CHAPTER I.

TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL.

The passing away from earth of John Greenleaf Whittier occurred on September 7, 1892, at four-thirty A. M., at Hampton Falls, N. H., in the very heart of the region he has immortalized by his ballads. The hour was just as the reddening east was mingling its light with that of the full harvest moon. Around his bedside were numerous relatives and friends. He fell asleep in an unconscious state, after an illness of a week. Let us now go back and, taking up the thread of the narrative where it was dropped on page 152, run over the incidents that have intervened in the decade since 1882 in the life of this pleasant singer--this plain Quaker farmer, who drew such soul-thrilling strains from his home-made rustic flute as to concentrate upon himself the attention of the whole world.

In 1883 (January 7) died, in Boston, Whittier's brother, Matthew Franklin Whittier, whose daughter Elizabeth, before her marriage to Samuel T. Pickard, was house-keeper for a number of years for her uncle, the poet, at Amesbury. "Frank," as his associates called him, obtained, it is said, his position in the Boston Custom House through the influence of his brother. Says a friend (Mr. Charles O. Stickney):--

"Frank was not a poet, and being of a practical turn of mind, had the good sense not to attempt the impossible; but he was a man of intellect, an omnivorous reader, was well posted, and, though inclined to seclusion and taciturnity, was nevertheless genial and companionable; his conversation spiced with his quiet, quaint humor, which bubbled up in some happy _mot_, neat fun, or well-turned bit of satire which raised a laugh, but left no sting behind." His quaint, humorous dialect articles, over the signature "Ethan Spike," are said to have given Nasby and Artemus Ward their cue. They were chiefly contributed to the Portland _Transcript_, the Boston _Carpet Bag_, and New York _Vanity Fair_. They all purported to emanate from "Hornby," a "smart town" in Maine--"a veritable down-east wonderland, whose wide-awake citizens were up to the times and ready to settle any great question of the day at 'a special town meetin'.'" Mr. Spike was as intense in his anti-slavery views as his brother Greenleaf. Specimens of his work may be found in the Portland _Transcript_, January 10, 1846, the _Carpet Bag_, October 14, 1850, and November, 1851.

In 1884 Whittier's seventy-seventh birthday was observed at Oak Knoll, when the genial old bachelor received with courtesy and hospitality all who called. Gifts of flowers poured in to serve as foil to the two huge birthday cakes from relatives.

An editorial writer in one of Boston's chief dailies thus describes a visit to Mr. Whittier, made in 1884:--

"Mr. Whittier met us at the door of the pleasant house at Oak Knoll. He came out on the piazza, and shook us each by the hand, and said, 'I am glad to see thee.' He concerned himself about our rubbers and waterproofs in the hall-way, and said that we were kind to come. I had taken a great fit of shyness on seeing him, and was surprised to hear my friend speaking to him in the same quiet tone that she had used when alone with me. I listened, and reveled in silence as the old poet and the young artist spoke together. He led us into the parlor, and they talked of a landscape on the wall, of pictures, and of a portrait.

"Presently he said: 'It is a little cold here. Shall we go into my room?' He led the way to the bright library where most of his days are now spent. Mr. Whittier happened to glance from the window as we stood for a moment speaking with him: he saw our cab waiting for us on the drive. The rain had begun again. Then a wonderful thing befell.

"He forbade us to go away within the quarter hour; he forbade us to go for three hours. He went out and sent the cabman away, then he took us into the library. We sat down in front of the cheery open fire, and Mr. Whittier talked with us. He spoke of the claims of young people on life, it was different from any talk I had heard; in the face of my poets, I used to think that all good people believed that life is our creditor and hard taskmaster."

On October 24, 1884, a portrait of Whittier was presented by Charles F. Coffin, of Lynn, Mass., a devoted friend and admirer of his, to the Friends' School of Providence, R.I. It was painted by Edgar Parker, of Boston, and represents Whittier sitting in an arm-chair in an attitude of peaceful thought.

It is hung in Alumni Hall, between busts of Elizabeth Fry and John Bright, and is considered to be a worthy memorial of the poet. Letters on this occasion were read from James Russell Lowell, Dr. Holmes, E. P. Whipple, John Bright, George William Curtis, Boyle O'Reilly, Matthew Arnold, and others. From Mr. Whipple's letter the following is an extract:--

"I have had the privilege of knowing him intimately for many years, and of doing all I could through the press to point out his exceptional and original merits as a writer. My admiration of his genius and character has increased with every new volume he has published and every new manifestation of that essential gentleness which lies at the root of his nature, even when some of his poems suggest the warrior rather than the Quaker. One thing is certain: that the reader feels that the writer possesses that peculiar attribute of humanity which we instinctively call by the high name of soul; and, whether he storms into the souls of others or glides into them, his hot invectives equally with his soft persuasions mark him as a man; a man, too, of might; a man whose force is blended with his insight, and who can win or woo his way into hostile or recipient minds by innate strength or delicacy of nature."

In 1885 the poet's birthday was again quietly celebrated at Oak Knoll, and in the afternoon Mr. Whittier's portrait was unveiled before a large audience in the Town Hall of Haverhill.

In September, 1885, occurred a most interesting festival--the reunion of the graduates of the old Haverhill Academy, for whom the poet cherished to the end of his life an earnest and outspoken affection. It was here that Whittier got all the scholastic education he ever had outside of the district school; the reunion was thoroughly enjoyed therefore by him, although it was in his honor. For his health was pretty good, and he was in fine spirits. An interesting letter was received from the aged Miss Arethusa Hall, a preceptress in the Academy when Whittier attended it. Among others, Dr. Holmes wrote: "The class of 1829 [Harvard] has a bright record; but how much brighter it would have been if we could have read upon the triennial and quinquennial catalogues: Johannes Greenleaf Whittier, A. B., A. M., LL. D., etc! But what, after all, can all the degrees of all the colleges do for him whose soul has been kindled by that 'ae spark of Nature's fire,' which Burns caught from her torch on the banks of Ayr, and Whittier among the mists that rise from the Merrimack?"

Mr. Whittier presented photographs of himself with his autograph to his school-mates, promised to think over the sitting for an oil portrait, and entered with zest into any bit of mirthfulness that sparkled out during the evening, although, as will be seen from the following description of a representative of the Boston _Advertiser_, he could scarcely understand the situation:--

"In the company was one man who seemed neither to accept nor to comprehend the situation. That man was John G. Whittier. His face and demeanor that day would have afforded study for a psychologist. That it was fifty-seven years since he entered Haverhill Academy he remembered with a certain sweet melancholy. That everybody was vying with everybody else in making love to him he could not help observing. But what it was all about, and why people should persist in talking of him when he wanted other, more congenial topics to be uppermost--these questions evidently puzzled him. A countenance on which was a look of shyness, of surprise, of perplexity; withal, a countenance irradiated by reciprocal affection and pleasure in seeing others pleased--if any one of the present artists could have caught and delineated those features, the painter would have been destined to share the immortality of the poet. On such a subject the temptation to indulge in reminiscence is strong. But space will permit me to mention only two or three characteristic incidents. A gifted vocalist had just sung a composition prepared for that day; and Mr. Whittier, turning to her, said, 'Friend, I wish that I could write a song for thee to sing.' An elocutionist of note read aloud one of the author's poems. He listened eagerly, as if it was wholly new to him; and a little mist gathered in those deep, dreamy eyes at the lines beginning,

'I mourn no more my vanished years,'

but there was an answering gleam at the words,

'The windows of my soul I throw Wide open to the sun.'

