely found expression.
+
+     Of these many dead you are the most venerated, revered and beloved
+     survivor; of these few living the most honored representative. Long
+     may it be before you leave a world where your influence has been so
+     beneficent, where your example has been such inspiration, where
+     you are so truly loved, and where your presence is a perpetual
+     benediction.
+
+     Always affectionately yours,
+
+     Oliver Wendell Holmes.
+
+Following is one of two stanzas sent to the Poet of Freedom by his
+friend "Margaret Sidney," and which, says the _Advertiser_, with one
+other tribute, was the only one of the innumerable letters and poems
+sent him that he read in its entirety that day, owing to his failing
+eyesight:
+
+    "To be near the heart of Christ
+          Was his creed;
+    White as truth the life
+          That all men may read;
+    Strengthful of soul,
+          Yet lowly in meekness;
+    Dreading no hate of men,
+          Scorning all weakness,
+    He sounded the warning note,
+          When it cost to be brave and true;
+    Sang freedom for the slave,
+          Then almost death to do.
+        'Unbind every shackle,
+        Loosen each chain,
+        Bid every slave go free!'"
+
+Mr. F. B. Sanborn wrote some interesting autobiographical reminiscences
+for the _Advertiser_. He stated: "I can scarcely remember when I did
+not read Whittier and Holmes. Their verses were eagerly caught up and
+reprinted by all the newspapers, and I knew them by heart before I ever
+saw a volume of them. Whittier, indeed, was almost my neighbor, living
+only eight miles away across the Merrimack, and sometimes coming for
+silent worship or to hear Mrs. Edward Gove speak in the Quaker
+meeting-house at Seabrook, only three miles from the farm of my
+ancestors. But I did not know this then; I never went there to see him.
+He is a distant cousin of mine, both of us tracing descent, through his
+daughters, from that stout and ungovernable old Puritan minister,
+Stephen Bachiler, who planted the old town of Hampton, in whose wide
+limits I was born, and which extended almost to Amesbury."
+
+Another scholarly writer in the same paper wrote instructively of
+Whittier in the Massachusetts Legislature. The Legislature of 1835 he
+describes as a notable one in the quality of its members and in the work
+accomplished. An extra session was held in the autumn. The Speaker of
+the House was Judge Julius Rockwell of Pittsfield, with whom Whittier
+had already formed a personal acquaintance through Judge Rockwell's
+contributions to the _New England Review_. Among the Suffolk County
+representatives were such names as Frothingham, Brooks, Otis, Sturgis,
+Peabody, and Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, also Col. J. B. Fay, the first
+mayor of Chelsea. It is not remembered that Whittier made any set
+speech, but he nevertheless did so much and such arduous work as to make
+himself ill before the session was half over. Dr. Bowditch, he often
+recalled with amusement, told him that, if he followed implicitly the
+rules he laid down for him, he might live to see his fiftieth birthday;
+otherwise, not.
+
+Perhaps no one man has been more frequently interviewed concerning the
+policy of party politics than John G. Whittier. With gifted qualities of
+heart and mind, was added wisdom, prudence and sagacity, in all that
+related to governmental affairs. The late Henry Wilson once said of him,
+"I can rely more safely upon the advice of Whittier than upon any other
+man in America."
+
+In the early movements of the Republican party he was acknowledged to
+be the power behind the throne. Sumner, wise and learned, could trust to
+the advice of Whittier. His correspondence with such men as Giddings,
+Chase, Sumner, Wilson, John P. Hale, Upham and other celebrities, upon
+national topics, is known to a few of his friends. They contain
+sentiments which prove him as wise in statesmanship as he is eloquent in
+verse.
+
+How well and faithfully he labored is best expressed in his words:
+
+    "I am not insensible to literary reputation; I love, perhaps too
+    well, the love and praise of my fellow-men; but I set a higher value
+    on my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of 1833, than
+    on the title page of any book."
+
+On the subject of the abolishment of capital punishment, Whittier's vote
+is found recorded in the affirmative, as might have been expected. He
+has said that one of the pleasantest years of his life was that passed
+during the session of the Legislature in 1835.
+
+One of the chief reasons why Whittier went seven miles from his Amesbury
+home last summer was to "escape pilgrims" (as he called them). One
+Sunday after meeting at Amesbury he said to his life-long friend, Miss
+Gove, "Abby, has thee a spare room up at thy house?" She responded in
+the affirmative, and he went to her home in Hampton Falls for the latter
+part of the summer. It was here he penned his last poem--the verses "To
+Oliver Wendell Holmes:"
+
+    "The gift is thine the weary world to make
+    More cheerful for thy sake,
+    Soothing the ears its Miserere pains
+    With the old Hellenic strains."
+
+In a letter to one of the editors of the _Critic_ (August 29, 1892), Dr.
+Holmes wrote, concerning his birthday:
+
+    "I have received two poems in advance, and our dear friend Whittier,
+    whose heart is a cornucopia of blessings for his fellow-creatures,
+    has remembered me in the pages of the _Atlantic_, where we have
+    found ourselves side by side for so many years. Long may the sands
+    of his life keep running, for they come from the bed of Pactolus."
+
+The news of his friend's death was received by Dr. Holmes in Beverly,
+just as he was coming in from a drive along the shore. It was a heavy
+blow, coming as it did just upon the death of Lowell, Thomas Parsons,
+and George William Curtis. He remarked that his acquaintance with
+Whittier dated from the year of the founding of the _Atlantic Monthly_.
+He had frequently visited him at Oak Knoll. He was there last year, and
+the two old fellows walked and talked among the trees and had a good
+time together. When the Doctor was leaving, his friend loaded him down
+with fruit. It was on one of these recent visits that Dr. Holmes with
+characteristic keenness of perception, discovered the beautiful symmetry
+of the grand Norway spruce in front of the mansion on the wide sweep of
+lawn, and he laughingly named it "The Poet's Pagoda," and this name it
+has kept ever since.
