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diff --git a/37191-8.txt b/37191-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5608ca6 --- /dev/null +++ b/37191-8.txt @@ -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: 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. 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