"Two circumstances made that one of the few red-letter days in the memory of the present writer. I had known in Kansas a lady who belonged to that band of Haverhill Academy pupils whose boast and joy it was to have studied and played with the Quaker poet. On mentioning this lady's name, I found myself instantly accepted as her proxy. For some minutes Mr. Whittier seemed to have no other interest than to learn all possible particulars of her and send to her all possible expressions of regard.

"The other circumstance was the result of my connection with the _Advertiser_. Taking me into one corner of the room, he asked me to sit beside him on the sofa. Then, drawing from his pocket the manuscript of the poem which he had written for that occasion and on portions of which the ink was not yet dry, the author, in a manner irresistibly winning, seemed to take his humble brother of the pen-craft into confidence, explaining the motive for various lines and passing on to speak of those boyhood days which the poem and the occasion recalled."

December 17 again came round in 1886, and found Whittier receiving friends, presents, and congratulatory telegrams at Oak Knoll. Wendell Phillips, for example, sent him a handsome cane, and some one else sent a great frosted cake and a basket that strained its sides to hold the gift of fruit it contained.

In December, 1887, it occurred to a young lady journalist on the staff of the Boston _Advertiser_ (Miss Minna C. Smith) that it would be a good idea to have a "Whittier number" of that journal. The thought was a fertile one and was put into execution in great haste, but with eminent success. Poems were contributed by Walt Whitman, Dr. Holmes, James Jeffrey Roche, Hezekiah Butterworth, Herbert D. Ward, Minot J. Savage, Margaret Sidney (Mrs. D. Lothrop), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and others, and there was a great array of letters from other writers and eminent persons. Edward Everett Hale told the story of Whittier's Kansas "Emigrants' Song," how it was sung _en route_ and in the West by brave pioneers of New England. James Parton, of Newburyport, Whittier's Amesbury neighbor, wrote that Whittier was carrying his burthen of eighty years "with considerable ease and constant cheerfulness." He continued:--

"I am sometimes asked, 'Is the poet Whittier really a Quaker or only one by inheritance?' He is really a Quaker. He wears, it is true, a silk hat of the kind familiarly called the stove-pipe, which gleams in the brilliant sun of winter, and seems to indicate at once the man of Boston and the man of the world. But it is not the broad-brimmed hat that makes the Quaker. The poet does actually keep a Quaker coat for Sundays and other dress occasions, which coat was made by a firm of Orthodox Friends in Philadelphia, the metropolitan city of the gentle sect. He also uses the _thee_ and _thou_ in conversation, although without attaching the least importance to these trifles. But he is also a Friend from heartfelt conviction. A few miles from his home is one of the smallest meeting-houses in New England, standing alone in a land of farms and fields. It is painted white, and looks a little like a small school-house. This edifice will seat perhaps forty persons, but the usual congregation numbers about fourteen, who on winter Sundays dwindle often to seven and sometimes to three. This is the meeting-house which the poet Whittier attends whenever he is at home, unless prevented by the weather.

"What an extraordinary thing is this! The poet who has most deeply felt and most beautifully expressed the sentiment and soul of New England is a member of the sect to which New England was so intolerant and so cruel! When the essential New England has ceased to exist, it will live again, and live long, in Whittier's poems; and he a Quaker! Was there ever before a revenge so complete and so sublime?"

Mr. Charles M. Thompson sent for this octogenarian birthday a fine poetical stanza:--

"A thousand stars swim on through time, Unknown and unregarded in the skies. But one, kings followed; one, thy rhyme, Led on a land of kings in liberty's emprise!"

Mr. James H. Carleton knew Whittier in connection with a circle of intellectual and social people that centred around the family of Judge Pitman in the years just preceding the rise of the abolition movement. "The Pitmans were neighbors of mine," said Mr. Carleton, "and I (I hardly know why) was admitted to the meetings of the people who gathered there. They were the leaders in everything that was progressive. They have since become widely scattered.

"I remember Mr. Whittier as a leader of these leaders. These people formed to a large extent his social world at that time. It was the one place at which Mr. Whittier threw off his natural reserve and took his proper place. He was a good conversationalist on occasion, and when he spoke he was worth listening to. I remember him as intensely interested in whatever subject occupied the attention of the circle. He was never the first to begin a discussion, but rather bided his time for an especial opportunity."

Mr. George C. How wrote of Mr. Whittier's friendliness, his cordiality, and his unassuming manner: "In the few delightful days I spent in his company in the White Mountain region, I saw no signs of formality or reserve. He told me, under the trees, many stories of his life and of his earliest successes. He impresses you strongly as a true and generous friend to everything and every man he believes good and honest. He does not like to be lionized, and refused to be introduced to a man whose only claim to his friendship was that he had read all his works. When, however, Mr. Whittier learned that this same man was an ardent admirer of the poet Hayne, a chord of sympathy was struck that made them firm friends during this stranger's stay."

At Oak Knoll the winter day was clear and sunshiny, if cold, and warm hearts within laughed the season to scorn. The ladies of Boston, at the suggestion of Mrs. D. Lothrop, sent up a most unique and exquisite gift; eighty beautiful roses edged a large basket fringed with fern-sprays, that held an open book of white roses, across whose face lay a pen of violets, and on the wide satin book-mark was inscribed the closing stanza of "My Triumph." The Essex Club of Boston presented a large album; fruit and flowers flanked a mighty birthday cake in the dining-room. Mr. Charles F. Coffin, of Lynn, sent a large overflowing basket of fruit, arranged under his personal supervision, "every fruit in its season," of exquisite colors and shapes, to express his affection for his life-long friend, the poet.

The new town of Whittier, in California, sent an advance copy of the first issue of the town's newspaper; the Governor of the Commonwealth, as the winter afternoon quickly declined, cut and distributed to the guests slices of the birthday cake, while all through the day Whittier passed to and fro from room to room, conversing with young and old, and hospitable to all.

Whittier himself is reported as saying on his eightieth birthday: "When a man is eighty years old, it is time to give up active mental work. Oh! I am able to go about these grounds pretty well. I have never attempted to imitate Gladstone and chop down trees, but I like to split wood."

This was James Russell Lowell's verse for Mr. Whittier on his eightieth birthday:--

"How fair a pearl chain, eighty strong, Lustrous and hallowed every one With saintly thoughts and sacred song, As 'twere the rosary of a nun!"

The excitement and nervous exhaustion attendant upon these birthday occasions, it always took Mr. Whittier three or four weeks fully to recover from. Hence in 1889 (and partly on account of the recent death of a beloved cousin), the poet announced, through the press, that he should have to ask his friends to spare him any public reception. However, December 17 was observed as "Whittier Day" very generally throughout the country, as it had been in 1887, in accordance with the custom that has grown up of celebrating the birthdays of eminent men in the schools, and introducing into their courses of supplementary reading selected portions of the writings of each. Among the gifts received at Oak Knoll was a painting of a golden vase by Mr. Herman Marcus, of New York City, to whom the poet had appeared in a dream, bearing in his hand an elegant portfolio of red morocco, containing a picture of a vase of Grecian design, richly ornamented, and inscribed with the legend, "May in the smallest part thy sorrows lie concealed and all the rest be filled with joy overflowing." The portfolio and the picture on its page are a close realization of what the donor saw in his dream.