+
+To return to "Elmfield," as the old Gove mansion is called. The
+old-fashioned house, with its upper balconies, heavy chimneys, and rich
+collection of historical relics, stands on a hill not far from the falls
+which gave the name to the village--Hampton Falls. The sight from
+Whittier's window commanded a little balcony, with a view of the distant
+blue sea. One day after another passed quietly away, he rising at
+seven, going across through a pine grove to the adjoining tavern for his
+breakfast, getting the mail at the little post-office, reading the
+papers, looking at the distant sails on the sea through a glass,
+conversing with friends or walking in the neighboring orchard, with its
+paths and rustic seats. The region is that where his Bachiler and Hussey
+ancestors both lived, as Mr. F. B. Sanborn tells us (Boston
+_Advertiser_, September 8, 1892). Daniel Webster's Bachiler ancestors
+also lived on a farm, a mile and a half from the Gove mansion; namely,
+where now stands the villa of Warren Brown. As Mr. Sanborn truthfully
+says, Whittier has been the local poet of this whole region of Essex and
+adjoining counties. "No poet of New England," he continues, "has lived
+so close to the actual habits of the people, in the present and the past
+centuries, as did Whittier; and his poems of locality will become as
+much a feature of New England literature as are those of Burns and Scott
+in their native country. This fidelity to homely fact and profound
+sentiment have made Whittier more than any other the patrial and
+religious poet of New Hampshire and Eastern Massachusetts. He has done
+in verse what Hawthorne did in prose. It was only the accident or
+accomplishment of verse which separated these two poets, and made one of
+them our most graceful and romantic prose-writer, while the other became
+our most spiritual and literal poet."
+
+The truth of these statements comes home to me with force since I made a
+week's itinerary through this Whittier ballad land a year ago, and saw
+how every mile of coast land was celebrated in storied verse by
+Whittier.
+
+On Wednesday, August 31, Mr. Whittier was taken ill. The malady was
+acute diarrhea, which by the Saturday following developed a new and
+alarming symptom, a remarkable irregularity of the heart's action,
+accompanied by partial paralysis of the left side, arms, and vocal
+organs. He remained conscious until Tuesday at three P. M., when the
+symptoms became markedly worse. He was surrounded by ministering
+relatives and friends, who gave him every loving attention, but all were
+powerless to stay the hand of death.
+
+When urged to take the nourishment prescribed by his physicians, he
+said: "I want water from Abby's (Miss Gove) nice well," and as it was
+given, remarked with a bright smile, "That's good--nothing better." Soon
+after, as his forehead was being bathed, he said, "That is all that can
+be done." To his attending physicians, Drs. Douglass and Howe, and
+nurse, he said: "I am worn out--thee have done what thee could--I thank
+thee." And as the end drew near the dying poet recognized his niece from
+Portland, and remarked in faltering words, "Love--to--the--world." These
+were his last words. He died at four-thirty on the morning of the
+seventh. At seven o'clock on Friday evening the silent form of the poet
+was brought to Amesbury, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. S. T. Pickard, and
+Mr. and Mrs. Cartland.
+
+On Saturday morning business was entirely suspended in Amesbury. The
+selectmen issued the following proclamation:--
+
+     "To the Citizens of Amesbury:--Our town has been saddened by the
+     death of its great poet and one of its noblest and best-loved
+     citizens. We feel that our country at large, and the civilized
+     world, mourns with us the death of the poet and liberty-loving
+     philanthropist, John G. Whittier.
+
+     "Sharing the sadness which must come to the wise and good
+     everywhere, we, the people of Amesbury, mourn the loss of a friend
+     and neighbor endeared to us by his lovable qualities and the purity
+     of his daily life in our midst.
+
+     "We revered him for his greatness, and loved him for himself.
+     Always identified with every good work in Amesbury, sustaining the
+     right and defending the oppressed, his life for more than half a
+     century has been to us a daily sermon.
+
+     "If it be true that
+
+          'The heart speaketh most when the life move,'
+
+     we can only add that such a life, with its fullness of years and
+     its crown of blessings, is a rich legacy to the community."
+
+[Illustration: THE GOVE HOUSE, HAMPTON FALLS, N. H., IN WHICH WHITTIER
+DIED.]
+
+At ten o'clock the public was admitted to the house, passing in a
+continuous line (as at the funeral of dear old Walt Whitman, his brother
+poet of Democracy, a few months before in Camden) through the humble
+little parlor of the Amesbury home. It was originally intended to hold
+the services in the Friends' meeting-house near by; but the dense fog
+clearing up and the bright sun coming out--as one beautifully said, "the
+mystery of death typified by the shifting and elusive shadows of the
+fog, and the glory and hopefulness of the resurrection by the bright
+rays of the sun"--it was decided to let the body rest in the house, and
+hold memorial services in the quiet garden in the rear of the house.
+The funeral arrangements were in charge of William Lloyd Garrison, Jr.,
+S. T. Pickard and Judge G. W. Cate, the tenant of the house. The
+atmosphere was one of peace and restfulness, and the simplicity of the
+life of the Friends was seen in all the arrangements. In the quaint
+parlor of the homestead lay all that was mortal of the poet, on whose
+face was an expression of supreme peace; his form was encircled by a
+delicate fringe of trailing fern. A most beautiful wreath from Dr.
+Oliver Wendell Holmes--eighty-four white roses, fringed with carnations
+and maidenhair ferns, one for each year of the poet's life,--was laid
+around the name-plate on the coffin. It was a touching tribute by the
+last one of that remarkable galaxy of poets that marked such a
+distinguished era in our American literature. Two crossed palms, with
+the Japan lilies Whittier loved so well, encircled by a broad white
+satin ribbon, were from Mrs. Daniel Lothrop. The fronds of the long
+palms encircled the face of the dead poet as it looked out from the
+large engraving between the windows of the parlor. Upon the end of the
+ribbon was delicately painted six lines from Whittier's "Andrew
+Rykman's Prayer:"
+
+    "Some sweet morning yet in God's
+    Dim aeonian periods,
+    Joyful I shall wake to see
+    Those I love who rest in Thee,
+    And to them in Thee allied
+    Shall my soul be satisfied."
+
+Upon the accompanying card was this: "In memory of my husband's dear
+friend. This verse of 'Andrew Rykman's Prayer' was consolation in the
+hour of death to both him who wrote it, and to him who loved it.--Mrs.
+Daniel Lothrop."
+
+Another exquisite floral offering came with these lines:
+
+    "I know not where His islands lift
+      Their fronded palms in air;
+    I only know I cannot drift
+      Beyond His love and care."
+
+On the back of the card were the words "Oak Knoll."
+
+The alcove behind the casket was filled with floral tributes. Here was a
+large St. Andrew's cross of exquisite white roses upon a bed of ivy,
+from a very near and dear friend of Mr. Whittier's at Lexington, whose
+name is withheld. There was a ladder of hydrangeas, gladioli, carnations
+and snow-balls from Mrs. Albert Clarke of Amesbury, an ivy wreath from
+Sarah Orne Jewett, a sheaf of wheat from Mrs. Lizzie Cheney and the
+Misses Coffin of Lynn, a broken shaft of white carnations from Mr. and
+Mrs. J. Henry Hall of Amesbury. A massive wreath of Whittier's own
+much-loved pine tassels was hung above the portrait of his sister
+Elizabeth, the tribute of Mrs. Joseph A. Purington; the heavy green was
+relieved by a spray of bright, contrasting goldenrod. Mrs. Samuel
+Rowell, Jr., sent a basket of white roses and maidenhair. There was a
+beautiful spray of the passion flower from L. Kelcher, Hotel Winthrop,
+Boston, and an hour-glass of white carnations from Mr. J. R. Fogg. Many
+touching little clusters of flowers came from the children; and his
+neighbors sent a beautiful wreath of fringed gentian--Whittier's
+favorite flower. This came from the far Pacific Slope: "Lay one flower
+for me upon the bier of the beloved friend who rests. No purer soul
+ever passed from earth to Heaven, or bore with it greater love and
+blessing than does his.--Ina D. Coolbrith, Oakland, Cal."
+
+In the garden, and overlooked by the windows of the study where Mr.
+Whittier wrote and thought for so many years, was gathered to pay the
+last tributes of love and reverence to the dead poet, a large and
+notable assemblage: Gen. O. O. Howard, E. C. Stedman, Mrs. Alice Freeman
+Palmer, Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-Ward, Gail Hamilton, Lucy Larcom,
+Edna Dean Proctor, Horace E. Scudder, T. W. Higginson, ex-Governor
+Claflin, Parker Pillsbury, Francis H. Underwood, Edward L. Pierce,
+Robert S. Rantoul, Mrs. C. A. Dall, "Margaret Sidney," Harriet Prescott
+Spofford, Mrs. Endicott, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Jr., Frank J. Garrison,
+etc.
+
+And the sight was one never to be forgotten. Under the soft September
+sky, blue and cloudless, in the shade of pear and apple trees which
+Whittier himself had planted and tended and loved, were his relatives,
+friends, neighbors and men and women whose names are known wherever the
+English language is spoken.
+
+It scarcely seemed like a funeral, so unaffectedly natural and sincere
+was every spoken word and every act. And the entire absence of formality
+and stiffness deprived the occasion of that artificial gloom which is so
+often characteristic of funerals.
+
+Perhaps, too, the subtle influence of the balmy air and the beauties of
+the place helped to lift the pall that must have hung over many a heart.
+It was as if the friends of some dearly beloved man, who was going on a
+journey, had gathered to bid him God-speed--not as if they had come to
+bid him farewell.
+
+A hollow square was formed around a low platform, and near by was a
+table with a Bible upon it. Gentians, one of Whittier's favorite
+flowers, and goldenrod formed the only floral ornaments. Back of the
+seats stood a dense crowd that must have numbered thousands, almost
+filling the garden. Children climbed the trees and looked with open-eyed
+wonder on the scene. On an apple bough, his naked legs dangling in the
+air almost over the head of Edmund Clarence Stedman, was an urchin who
+might have inspired the "Barefoot Boy;" faces peered from many a tree,
+from the vine-clad arbor and from the window of a neighboring barn, down
+upon the crowd.
+
+The poet's relatives, and members of the Society of Friends from various
+places, occupied the seats forming the hollow square, an easy-chair
+being reserved for Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he was unable to be
+present.
+
+The Friends gave the exercises their peculiar complexion; first one and
+then another rising to eulogize their friend as the "Spirit moved them."
+Verses of Whittier were recited by "that lovely Quaker lady," Mrs.
+Gertrude Cartland, and by Mrs. James H. Chace. Mr. E. C. Stedman was the
+last speaker.
+
+He spoke of the personal loss he felt in the poet's death. "To know him
+was a consecration, to have his sympathy a benediction. His passing away
+was not so much a death as a translation. He is gone, and has not left
+his mantle! How could he? Why should he? No one can overestimate his
+artless art, his power, vigor and effect in his polemic efforts. No one
+put so much heart or so much religion into his writings. He was one of
+the great trio of New England poets, of whom there is only one now
+left. They are the vanishers of whom he spoke. He was a believer in the
+inward life, as a poet should be. He will be his own successor, and
+belongs to our time as well as to that earlier time to which he is
+linked by his work. We may say of him that the chariot swung low and he
+was translated, dividing the waters of truth, beauty, and religion, with
+his mantle. The last time I spoke at a memorial service was at Bayard
+Taylor's funeral. Taylor was Whittier's friend, and like Whittier he had
+a firm belief in immortality."