Speaking of visitors, Col. Higginson tells two incidents in point. He says two nice little boys called one day on Whittier, saying that they had recently called on Longfellow, and, as he had died soon after, they thought it best to call at once on Mr. Whittier. One of the poet's housekeepers once asked him in severe tones whether all "these people" came on business or whether they were relatives. When told that neither was the case, she said she did not see what they came for then. "Neither did I," said Whittier, with laughing eye.

In December, 1890, Mr. Whittier, who had gone down to Amesbury to vote, had been taken ill there, and hardly expected to be able to get back to Oak Knoll by the seventeenth. He did arrive, however, on a sunny day. Many of his friends spared him visits, merely leaving their cards or sending remembrances. His mail was very large, as usual on this day.

In the summer of 1891 Mr. Whittier's health was so feeble that he was obliged to abandon his daily walks, except about the grounds at Oak Knoll. Driving was too fatiguing for him, and his hearing had grown so bad that he could converse only with difficulty.

In Whittier's poem, "The Red River Voyageur," there is a beautiful allusion to the "bells of the Roman mission," now the Archepiscopate of St. Boniface. Archbishop Tache was reminded by Lieut.-Gov. Schultz that December 17, 1891, was the eighty-fourth birthday of the poet, the suggestion being made that the anniversary should be greeted by a joy-peal from the tower of the Cathedral of St. Boniface, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His Grace cordially concurred, and the graceful tribute was rendered at midnight with the last stroke of the clock ushering the natal day. Mr. Whittier, having been informed of the incident by United States Consul Taylor, wrote to the Archbishop: "I have reached an age when literary success and manifestations of popular favor have ceased to satisfy one upon whom the solemnity of life's sunset is resting; but such a delicate and beautiful tribute has deeply moved me. I shall never forget it. I shall hear the bells of St. Boniface sounding across the continent, and awakening a feeling of gratitude for thy generous act."

Our poet's eighty-fourth birthday (1891), and alas! his last on earth, was delightfully observed at the home of the Cartlands, his cousins, in Newburyport, with whom he was spending the winter. Mr. Joseph Cartland is himself a Quaker, and his white hair and genial cheery temperament are quite of the old regime. He and his wife were teachers in the Friends' School at Providence, R. I. Their fine old mansion on High Street is the identical one built and lived in by Judge Livermore, father of the shrewish saint and devotee of "Snow-Bound." It may be stated, too, that it was to succeed one of the Cartlands in the editorial chair of the _Pennsylvania Freeman_ that Whittier went to Philadelphia in 1838. In this house is kept the old maple-wood desk, made by Joseph Whittier, grandfather of the poet, who, by the way, "wrote on it his first poem." The desk is about one hundred and eighty years old now. On the back are carved the initials "J. W., 1786," in large letters. The wood has been smoothed down a little and a coat of shellac applied. On the back of the drawers are memoranda in chalk and pencil made by Greenleaf's father. On December 17, 1891, the old piece of furniture was covered with hundreds of congratulatory letters which would have made the old farmer Quaker, its builder, rub his eyes in astonishment, could he have seen them.

"As he walks slowly down the broad stairs of the Cartlands at Newburyport," says one who saw him on his birthday, "there is much to suggest his years, it is true, yet no signs of unusual feebleness. He is erect for a man of eighty-four; his early litheness has not degenerated into the hopeless leanness of an ill-nourished and uncared-for old age; his step does not drag after his body as if unwilling to carry the burden longer; his head is not lowered, awaiting the smite of Time."

Another thus describes Whittier in 1891: "In personal appearance he is remarkable. Tall, and as straight as one of the young pines in his favorite grove, it seems impossible that he is at the end of fourscore years. The crown of his head is bald, and his hair is glossy silver; but his great black eyes are as clear, bright and piercing as if he were in the prime of life. He walks with the deliberation and dignity of age, but without a suggestion of physical feebleness, and while he remains standing his head is as finely poised as a soldier's. The straightness of his figure is the more noticeable on account of his Quaker dress, the coat of which fits him as neatly and closely as if it were the conventional 'swallow-tail.' When seated and listening, his head drops slightly forward and aside--a pose which seems peculiar to poetic natures the world over. He is a most appreciative reader of other men's books and poems, and talks admirably of all good writings except his own, of which he can scarcely be persuaded to speak, even to his dearest intimates."

Mr. S. T. Pickard, and Mr. and Mrs. Cartland received the guests in the wide hall of the old-fashioned hospitable Quaker home; and the poet himself wandered here and there about the room, so said the Boston _Advertiser_, "greeting every guest informally and pleasantly, from the old and tried comrades of anti-slavery's earliest days to the little girl in cream-white dress and wide hat, his little friend Margaret Lothrop, who had to stand on tip-toe to greet the bowed head with her childish kiss; and whose small hand he held closely as he kept her by his side."

A pleasant note was received from Phillips Brooks:--

"DEAR MR. WHITTIER:

"I have no right save that which love and gratitude and reverence may give, to say how devoutly I thank God that you have lived, that you are living, and that you will always live. May his peace be with you more and more.

"Affectionately your friend,

"PHILLIPS BROOKS."

The first guests to arrive were a deputation of fifty from Haverhill, members of the Whittier Club of that town. Whittier made them a little speech, saying it was evident that sometimes a prophet was honored in his own country.

The house was filled with cut flowers--in the window-seats, on the tables, in the poet's bedroom, up-stairs--all gifts from friends. The Whittier Club of Haverhill brought eighty-four roses. There was a basket of English violets from Mr. and Mrs. D. Lothrop. Mr. C. F. Coffin, of Lynn, sent, as usual, his generous basket of fruit. From Mr. E. C. Stedman came a painting "High Tide, Hampton Meadows," by Carroll D. Brown. And some kindly old soul sent a half-dozen pairs of socks--the spirit that prompted the gift as deeply appreciated as that of others. Other gifts were: an oil painting of a scene at York Harbor, painted by J. L. Smith, of Boston, the frame carved by A. G. Smith; a ruler of various inlaid woods from California, the gift of pupils of the workshop at West Point, Calaveras County, who wrote a letter, saying that they would devote the birthday to reading and speaking selections from his works; a paper-cutter made from the wood of Fort Loudon, of Winchester, Penn., and sent by the ladies of that place; a hand-painted tray from artist Florence Cammett of Amesbury; a late photograph of Dr. Holmes, "with his hat in his hand, and his most man-of-the-world air;" a souvenir spoon of Independence Hall from W. H. and S. B. Swazey, of Newburyport; a picture of the old Mission at Santa Barbara, done on native olive-wood, from Professor John Murray, of California; a handsome footstool from Elizabeth Cavazza, of Portland, Me.; photogravures of scenes about the Whittier homestead in Haverhill; a transparency ("Snow-Bound") from Austin P. Nichols; eighty-four roses from the girls of Lasell Seminary near Boston, and a wreath of evergreens from Mrs. Annie Fields.

Among the messages was one from a little Indian maiden whom Whittier had befriended: "Your young Mohawk friend asks for you to-day the Great Spirit's blessing"--signed, E. Pauline Johnson; a letter came from Abby Hutchinson, of the Hutchinson singers.