+
+It is to Mr. Stedman that Whittier dedicated in a few choice lines his
+latest volume of verse, "At Sundown," which the poet, as if prescient of
+his coming death, had had privately printed and circulated among a few
+friends a year before his fatal illness.
+
+The most picturesque and striking figure at Whittier's funeral was that
+of the venerable John W. Hutchinson, whose long gray hair fell over a
+broad white Rembrandt collar. He and his sister, Abby Hutchinson Patton,
+were life-long friends of Whittier, and their voices in the song they
+sang--"Close his eyes, his work is done"--were, "like the echoes of
+sweet bells from the far-away time of their youth, when they and
+Whittier were one in endeavor."
+
+And then the long procession was formed. In the family lot, in the
+Friends' section of the Union Cemetery, where are buried his father,
+mother, sisters and brother, John Greenleaf Whittier was laid to rest.
+
+The Boston _Journal_, in writing of Whittier's obsequies, gathered up
+this tender reminiscence:--
+
+    "We recall the incident of some ten years since, when Mr. Daniel
+    Lothrop, the late publisher, while visiting in California, used
+    Whittier's poem, 'Andrew Rykman's Prayer' to comfort the bereaved.
+    Mr. Lothrop had, as it were, been brought up on Mr. Whittier's
+    poems, there being in many ways a great similarity of tastes and
+    characteristics between them. Of late years there was a strong
+    friendship. The clergyman of a prominent Oakland church had died
+    suddenly in the pulpit some few weeks before, and at the large
+    memorial meeting Mr. Lothrop was asked without warning by the
+    chairman to recite this poem, as he had heard him repeat a few
+    lines from it during a consecration meeting. Mr. Lothrop ascended
+    the platform and gave the poem entire. There was a profound hush
+    throughout the vast assembly, like that following the instant when
+    the beloved pastor had suddenly fallen before their eyes. Many were
+    in tears, all agreeing that Whittier's strong, uplifting words
+    comforted them more than anything else that had been said. Rev. Dr.
+    Gordon, in the address at Mr. Lothrop's funeral in the Old South
+    Church, appropriately recited this poem for the late publisher, who
+    on his death-bed used this poem, as he had in health and strength."
+
+James G. Blaine telegraphed that he had "long regarded Whittier with
+affectionate veneration," and over the wire came from Frederick Douglas
+the words, "Emancipated millions will hold his memory sacred." Speaking
+of Mr. Blaine, a writer, "S. F. M.," in the Boston _Journal_, December
+18, 1891, tells of Mr. Blaine's presenting his, "S. F. M.'s," brother
+with a morocco-bound copy of the beautiful Mussey edition, and of Mr.
+Blaine's reading and re-reading aloud, one Sunday at their house in
+Charlestown, Mass., the poem "Among the Hills," which had then just
+been issued.
+
+Memorial services on the afternoon of the funeral were held in Danvers,
+Haverhill, Salem, Mass., and Vassalboro, Maine. The old Whittier grange
+at the cross roads in Haverhill was draped in mourning. The present
+owner of the birthplace is Mr. George E. Elliott, a retired wealthy
+gentleman of Haverhill; and it is hoped that at no distant day he may be
+induced to sell it to the town of Haverhill, who would sacredly keep
+this cherished spot marking the nativity of her distinguished son, so
+that all lovers of John G. Whittier's poetry may have an opportunity to
+see his early home.
+
+The day after the funeral between seventeen and eighteen hundred people
+visited the grave. And, as in the case of Walt Whitman's grave, each one
+wanted a leaf or flower as a memento, so that it was necessary in both
+cases to have the place of sepulture guarded by special watchmen, in
+order that anything green be left.
+
+The funeral of the poet was conducted as he himself wished. For in his
+will he wrote, "It is my wish that my funeral may be conducted in the
+plain and quiet way of the Society of Friends, with which I am connected
+not only by birthright, but also by a settled conviction of the truth of
+its principles and the importance of its testimonies." Mr. Whittier, by
+the way, in his will requests all who have letters of his to refrain
+from publishing them unless with the consent of his literary executor,
+Mr. S. T. Pickard.
+
+So beautifully ended a most beautiful life--beautiful because just and
+heroic in the defense of justice. As says of him James Herbert Morse:--
+
+    "Such was the man--no more than simple man,
+      Plain Quaker, with the Norman-Saxon glow;
+    But seeing beauty so, and justice so,
+      We love to think him the American."
+
+And as Lowell says:--
+
+    "Peaceful by birthright as a virgin lake,
+      The lily's anchorage, which no eyes behold
+    Save those of stars, yet for thy brother's sake
+      That lay in bonds thou blew'st a blast as bold
+    As that wherewith the heart of Roland brake,
+      Far heard through Pyrenean valleys cold!"
+
+The lines strong and resonant, of Stedman's "Ad Vatem," addressed to
+Whittier while living, might well have been uttered over his bier:--
+
+    "Whittier, the land that loves thee, she whose child
+    Thou art, and whose uplifted hands thou long
+    Hast staid with song availing like a prayer--
+    She feels a sudden pang who gave thee birth,
+    And gave to thee the lineaments supreme
+    Of her own freedom, that she could not make
+    Thy tissues all immortal, or, if to change,
+    To bloom through years coeval with her own;
+    So that no touch of age nor frost of time
+    Should wither thee, nor furrow thy dear face,
+    Nor fleck thy hair with silver. Ay, she feels
+    A double pang that thee, with each new year
+    Glad youth may not revisit, like the spring
+    That routs her northern winter and anew
+    Melts off the hoar snow from her puissant hills."
+
+Many pleasant anecdotes of the Quaker poet appeared shortly after his
+death. Col. T. W. Higginson, writing of the Amesbury home, said of
+Whittier's mother:--
+
+    "On one point only this blameless soul seemed to have a shadow of
+    solicitude, this being the new wonder of Spiritualism just dawning
+    on the world. I never went to the house that there did not come from
+    the gentle lady very soon a placid inquiry from behind her knitting
+    needles, 'Has thee any further information to give in regard to the
+    spiritual communications, as they call them?' But if I attempted to
+    treat seriously a matter which then, as now, puzzled most inquirers
+    by its perplexing details, there would come some keen thrust from
+    Elizabeth Whittier which would throw all serious solution further
+    off than ever.
+
+    "She was indeed a brilliant person, unsurpassed in my memory for the
+    light cavalry charges of wit; as unlike her mother and brother as if
+    she had been born into a different race. Instead of his regular
+    features, she had a wild, bird-like look, with prominent nose and
+    large liquid dark eyes, whose expression vibrated every instant
+    between melting softness and impetuous wit. There was nothing about
+    her that was not sweet and kindly, but you were constantly taxed to
+    keep up with her sallies and hold your own; while her graver brother
+    listened with delighted admiration and rubbed his hands over bits of
+    merry sarcasm which were utterly alien to his own vein. His manifold
+    visitors were touched off in living colors; two plump and rosy
+    Western girls among them, who had lately descended upon the
+    household beaming with eagerness to see the poet.
+
+    "They had announced themselves as the Cary sisters, who had lately
+    sent him their joint poems--verses, it will be remembered, crowded
+    with deaths and melodious dirges that seemed ludicrously
+    inconsistent with the blooming faces at the door. Mrs. Whittier met
+    them rather guardedly and explained that her son was out. 'But we
+    will come in and wait for him,' they smilingly replied. 'But he is
+    in Boston, and may not be home for a week,' said the prudent mother.
+    'No matter,' they said, in the true spirit of Western hospitality;
+    'we can stay till he returns.' There was no resource but to admit
+    them; and happily the poet came back next day, and there ensued a
+    life-long friendship, in which the mother fully shared."
+
+And another reminiscence appeared in the press, touching the poet's
+residence in Boston.
+
+When Mrs. Celia Thaxter was boarding at the little English-like inn on
+the sunny slope of Beacon Hill called Hotel Winthrop, Mr. Whittier went
+there one day to see her. Mrs. Thaxter liked the quiet place, with its
+ivied window and its glimpse of the strong, short, green-draped tower of
+St. John the Evangelist's, and she praised it to her old friend. That
+was some time in 1881, and in November of that year he joined his Oak
+Knoll cousins, Mrs. Woodman and her daughter and the Misses Johnson, at
+the Winthrop. The ladies of the family came in September, but Mr.
+Whittier did not join them until November. He said that he did not want
+to lose his vote in Amesbury.
+
+It was a winter full of pleasure to the poet. He was then not too feeble
+to go out evenings, and he spent many pleasant hours with friends like
+the Claflins and others. But the hours in the parlor of the hotel make
+the place historic, and give it a special interest and meaning for his
+future biographer. Mr. Whittier had room fourteen (the number of a
+sonnet's lines, twice seven, with luck for a poet), and the fire-escape
+made a little balcony for him on a corner toward St. John's. The
+landlord had a door cut through the thick old wall to the rooms
+adjoining, and these were the rooms of Mrs. Woodman and the rest. It is
+old Boston decidedly in that quarter. The brick of the houses is mellow
+old red, and there is nothing newfangled anywhere about. Mr. Whittier
+said he preferred coming here rather than to one of the big hotels,
+because there he was "overwhelmed with the service," and here it seemed
+"more like Amesbury," where people "are neighborly and drop in without
+knocking." He had "always been used to waiting upon himself," and he
+"liked being in a place where they would let him."
+
+It was his custom, mornings, to come down into the little reception-room
+on the street floor, and "sitting right in that chair where you're
+sitting," as the writer was told, he "used to read his letters and throw
+all the papers in a pile on the floor and go off and leave them." That
+little room was a great place of congregation for "the family," as the
+boarders who were there with Mr. Whittier liked to call themselves.
+
+The poet would sit on the sofa with a favored one on each side of him
+and the rest in a group about, "often on footstools or on the floor, as
+like as not," while he "told stories of war times." Gen. Stevens was
+there during one of the poet's long stays; he had been a classmate of
+Gen. Lee and of Jefferson Davis at West Point, and he and the abolition
+poet discussed these men and their times from the broader view of later
+days.
+
+"Once a friend, a lady who had some property in Virginia, wrote Mr.
+Whittier of having named a street in a new town for him, and of having
+set aside a portion of ground in his name. He replied with thanks,
+saying that he had that week received news of no less than three towns
+or streets being named for him with a gift of town lots, adding, 'If
+this sort of thing goes on much longer, I shall be land poor.'
+
+"During the winters he was at the Winthrop, Mr. Whittier's favorite way
+of getting about was in a herdic. They were 'not pretty,' but they 'knew
+the way to places.' Politicians used to go there to see him and try to
+get him to banquets. But his life-long avoidance of politics in the
+minor sense made him easily resist their wiles. 'I have seen Mr. ---- (a
+well-known name) come here and just about go down on his knees to get
+Mr. Whittier to speak or even to come to a banquet,' says the landlord
+(who is, by the way, an old-time character worthy of a novelist's pen),
+'but Mr. Whittier would just sit here--right in that chair you're
+in--and kind of smile to himself as if to say, "Oh! your talk don't
+amount to anything." Well, once Mr. ---- came here and staid and staid
+a-talking and persuading, and gave Mr. Whittier an earache if ever a man
+had one. But he didn't make anything by it, although he finally had to
+take a bed and stay all night.'"