Among those present were, Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, Sarah Orne Jewett, "Margaret Sidney," Mrs. James T. Fields, Mrs. William Claflin, Harriet McEwen Kimball, T. E. Burnham, Mayor of Haverhill, and others.

Among the company, conspicuous by those natural gifts that make one a centre for intellectual and genial comradeship, was Mr. D. Lothrop--the eminent publisher--(since passed away, mourned by all) who probably has done more than any other man of present times to create a new literature for children and young people, all achieved when it cost to do it, and that consumed years of patient, persistent struggling, till his splendid success was won.

Mr. Whittier writes to his widow, "Thy husband and Mr. Coffin" (the old-time friend referred to), "were the life of my birthday reception, and now both are gone before me." (Mr. Coffin died the week after the birthday.)

Again, to quote one of the many extracts of Mr. Whittier's letters concerning Mr. Lothrop: "Let me sit in the circle of thy mourning, for I too have lost in him a friend."

There was much to draw the two men together; both sprang from New England ancestry, sturdy as the granite hills of their native State; each possessed the same indomitable will, where a question of right was involved, and the same breadth of charity for all, of whatsoever creed or divergence of opinion.

Mr. Whittier partook of but little food in the dining-room, nibbling a bit here and there, and refusing firmly all offers of tea or coffee. His eyes, every one noticed, flamed with old-time lustre, whenever he was interested.

Letters of congratulation were received from Robert C. Winthrop, Celia Thaxter, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Andrew P. Peabody, Rose Terry Cooke (who has since died), George W. Cable, T. W. Higginson, Charles Eliot Norton, and others.

Donald G. Mitchell wrote that above Whittier's literary art he admired the broad and cheery humanities of the man.

For the eighty-fourth birthday the Boston _Advertiser_ printed a superb illustrated Whittier number, as did also the Boston _Journal_. For the latter Dr. Holmes contributed the following letter:

MY DEAR WHITTIER:--I congratulate you on having climbed another glacier and crossed another crevasse in your ascent of the white summit which already begins to see the morning twilight of the coming century. A life so well filled as yours has been cannot be too long for your fellow-men and women. In their affections you are secure, whether you are with them here or near them in some higher life than theirs. I hope your years have not become a burden, so that you are tired of living. At our age we must live chiefly in the past. Happy is he who has a past like yours to look back upon.

It is one of the felicitous incidents--I will not say accidents--of my life that the lapse of time has brought us very near together, so that I frequently find myself honored by seeing my name mentioned in near connection with your own. We are lonely, very lonely, in these last years. The image which I have used before this in writing to you recurs once more to my thought. We were on deck together as we began the voyage of life two generations ago. A whole generation passed, and the succeeding one found us in the cabin, with a goodly company of coevals. Then the craft which held us began going to pieces, until a few of us were left on the raft pieced together of its fragments. And now the raft has at last parted, and you and I are left clinging to the solitary spar, which is all that still remains afloat of the sunken vessel.

I have just been looking over the headstones in Mr. Griswold's cemetery, entitled "The Poets and Poetry of America." In that venerable receptacle, just completing its half-century of existence--for the date of the edition before me is 1842--I find the names of John Greenleaf Whittier and Oliver Wendell Holmes next each other, in their due order, as they should be. All around are the names of the dead--too often of forgotten dead. Three which I see there are still among those of the living. Mr. John Osborne Sargent, who makes Horace his own by faithful study and ours by scholarly translation; Isaac McLellan, who was writing in 1830, and whose last work is dated 1886; and Christopher P. Cranch, whose poetical gift has too rarely found expression.

Of these many dead you are the most venerated, revered and beloved survivor; of these few living the most honored representative. Long may it be before you leave a world where your influence has been so beneficent, where your example has been such inspiration, where you are so truly loved, and where your presence is a perpetual benediction.

Always affectionately yours,

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Following is one of two stanzas sent to the Poet of Freedom by his friend "Margaret Sidney," and which, says the _Advertiser_, with one other tribute, was the only one of the innumerable letters and poems sent him that he read in its entirety that day, owing to his failing eyesight:

"To be near the heart of Christ Was his creed; White as truth the life That all men may read; Strengthful of soul, Yet lowly in meekness; Dreading no hate of men, Scorning all weakness, He sounded the warning note, When it cost to be brave and true; Sang freedom for the slave, Then almost death to do. 'Unbind every shackle, Loosen each chain, Bid every slave go free!'"

Mr. F. B. Sanborn wrote some interesting autobiographical reminiscences for the _Advertiser_. He stated: "I can scarcely remember when I did not read Whittier and Holmes. Their verses were eagerly caught up and reprinted by all the newspapers, and I knew them by heart before I ever saw a volume of them. Whittier, indeed, was almost my neighbor, living only eight miles away across the Merrimack, and sometimes coming for silent worship or to hear Mrs. Edward Gove speak in the Quaker meeting-house at Seabrook, only three miles from the farm of my ancestors. But I did not know this then; I never went there to see him. He is a distant cousin of mine, both of us tracing descent, through his daughters, from that stout and ungovernable old Puritan minister, Stephen Bachiler, who planted the old town of Hampton, in whose wide limits I was born, and which extended almost to Amesbury."

Another scholarly writer in the same paper wrote instructively of Whittier in the Massachusetts Legislature. The Legislature of 1835 he describes as a notable one in the quality of its members and in the work accomplished. An extra session was held in the autumn. The Speaker of the House was Judge Julius Rockwell of Pittsfield, with whom Whittier had already formed a personal acquaintance through Judge Rockwell's contributions to the _New England Review_. Among the Suffolk County representatives were such names as Frothingham, Brooks, Otis, Sturgis, Peabody, and Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, also Col. J. B. Fay, the first mayor of Chelsea. It is not remembered that Whittier made any set speech, but he nevertheless did so much and such arduous work as to make himself ill before the session was half over. Dr. Bowditch, he often recalled with amusement, told him that, if he followed implicitly the rules he laid down for him, he might live to see his fiftieth birthday; otherwise, not.

Perhaps no one man has been more frequently interviewed concerning the policy of party politics than John G. Whittier. With gifted qualities of heart and mind, was added wisdom, prudence and sagacity, in all that related to governmental affairs. The late Henry Wilson once said of him, "I can rely more safely upon the advice of Whittier than upon any other man in America."

In the early movements of the Republican party he was acknowledged to be the power behind the throne. Sumner, wise and learned, could trust to the advice of Whittier. His correspondence with such men as Giddings, Chase, Sumner, Wilson, John P. Hale, Upham and other celebrities, upon national topics, is known to a few of his friends. They contain sentiments which prove him as wise in statesmanship as he is eloquent in verse.

How well and faithfully he labored is best expressed in his words:

"I am not insensible to literary reputation; I love, perhaps too well, the love and praise of my fellow-men; but I set a higher value on my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of 1833, than on the title page of any book."

On the subject of the abolishment of capital punishment, Whittier's vote is found recorded in the affirmative, as might have been expected. He has said that one of the pleasantest years of his life was that passed during the session of the Legislature in 1835.

One of the chief reasons why Whittier went seven miles from his Amesbury home last summer was to "escape pilgrims" (as he called them). One Sunday after meeting at Amesbury he said to his life-long friend, Miss Gove, "Abby, has thee a spare room up at thy house?" She responded in the affirmative, and he went to her home in Hampton Falls for the latter part of the summer. It was here he penned his last poem--the verses "To Oliver Wendell Holmes:"

"The gift is thine the weary world to make More cheerful for thy sake, Soothing the ears its Miserere pains With the old Hellenic strains."

In a letter to one of the editors of the _Critic_ (August 29, 1892), Dr. Holmes wrote, concerning his birthday:

"I have received two poems in advance, and our dear friend Whittier, whose heart is a cornucopia of blessings for his fellow-creatures, has remembered me in the pages of the _Atlantic_, where we have found ourselves side by side for so many years. Long may the sands of his life keep running, for they come from the bed of Pactolus."

The news of his friend's death was received by Dr. Holmes in Beverly, just as he was coming in from a drive along the shore. It was a heavy blow, coming as it did just upon the death of Lowell, Thomas Parsons, and George William Curtis. He remarked that his acquaintance with Whittier dated from the year of the founding of the _Atlantic Monthly_. He had frequently visited him at Oak Knoll. He was there last year, and the two old fellows walked and talked among the trees and had a good time together. When the Doctor was leaving, his friend loaded him down with fruit. It was on one of these recent visits that Dr. Holmes with characteristic keenness of perception, discovered the beautiful symmetry of the grand Norway spruce in front of the mansion on the wide sweep of lawn, and he laughingly named it "The Poet's Pagoda," and this name it has kept ever since.

To return to "Elmfield," as the old Gove mansion is called. The old-fashioned house, with its upper balconies, heavy chimneys, and rich collection of historical relics, stands on a hill not far from the falls which gave the name to the village--Hampton Falls. The sight from Whittier's window commanded a little balcony, with a view of the distant blue sea. One day after another passed quietly away, he rising at seven, going across through a pine grove to the adjoining tavern for his breakfast, getting the mail at the little post-office, reading the papers, looking at the distant sails on the sea through a glass, conversing with friends or walking in the neighboring orchard, with its paths and rustic seats. The region is that where his Bachiler and Hussey ancestors both lived, as Mr. F. B. Sanborn tells us (Boston _Advertiser_, September 8, 1892). Daniel Webster's Bachiler ancestors also lived on a farm, a mile and a half from the Gove mansion; namely, where now stands the villa of Warren Brown. As Mr. Sanborn truthfully says, Whittier has been the local poet of this whole region of Essex and adjoining counties. "No poet of New England," he continues, "has lived so close to the actual habits of the people, in the present and the past centuries, as did Whittier; and his poems of locality will become as much a feature of New England literature as are those of Burns and Scott in their native country. This fidelity to homely fact and profound sentiment have made Whittier more than any other the patrial and religious poet of New Hampshire and Eastern Massachusetts. He has done in verse what Hawthorne did in prose. It was only the accident or accomplishment of verse which separated these two poets, and made one of them our most graceful and romantic prose-writer, while the other became our most spiritual and literal poet."

The truth of these statements comes home to me with force since I made a week's itinerary through this Whittier ballad land a year ago, and saw how every mile of coast land was celebrated in storied verse by Whittier.

On Wednesday, August 31, Mr. Whittier was taken ill. The malady was acute diarrhea, which by the Saturday following developed a new and alarming symptom, a remarkable irregularity of the heart's action, accompanied by partial paralysis of the left side, arms, and vocal organs. He remained conscious until Tuesday at three P. M., when the symptoms became markedly worse. He was surrounded by ministering relatives and friends, who gave him every loving attention, but all were powerless to stay the hand of death.

When urged to take the nourishment prescribed by his physicians, he said: "I want water from Abby's (Miss Gove) nice well," and as it was given, remarked with a bright smile, "That's good--nothing better." Soon after, as his forehead was being bathed, he said, "That is all that can be done." To his attending physicians, Drs. Douglass and Howe, and nurse, he said: "I am worn out--thee have done what thee could--I thank thee." And as the end drew near the dying poet recognized his niece from Portland, and remarked in faltering words, "Love--to--the--world." These were his last words. He died at four-thirty on the morning of the seventh. At seven o'clock on Friday evening the silent form of the poet was brought to Amesbury, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. S. T. Pickard, and Mr. and Mrs. Cartland.

On Saturday morning business was entirely suspended in Amesbury. The selectmen issued the following proclamation:--

"To the Citizens of Amesbury:--Our town has been saddened by the death of its great poet and one of its noblest and best-loved citizens. We feel that our country at large, and the civilized world, mourns with us the death of the poet and liberty-loving philanthropist, John G. Whittier.

"Sharing the sadness which must come to the wise and good everywhere, we, the people of Amesbury, mourn the loss of a friend and neighbor endeared to us by his lovable qualities and the purity of his daily life in our midst.

"We revered him for his greatness, and loved him for himself. Always identified with every good work in Amesbury, sustaining the right and defending the oppressed, his life for more than half a century has been to us a daily sermon.

"If it be true that

'The heart speaketh most when the life move,'

we can only add that such a life, with its fullness of years and its crown of blessings, is a rich legacy to the community."

At ten o'clock the public was admitted to the house, passing in a continuous line (as at the funeral of dear old Walt Whitman, his brother poet of Democracy, a few months before in Camden) through the humble little parlor of the Amesbury home. It was originally intended to hold the services in the Friends' meeting-house near by; but the dense fog clearing up and the bright sun coming out--as one beautifully said, "the mystery of death typified by the shifting and elusive shadows of the fog, and the glory and hopefulness of the resurrection by the bright rays of the sun"--it was decided to let the body rest in the house, and hold memorial services in the quiet garden in the rear of the house. The funeral arrangements were in charge of William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., S. T. Pickard and Judge G. W. Cate, the tenant of the house. The atmosphere was one of peace and restfulness, and the simplicity of the life of the Friends was seen in all the arrangements. In the quaint parlor of the homestead lay all that was mortal of the poet, on whose face was an expression of supreme peace; his form was encircled by a delicate fringe of trailing fern. A most beautiful wreath from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes--eighty-four white roses, fringed with carnations and maidenhair ferns, one for each year of the poet's life,--was laid around the name-plate on the coffin. It was a touching tribute by the last one of that remarkable galaxy of poets that marked such a distinguished era in our American literature. Two crossed palms, with the Japan lilies Whittier loved so well, encircled by a broad white satin ribbon, were from Mrs. Daniel Lothrop. The fronds of the long palms encircled the face of the dead poet as it looked out from the large engraving between the windows of the parlor. Upon the end of the ribbon was delicately painted six lines from Whittier's "Andrew Rykman's Prayer:"

"Some sweet morning yet in God's Dim aeonian periods, Joyful I shall wake to see Those I love who rest in Thee, And to them in Thee allied Shall my soul be satisfied."

Upon the accompanying card was this: "In memory of my husband's dear friend. This verse of 'Andrew Rykman's Prayer' was consolation in the hour of death to both him who wrote it, and to him who loved it.--Mrs. Daniel Lothrop."

Another exquisite floral offering came with these lines:

"I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care."

On the back of the card were the words "Oak Knoll."