+
+Mr. Charles Brainard visited Whittier soon after the publication of
+"Snow-Bound." Finding his house painted and improved, he remarked to
+him, "It is evident that poetry has ceased to be a drug in the market."
+
+"The next morning Mr. Whittier's answer came. It was in the winter, and,
+as the poet went up to the fire to warm his boots preparatory to putting
+them on, he said, 'Thee will have to excuse me, for I must go down to
+the office of the Collector.' Then, with a humorous gleam in his eye, he
+added, 'Since "Snow-Bound" was published, I have risen to the dignity of
+an income tax.'"
+
+To an Englishman who visited him not long before his death, Mr. Whittier
+expressed his surprise that his guest should know so much of his poetry
+by heart. "I wonder," he said, "thou shouldst burden thy memory with
+all that rhyme. It is not well to have too much of it: better get rid of
+it as soon as possible. Why, I can't remember any of it. I once went to
+hear a wonderful orator, and he wound up his speech with a poetical
+quotation, and I clapped with all my might. Some one touched me on the
+shoulder, and said. 'Do you know who wrote that?' I said, 'No, I don't;
+but it's good.' It seems I had written it myself. The fault is I have
+written far too much."
+
+Here is a story illustrating Whittier's kind-heartedness: A young lady,
+a neighbor, was asked to take tea at his house. "He had no servant at
+the moment, and, with the assistance of his guest, prepared the simple
+meal with his own hand. She contributed to the press for her support,
+and prepared a minute account of the affair, of which Mr. Whittier
+chanced to be advised, and sent off a remonstrance post haste. But when
+the young author pleaded the real need of the money which the little
+story was to bring her, and the harmlessness to its subject of its
+effective details, the former reason (for the latter would never have
+overcome his abhorrence of what he must have felt a vivisection)
+actually prevailed, and he permitted the publication with a benignant
+forbearance."
+
+The Hon. Nathan Crosby, LL. D., writes in the Essex Institute
+Collections for 1880.
+
+    "James F. Otis, nephew of the Hon. H. G. Otis, while reading law in
+    my office, found in some newspaper a piece of poetry which he said
+    he was told had been written by a shoemaker boy in Haverhill, and he
+    wished to go and find him. Upon his return he told me he found the
+    young man by the name of Whittier at work in his shoe shop, and,
+    making himself known to him, they spent the day together in
+    wandering over the hills on the shore of the Merrimack, and in
+    conversation upon literary matters. The next year he became an
+    editor. Mr. Whittier is not only a poet, but is himself a poem."
+
+Mr. Whittier, when interviewed some time ago as to his favorite works,
+replied: "Oh! really, I have none. Much that I have written I wish was
+as deep in the Red Sea as Pharaoh's chariot wheels. Much of the bread
+cast on the waters I wish had never returned. It is not fair to revive
+writings composed in the shadow of conditions that make every
+acceptable work impossible. In my early life I was not favored with good
+opportunities. Limited chances for education and a lack of books always
+stood in my way. When I began to write I had seen nothing, and virtually
+knew nothing of the world. Of course, things written then could not be
+worth much. In my father's house there were not a dozen books, and they
+were of a severe type. The only one that approached poetry was a rhymed
+history of King David, written by a contemporary of George Fox, the
+Quaker. There was one poor novel in the family. It belonged to an aunt.
+This I secured one day, but when I had read it about half through I was
+discovered and it was taken away from me."
+
+This was about the time when Judge Pickering, of Salem, and a party of
+ladies called at the farm-house to see him. "He was then an awkward boy
+of seventeen--as he used to tell the story--and was just then under the
+barn, looking for eggs. Hearing his name called, he came up with his hat
+full and found himself suddenly in the presence of people more elegant
+in appearance than any he had ever met. In telling the story, he added
+naively, 'They came to see the Quaker poet--and they saw him!' This must
+have been about the year 1824."
+
+Mr. T. W. Ball (in the Boston _Journal_, Dec. 18, 1891, weekly edition),
+the journalist, wrote of his sole interview in 1848 with Whittier, in a
+little editorial den at the junction of Spring Lane and Water Street
+with Devonshire Street (the building recently torn down), where Henry
+Wilson was then editing the Free-Soil paper (owned by him as well). "I
+was busy," says Mr. Ball, "getting up some local items one morning, when
+a gentleman of staid appearance, with a beaming countenance, a
+broad-brimmed fur hat--the old-fashioned fur hat, so different from the
+silk tile--and a brownish coat of formal cut, entered the room, and,
+after the usual courtesies of salutation, fell into a close chat with
+the 'Natick cobbler,' by which popular title the future Vice-President
+was then known. It was the summer season, and Wilson was resplendent in
+a brown linen coat and a flaming red-checked velvet waistcoat, which was
+much affected in those days. As the conversation between the two waxed
+interesting, I noticed that the visitor unbuttoned his vest for comfort,
+and possessed himself of an exchange paper which he converted into a
+fan. The interview closed, and the visitor, buttoning up his vest and
+donning his hat, turned to depart, when for the first time he appeared
+to take notice of my presence. With a rapid glance at Wilson, he said,
+'Henry, who is thy young friend?'
+
+"'Oh, that's William, my local reporter,' was the reply. 'Here, William,
+this is Mr. Whittier, the Quaker poet, that you have heard about; shake
+hands with him.' I timidly extended my hand, and the great man not only
+grasped it with a cordial grasp, but, patting me on the head with his
+other hand, said, 'My young friend, thee has chosen a noble calling.'"