The alcove behind the casket was filled with floral tributes. Here was a large St. Andrew's cross of exquisite white roses upon a bed of ivy, from a very near and dear friend of Mr. Whittier's at Lexington, whose name is withheld. There was a ladder of hydrangeas, gladioli, carnations and snow-balls from Mrs. Albert Clarke of Amesbury, an ivy wreath from Sarah Orne Jewett, a sheaf of wheat from Mrs. Lizzie Cheney and the Misses Coffin of Lynn, a broken shaft of white carnations from Mr. and Mrs. J. Henry Hall of Amesbury. A massive wreath of Whittier's own much-loved pine tassels was hung above the portrait of his sister Elizabeth, the tribute of Mrs. Joseph A. Purington; the heavy green was relieved by a spray of bright, contrasting goldenrod. Mrs. Samuel Rowell, Jr., sent a basket of white roses and maidenhair. There was a beautiful spray of the passion flower from L. Kelcher, Hotel Winthrop, Boston, and an hour-glass of white carnations from Mr. J. R. Fogg. Many touching little clusters of flowers came from the children; and his neighbors sent a beautiful wreath of fringed gentian--Whittier's favorite flower. This came from the far Pacific Slope: "Lay one flower for me upon the bier of the beloved friend who rests. No purer soul ever passed from earth to Heaven, or bore with it greater love and blessing than does his.--Ina D. Coolbrith, Oakland, Cal."

In the garden, and overlooked by the windows of the study where Mr. Whittier wrote and thought for so many years, was gathered to pay the last tributes of love and reverence to the dead poet, a large and notable assemblage: Gen. O. O. Howard, E. C. Stedman, Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-Ward, Gail Hamilton, Lucy Larcom, Edna Dean Proctor, Horace E. Scudder, T. W. Higginson, ex-Governor Claflin, Parker Pillsbury, Francis H. Underwood, Edward L. Pierce, Robert S. Rantoul, Mrs. C. A. Dall, "Margaret Sidney," Harriet Prescott Spofford, Mrs. Endicott, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Jr., Frank J. Garrison, etc.

And the sight was one never to be forgotten. Under the soft September sky, blue and cloudless, in the shade of pear and apple trees which Whittier himself had planted and tended and loved, were his relatives, friends, neighbors and men and women whose names are known wherever the English language is spoken.

It scarcely seemed like a funeral, so unaffectedly natural and sincere was every spoken word and every act. And the entire absence of formality and stiffness deprived the occasion of that artificial gloom which is so often characteristic of funerals.

Perhaps, too, the subtle influence of the balmy air and the beauties of the place helped to lift the pall that must have hung over many a heart. It was as if the friends of some dearly beloved man, who was going on a journey, had gathered to bid him God-speed--not as if they had come to bid him farewell.

A hollow square was formed around a low platform, and near by was a table with a Bible upon it. Gentians, one of Whittier's favorite flowers, and goldenrod formed the only floral ornaments. Back of the seats stood a dense crowd that must have numbered thousands, almost filling the garden. Children climbed the trees and looked with open-eyed wonder on the scene. On an apple bough, his naked legs dangling in the air almost over the head of Edmund Clarence Stedman, was an urchin who might have inspired the "Barefoot Boy;" faces peered from many a tree, from the vine-clad arbor and from the window of a neighboring barn, down upon the crowd.

The poet's relatives, and members of the Society of Friends from various places, occupied the seats forming the hollow square, an easy-chair being reserved for Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he was unable to be present.

The Friends gave the exercises their peculiar complexion; first one and then another rising to eulogize their friend as the "Spirit moved them." Verses of Whittier were recited by "that lovely Quaker lady," Mrs. Gertrude Cartland, and by Mrs. James H. Chace. Mr. E. C. Stedman was the last speaker.

He spoke of the personal loss he felt in the poet's death. "To know him was a consecration, to have his sympathy a benediction. His passing away was not so much a death as a translation. He is gone, and has not left his mantle! How could he? Why should he? No one can overestimate his artless art, his power, vigor and effect in his polemic efforts. No one put so much heart or so much religion into his writings. He was one of the great trio of New England poets, of whom there is only one now left. They are the vanishers of whom he spoke. He was a believer in the inward life, as a poet should be. He will be his own successor, and belongs to our time as well as to that earlier time to which he is linked by his work. We may say of him that the chariot swung low and he was translated, dividing the waters of truth, beauty, and religion, with his mantle. The last time I spoke at a memorial service was at Bayard Taylor's funeral. Taylor was Whittier's friend, and like Whittier he had a firm belief in immortality."

It is to Mr. Stedman that Whittier dedicated in a few choice lines his latest volume of verse, "At Sundown," which the poet, as if prescient of his coming death, had had privately printed and circulated among a few friends a year before his fatal illness.

The most picturesque and striking figure at Whittier's funeral was that of the venerable John W. Hutchinson, whose long gray hair fell over a broad white Rembrandt collar. He and his sister, Abby Hutchinson Patton, were life-long friends of Whittier, and their voices in the song they sang--"Close his eyes, his work is done"--were, "like the echoes of sweet bells from the far-away time of their youth, when they and Whittier were one in endeavor."

And then the long procession was formed. In the family lot, in the Friends' section of the Union Cemetery, where are buried his father, mother, sisters and brother, John Greenleaf Whittier was laid to rest.

The Boston _Journal_, in writing of Whittier's obsequies, gathered up this tender reminiscence:--

"We recall the incident of some ten years since, when Mr. Daniel Lothrop, the late publisher, while visiting in California, used Whittier's poem, 'Andrew Rykman's Prayer' to comfort the bereaved. Mr. Lothrop had, as it were, been brought up on Mr. Whittier's poems, there being in many ways a great similarity of tastes and characteristics between them. Of late years there was a strong friendship. The clergyman of a prominent Oakland church had died suddenly in the pulpit some few weeks before, and at the large memorial meeting Mr. Lothrop was asked without warning by the chairman to recite this poem, as he had heard him repeat a few lines from it during a consecration meeting. Mr. Lothrop ascended the platform and gave the poem entire. There was a profound hush throughout the vast assembly, like that following the instant when the beloved pastor had suddenly fallen before their eyes. Many were in tears, all agreeing that Whittier's strong, uplifting words comforted them more than anything else that had been said. Rev. Dr. Gordon, in the address at Mr. Lothrop's funeral in the Old South Church, appropriately recited this poem for the late publisher, who on his death-bed used this poem, as he had in health and strength."

James G. Blaine telegraphed that he had "long regarded Whittier with affectionate veneration," and over the wire came from Frederick Douglas the words, "Emancipated millions will hold his memory sacred." Speaking of Mr. Blaine, a writer, "S. F. M.," in the Boston _Journal_, December 18, 1891, tells of Mr. Blaine's presenting his, "S. F. M.'s," brother with a morocco-bound copy of the beautiful Mussey edition, and of Mr. Blaine's reading and re-reading aloud, one Sunday at their house in Charlestown, Mass., the poem "Among the Hills," which had then just been issued.

Memorial services on the afternoon of the funeral were held in Danvers, Haverhill, Salem, Mass., and Vassalboro, Maine. The old Whittier grange at the cross roads in Haverhill was draped in mourning. The present owner of the birthplace is Mr. George E. Elliott, a retired wealthy gentleman of Haverhill; and it is hoped that at no distant day he may be induced to sell it to the town of Haverhill, who would sacredly keep this cherished spot marking the nativity of her distinguished son, so that all lovers of John G. Whittier's poetry may have an opportunity to see his early home.

The day after the funeral between seventeen and eighteen hundred people visited the grave. And, as in the case of Walt Whitman's grave, each one wanted a leaf or flower as a memento, so that it was necessary in both cases to have the place of sepulture guarded by special watchmen, in order that anything green be left.

The funeral of the poet was conducted as he himself wished. For in his will he wrote, "It is my wish that my funeral may be conducted in the plain and quiet way of the Society of Friends, with which I am connected not only by birthright, but also by a settled conviction of the truth of its principles and the importance of its testimonies." Mr. Whittier, by the way, in his will requests all who have letters of his to refrain from publishing them unless with the consent of his literary executor, Mr. S. T. Pickard.

So beautifully ended a most beautiful life--beautiful because just and heroic in the defense of justice. As says of him James Herbert Morse:--

"Such was the man--no more than simple man, Plain Quaker, with the Norman-Saxon glow; But seeing beauty so, and justice so, We love to think him the American."

And as Lowell says:--

"Peaceful by birthright as a virgin lake, The lily's anchorage, which no eyes behold Save those of stars, yet for thy brother's sake That lay in bonds thou blew'st a blast as bold As that wherewith the heart of Roland brake, Far heard through Pyrenean valleys cold!"

The lines strong and resonant, of Stedman's "Ad Vatem," addressed to Whittier while living, might well have been uttered over his bier:--

"Whittier, the land that loves thee, she whose child Thou art, and whose uplifted hands thou long Hast staid with song availing like a prayer-- She feels a sudden pang who gave thee birth, And gave to thee the lineaments supreme Of her own freedom, that she could not make Thy tissues all immortal, or, if to change, To bloom through years coeval with her own; So that no touch of age nor frost of time Should wither thee, nor furrow thy dear face, Nor fleck thy hair with silver. Ay, she feels A double pang that thee, with each new year Glad youth may not revisit, like the spring That routs her northern winter and anew Melts off the hoar snow from her puissant hills."

Many pleasant anecdotes of the Quaker poet appeared shortly after his death. Col. T. W. Higginson, writing of the Amesbury home, said of Whittier's mother:--

"On one point only this blameless soul seemed to have a shadow of solicitude, this being the new wonder of Spiritualism just dawning on the world. I never went to the house that there did not come from the gentle lady very soon a placid inquiry from behind her knitting needles, 'Has thee any further information to give in regard to the spiritual communications, as they call them?' But if I attempted to treat seriously a matter which then, as now, puzzled most inquirers by its perplexing details, there would come some keen thrust from Elizabeth Whittier which would throw all serious solution further off than ever.

"She was indeed a brilliant person, unsurpassed in my memory for the light cavalry charges of wit; as unlike her mother and brother as if she had been born into a different race. Instead of his regular features, she had a wild, bird-like look, with prominent nose and large liquid dark eyes, whose expression vibrated every instant between melting softness and impetuous wit. There was nothing about her that was not sweet and kindly, but you were constantly taxed to keep up with her sallies and hold your own; while her graver brother listened with delighted admiration and rubbed his hands over bits of merry sarcasm which were utterly alien to his own vein. His manifold visitors were touched off in living colors; two plump and rosy Western girls among them, who had lately descended upon the household beaming with eagerness to see the poet.

"They had announced themselves as the Cary sisters, who had lately sent him their joint poems--verses, it will be remembered, crowded with deaths and melodious dirges that seemed ludicrously inconsistent with the blooming faces at the door. Mrs. Whittier met them rather guardedly and explained that her son was out. 'But we will come in and wait for him,' they smilingly replied. 'But he is in Boston, and may not be home for a week,' said the prudent mother. 'No matter,' they said, in the true spirit of Western hospitality; 'we can stay till he returns.' There was no resource but to admit them; and happily the poet came back next day, and there ensued a life-long friendship, in which the mother fully shared."

And another reminiscence appeared in the press, touching the poet's residence in Boston.

When Mrs. Celia Thaxter was boarding at the little English-like inn on the sunny slope of Beacon Hill called Hotel Winthrop, Mr. Whittier went there one day to see her. Mrs. Thaxter liked the quiet place, with its ivied window and its glimpse of the strong, short, green-draped tower of St. John the Evangelist's, and she praised it to her old friend. That was some time in 1881, and in November of that year he joined his Oak Knoll cousins, Mrs. Woodman and her daughter and the Misses Johnson, at the Winthrop. The ladies of the family came in September, but Mr. Whittier did not join them until November. He said that he did not want to lose his vote in Amesbury.

It was a winter full of pleasure to the poet. He was then not too feeble to go out evenings, and he spent many pleasant hours with friends like the Claflins and others. But the hours in the parlor of the hotel make the place historic, and give it a special interest and meaning for his future biographer. Mr. Whittier had room fourteen (the number of a sonnet's lines, twice seven, with luck for a poet), and the fire-escape made a little balcony for him on a corner toward St. John's. The landlord had a door cut through the thick old wall to the rooms adjoining, and these were the rooms of Mrs. Woodman and the rest. It is old Boston decidedly in that quarter. The brick of the houses is mellow old red, and there is nothing newfangled anywhere about. Mr. Whittier said he preferred coming here rather than to one of the big hotels, because there he was "overwhelmed with the service," and here it seemed "more like Amesbury," where people "are neighborly and drop in without knocking." He had "always been used to waiting upon himself," and he "liked being in a place where they would let him."

It was his custom, mornings, to come down into the little reception-room on the street floor, and "sitting right in that chair where you're sitting," as the writer was told, he "used to read his letters and throw all the papers in a pile on the floor and go off and leave them." That little room was a great place of congregation for "the family," as the boarders who were there with Mr. Whittier liked to call themselves.

The poet would sit on the sofa with a favored one on each side of him and the rest in a group about, "often on footstools or on the floor, as like as not," while he "told stories of war times." Gen. Stevens was there during one of the poet's long stays; he had been a classmate of Gen. Lee and of Jefferson Davis at West Point, and he and the abolition poet discussed these men and their times from the broader view of later days.

"Once a friend, a lady who had some property in Virginia, wrote Mr. Whittier of having named a street in a new town for him, and of having set aside a portion of ground in his name. He replied with thanks, saying that he had that week received news of no less than three towns or streets being named for him with a gift of town lots, adding, 'If this sort of thing goes on much longer, I shall be land poor.'

"During the winters he was at the Winthrop, Mr. Whittier's favorite way of getting about was in a herdic. They were 'not pretty,' but they 'knew the way to places.' Politicians used to go there to see him and try to get him to banquets. But his life-long avoidance of politics in the minor sense made him easily resist their wiles. 'I have seen Mr. ---- (a well-known name) come here and just about go down on his knees to get Mr. Whittier to speak or even to come to a banquet,' says the landlord (who is, by the way, an old-time character worthy of a novelist's pen), 'but Mr. Whittier would just sit here--right in that chair you're in--and kind of smile to himself as if to say, "Oh! your talk don't amount to anything." Well, once Mr. ---- came here and staid and staid a-talking and persuading, and gave Mr. Whittier an earache if ever a man had one. But he didn't make anything by it, although he finally had to take a bed and stay all night.'"