+
+Mr. Whittier, in speaking of Longfellow's works a few years ago, said,
+"'Evangeline' is a favorite with me. I think it is one of the most
+beautiful of poems. Longfellow had an easy life and superior advantages
+of association and education, and so did Emerson. It was widely
+different with me, and I am very thankful for the kind esteem that
+people have given my writings. Before 'Evangeline' was written I had
+hunted up the history of the banishment of the Acadians, and had
+intended to write upon it myself, but I put it off, and Hawthorne got
+hold of the story and gave it to Longfellow. I am very glad he did, for
+he was just the one to write it. If I had attempted it I should have
+spoiled the artistic effect of the poem by my indignation at the
+treatment of the exiles by the Colonial Government, who had a very hard
+lot after coming to this country. Families were separated and scattered
+about, only a few of them being permitted to remain in any given
+locality. The children were bound out to the families in the localities
+in which they resided, and I wrote a poem upon finding in the records of
+Haverhill the indenture that bound an Acadian girl as a servant in one
+of the families in that neighborhood. Gathering the story of her death,
+I wrote 'Marguerite.'"
+
+In addition to what has been stated in this volume and elsewhere by me
+on the Barbara Frietchie ballad, are to be finally appended a few words,
+suggested by the one who sent the raw material of the ballad to
+Whittier, namely, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, who, soon after the
+poet's death, at her pretty home in Georgetown, D. C., recalled the
+circumstances as they occurred back in 1863. It seems that the story was
+told her by a neighbor of hers who was also a relative of Barbara--Mr.
+C. S. Ramsburg. Mrs. Southworth's son, who was present, remarked, "What
+a grand subject for a poem by Whittier, mother!"
+
+She thereupon sat down, and with tears in her eyes, wrote the incident
+out and sent it to Amesbury. Mr. Whittier replied as follows:--
+
+     "AMESBURY, 9mo. 8, 1863.
+
+     "MY DEAR MRS. SOUTHWORTH:--I heartily thank thee for thy very kind
+     letter and its inclosed "message." It ought to have fallen into
+     better hands, but I have just written out a little ballad of
+     "Barbara Frietchie," which will appear in the next _Atlantic_. If
+     it is good for anything thee deserves all the credit of it.
+
+     "With best wishes for thy health and happiness, I am most truly thy
+     friend,
+
+     "JOHN G. WHITTIER."
+
+It is said that Mr. Whittier expressed regret for having made a bonfire
+of nearly all the letters he had received from his correspondents for
+over half a century. It is to be hoped that his literary executor will
+be liberal-minded in allowing the publication of the most interesting of
+Whittier's own letters, for he put a good bit of his sister Elizabeth's
+wit and vivacity into his letters; and scarcely a day passed that one or
+more of these was not written, overflowing with kindly words and good
+humor, though these, it is true, could give no hint of that lambent
+gleam of the marvelous eyes, nor of that sudden compression of the upper
+lip with which he repressed a smile when he had flashed out a bit of
+humor.
+
+Whittier was not only quick in repartee, but quick and lithe in all his
+movements, and quick in his mental processes. His friend, Judge G. W.
+Cate, says he latterly read books very rapidly by inspection, turning
+the leaves and seizing the contents by intuition. The poet's
+imagination, continues Judge Cate, was wonderful. Years ago he may have
+read an accurate description of some remote place--Malta, Jerusalem, or
+some smaller town in the far East. He would then converse at any time as
+readily about such a place as if he had been there. It was this vivid
+remembrance of places, Whittier himself said, which made him not care so
+much to visit them in person. He was never a traveler, not having been
+farther from home than Philadelphia (half a century ago), and Washington
+somewhat later. He said that he should like to be in California or
+Florida for a winter, but the getting there appalled him, and so he sat
+contentedly in his Northern study, with its bright open fire, finding in
+its crumbling embers a compensatory dream of the _Morgenland_ with its
+palms, mirages and luxuriant blossomry. He followed with deep interest
+the toils and adventures of his friend Greely in the arctic regions, and
+rejoiced with all his neighbors when word came of his rescue. And at
+another time he said he "would rather shake hands with Stanley than with
+any other man in the world just then."
+
+The sincerest mourners at Whittier's funeral were women. One of the
+peculiarities of his life was the devotion and loving care given to him
+by noble women--sisters, mother, nieces, cousins and such poet friends
+as Lucy Larcom, Mrs. Spofford, Rose Terry Cooke, Sarah Orne Jewett,
+Celia Thaxter, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Mrs. Annie Fields. He was
+always an ardent defender of woman suffrage, and such advocates of that
+noble cause as Adelaide A. Claflin publicly expressed their sorrow on
+the death of their coadjutor and friend.
+
+He was not only liberal in politics, but also in religion, and while
+remaining from choice in the creedless church of his fathers, yet he had
+sympathies that allied him with the broad humanitarian movements of the
+times in religion. There was no shred of bigotry in his nature. Who ever
+heard of a persecuting Quaker? It is they who have always patiently
+suffered persecution. Whittier, indeed, belonged with the advance guard
+of the Friends, in spirit at least, and he said in a letter written
+shortly before his death, "For years I have been desirous of a movement
+for uniting all Christians, with no other creed or pledge than a simple
+recognition of Christ as our leader."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Whittier Club of Haverhill, an organization the poet had thoroughly
+enjoyed, not only because it represented the feeling of his native town
+toward him, but also from the constant attentions paid him by it, held a
+memorial service in Haverhill, October 7. It was a rare day of tribute
+and thanksgiving, and all who participated in it felt grateful for the
+honor allowed them. It was just a month from the day when the loved poet
+and former citizen passed from earth. Mr. George E. Elliott, the owner
+of Whittier's birthplace, very generously allowed the club to hold its
+meeting in the old homestead, and he furthered in every way their
+well-conceived plan by which the several rooms presented an appearance
+as near as possible to that of the poet's boyhood. The partition in the
+old kitchen, that had been put up of late years, was taken down,
+disclosing the array of ancient cupboards and queer little window; there
+was the kettle hanging on the crane in the wide fireplace, along whose
+hearth one almost expected to see "the apples sputtering in a row," as
+of yore. There were the iron fire-dogs and the antiquated chairs, the
+wainscoting untouched by the hand of Time, save to grow mellower of
+tint, and there was "the sagging beam," the uneven floor and the quaint
+staircase, all just as Whittier, the boy, saw and touched and lived
+amongst, all those impressible years of his life.
+
+It was a notable company gathered in that old homestead that beautiful
+October day--bidden there by the Whittier Club--not large in numbers, as
+the invitations were of necessity limited to the capacity of the old
+homestead. But they were mostly the poet's dear friends who came to do
+honor to his name. There was Lucy Larcom, William Lloyd Garrison, Jr.,
+Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney and "Margaret Sidney" (Mrs. D. Lothrop); there was
+Charles Carleton Coffin and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Garrison and Miss
+Sparhawk, whose father, Dr. Thomas Sparhawk of Amesbury, was one of the
+poet's life-long friends. There was the dear Quaker presence of Mrs.
+Purington, Mr. Whittier's cousin, and the members of his family at Oak
+Knoll, Mrs. Woodman, her daughter, Miss Phebe, and the Misses Johnson;
+there was Mr. S. T. Pickard of Portland, Maine, who married the poet's
+niece Lizzie, and who is Mr. Whittier's literary executor. And there
+were other relatives and friends and Haverhill citizens thronging the
+house, and listening outside the little many-paned windows to catch the
+echoes of the words being uttered within.
+
+The day was all that one could desire who looked for sympathy in Nature
+toward this her favorite child who has so interpreted her woods and
+fields, her autumn skies and the trembling line of river and coast. The
+old kitchen was filled with chairs, and on them, and crowded in the
+doorways and peeping in the windows, were the interested and reverent
+listeners. Mr. Charles Howe, the president of the club, presided with
+great grace and dignity; with rare tact culling from the large amount of
+what waited to be read and said, just such choice extracts and bits of
+reminiscence as would best serve the purpose of the hour. Selections
+from "Snow-Bound" were read by a member of the club in that room where
+"Snow-Bound" was lived, if one may so express it. And to the listeners
+there came a vision of wintry fields and whirling storm; of the little
+knot of friends drawn close to the friendly comforting fire on the
+hearth; in the midst the thoughtful sensitive boy who was to awaken the
+love and veneration of future generations all over his country.
+
+There were reminiscences of a visit to his birthplace paid by the poet
+some ten years since with Mr. S. T. Pickard, who told to the assembled
+company many amusing stories related by Mr. Whittier on that occasion.
+There was the quaint staircase down which the poet, when a baby, wrapped
+in a blanket, was rolled by his sister only two years older, who
+probably thought it the greatest kindness in the world to thus project
+her infant brother into space. There was the queer old cupboard where
+Mr. Whittier when a boy was dragged by his jacket collar by a tramp who
+had forcibly entered the house; and there he was compelled to stand
+while the unwelcome visitor searched high and low for any chance jug or
+bottle that would yield another supply to his already over-weighted
+condition. Seizing a jug from a dark corner, he ejected the cork without
+a glance at the contents, and took a long deep draught of whale oil used
+for filling lamps. The embryo poet took advantage of the confused
+spluttering that ensued, to make good his escape. Mr. Will Carleton
+recited with dramatic vigor "Barbara Frietchie," till the walls and
+rafters rang. Lucy Larcom read from the poet's writings, and Mr. William
+Lloyd Garrison, Jr. recited an original poem. A young English lady, who
+was visiting friends of Mr. Whittier's, read by request Tennyson's
+"Crossing the Bar," the Poet Laureate's death having just occurred.
+
+There were reminiscences by Dr. Fiske of Newburyport, who told several
+characteristic stories connected with Joshua Coffin, the "Yankee
+Schoolmaster," and life-long friend of the poet; and Charles Carleton
+Coffin, the historian, gave the account of his capture of the big key of
+the last slave prison in Richmond, and of his giving it to Mr. Whittier
+who returned it to him a year or so ago. At the close of his remarks,
+Mr. Carleton hung the key on the nail above the fireplace where, in
+Whittier's boyhood, the big bull's-eye watch used to hang. Fitting place
+was it for the silent symbol of agony and shame to the slave brother;
+and all who witnessed it hanging there, felt the heart beat to a newer
+and a keener sense of the debt we owe to him whose songs (as one who
+gave a reminiscence that day told us) influenced Abraham Lincoln to
+project the Emancipation Proclamation upon the American people. The
+beautiful poem of Mr. Whittier's, "My Psalm," was rendered with deep
+feeling by Mrs. Julia Houston West for whom, several years ago, the
+verses had been set to music. And to bring to a fitting close these
+memorial exercises, the assembled company of relatives and friends rose
+and sang one stanza of of "Auld Lang Syne."
+
+[Illustration:
+
+    Dr Holmes.
+
+    Beloved physician of an age of ail
+      When grave prescriptions fail
+    Thy songs have cheer and healing for us all
+      As David's had for Saul.
+
+    John G Whittier
+
+    Hampton Falls, NH
+    Aug 26 1892
+
+_The above fac-simile of the last verse written by Mr. Whittier, is
+kindly loaned us by the "Boston Journal." The following letter was sent
+with the verse_:
+
+     HAMPTON FALLS, _August_.
+
+     DEAR MR. WINGATE:
+
+     I have only time and strength to write a single verse expressive of
+     my love and admiration of my dear old friend, Dr. Holmes.
+
+     JOHN G. WHITTIER.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Note:  Although the Contents lists an Appendix, there was
+no actual appendix or page 375 in the scanned copy. Other copies of
+this book were found to have the same problem.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's John Greenleaf Whittier, by W. Sloane Kennedy
+
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