Mr. Charles Brainard visited Whittier soon after the publication of "Snow-Bound." Finding his house painted and improved, he remarked to him, "It is evident that poetry has ceased to be a drug in the market."

"The next morning Mr. Whittier's answer came. It was in the winter, and, as the poet went up to the fire to warm his boots preparatory to putting them on, he said, 'Thee will have to excuse me, for I must go down to the office of the Collector.' Then, with a humorous gleam in his eye, he added, 'Since "Snow-Bound" was published, I have risen to the dignity of an income tax.'"

To an Englishman who visited him not long before his death, Mr. Whittier expressed his surprise that his guest should know so much of his poetry by heart. "I wonder," he said, "thou shouldst burden thy memory with all that rhyme. It is not well to have too much of it: better get rid of it as soon as possible. Why, I can't remember any of it. I once went to hear a wonderful orator, and he wound up his speech with a poetical quotation, and I clapped with all my might. Some one touched me on the shoulder, and said. 'Do you know who wrote that?' I said, 'No, I don't; but it's good.' It seems I had written it myself. The fault is I have written far too much."

Here is a story illustrating Whittier's kind-heartedness: A young lady, a neighbor, was asked to take tea at his house. "He had no servant at the moment, and, with the assistance of his guest, prepared the simple meal with his own hand. She contributed to the press for her support, and prepared a minute account of the affair, of which Mr. Whittier chanced to be advised, and sent off a remonstrance post haste. But when the young author pleaded the real need of the money which the little story was to bring her, and the harmlessness to its subject of its effective details, the former reason (for the latter would never have overcome his abhorrence of what he must have felt a vivisection) actually prevailed, and he permitted the publication with a benignant forbearance."

The Hon. Nathan Crosby, LL. D., writes in the Essex Institute Collections for 1880.

"James F. Otis, nephew of the Hon. H. G. Otis, while reading law in my office, found in some newspaper a piece of poetry which he said he was told had been written by a shoemaker boy in Haverhill, and he wished to go and find him. Upon his return he told me he found the young man by the name of Whittier at work in his shoe shop, and, making himself known to him, they spent the day together in wandering over the hills on the shore of the Merrimack, and in conversation upon literary matters. The next year he became an editor. Mr. Whittier is not only a poet, but is himself a poem."

Mr. Whittier, when interviewed some time ago as to his favorite works, replied: "Oh! really, I have none. Much that I have written I wish was as deep in the Red Sea as Pharaoh's chariot wheels. Much of the bread cast on the waters I wish had never returned. It is not fair to revive writings composed in the shadow of conditions that make every acceptable work impossible. In my early life I was not favored with good opportunities. Limited chances for education and a lack of books always stood in my way. When I began to write I had seen nothing, and virtually knew nothing of the world. Of course, things written then could not be worth much. In my father's house there were not a dozen books, and they were of a severe type. The only one that approached poetry was a rhymed history of King David, written by a contemporary of George Fox, the Quaker. There was one poor novel in the family. It belonged to an aunt. This I secured one day, but when I had read it about half through I was discovered and it was taken away from me."

This was about the time when Judge Pickering, of Salem, and a party of ladies called at the farm-house to see him. "He was then an awkward boy of seventeen--as he used to tell the story--and was just then under the barn, looking for eggs. Hearing his name called, he came up with his hat full and found himself suddenly in the presence of people more elegant in appearance than any he had ever met. In telling the story, he added naively, 'They came to see the Quaker poet--and they saw him!' This must have been about the year 1824."

Mr. T. W. Ball (in the Boston _Journal_, Dec. 18, 1891, weekly edition), the journalist, wrote of his sole interview in 1848 with Whittier, in a little editorial den at the junction of Spring Lane and Water Street with Devonshire Street (the building recently torn down), where Henry Wilson was then editing the Free-Soil paper (owned by him as well). "I was busy," says Mr. Ball, "getting up some local items one morning, when a gentleman of staid appearance, with a beaming countenance, a broad-brimmed fur hat--the old-fashioned fur hat, so different from the silk tile--and a brownish coat of formal cut, entered the room, and, after the usual courtesies of salutation, fell into a close chat with the 'Natick cobbler,' by which popular title the future Vice-President was then known. It was the summer season, and Wilson was resplendent in a brown linen coat and a flaming red-checked velvet waistcoat, which was much affected in those days. As the conversation between the two waxed interesting, I noticed that the visitor unbuttoned his vest for comfort, and possessed himself of an exchange paper which he converted into a fan. The interview closed, and the visitor, buttoning up his vest and donning his hat, turned to depart, when for the first time he appeared to take notice of my presence. With a rapid glance at Wilson, he said, 'Henry, who is thy young friend?'

"'Oh, that's William, my local reporter,' was the reply. 'Here, William, this is Mr. Whittier, the Quaker poet, that you have heard about; shake hands with him.' I timidly extended my hand, and the great man not only grasped it with a cordial grasp, but, patting me on the head with his other hand, said, 'My young friend, thee has chosen a noble calling.'"

Mr. Whittier, in speaking of Longfellow's works a few years ago, said, "'Evangeline' is a favorite with me. I think it is one of the most beautiful of poems. Longfellow had an easy life and superior advantages of association and education, and so did Emerson. It was widely different with me, and I am very thankful for the kind esteem that people have given my writings. Before 'Evangeline' was written I had hunted up the history of the banishment of the Acadians, and had intended to write upon it myself, but I put it off, and Hawthorne got hold of the story and gave it to Longfellow. I am very glad he did, for he was just the one to write it. If I had attempted it I should have spoiled the artistic effect of the poem by my indignation at the treatment of the exiles by the Colonial Government, who had a very hard lot after coming to this country. Families were separated and scattered about, only a few of them being permitted to remain in any given locality. The children were bound out to the families in the localities in which they resided, and I wrote a poem upon finding in the records of Haverhill the indenture that bound an Acadian girl as a servant in one of the families in that neighborhood. Gathering the story of her death, I wrote 'Marguerite.'"

In addition to what has been stated in this volume and elsewhere by me on the Barbara Frietchie ballad, are to be finally appended a few words, suggested by the one who sent the raw material of the ballad to Whittier, namely, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, who, soon after the poet's death, at her pretty home in Georgetown, D. C., recalled the circumstances as they occurred back in 1863. It seems that the story was told her by a neighbor of hers who was also a relative of Barbara--Mr. C. S. Ramsburg. Mrs. Southworth's son, who was present, remarked, "What a grand subject for a poem by Whittier, mother!"

She thereupon sat down, and with tears in her eyes, wrote the incident out and sent it to Amesbury. Mr. Whittier replied as follows:--

"AMESBURY, 9mo. 8, 1863.

"MY DEAR MRS. SOUTHWORTH:--I heartily thank thee for thy very kind letter and its inclosed "message." It ought to have fallen into better hands, but I have just written out a little ballad of "Barbara Frietchie," which will appear in the next _Atlantic_. If it is good for anything thee deserves all the credit of it.

"With best wishes for thy health and happiness, I am most truly thy friend,

"JOHN G. WHITTIER."

It is said that Mr. Whittier expressed regret for having made a bonfire of nearly all the letters he had received from his correspondents for over half a century. It is to be hoped that his literary executor will be liberal-minded in allowing the publication of the most interesting of Whittier's own letters, for he put a good bit of his sister Elizabeth's wit and vivacity into his letters; and scarcely a day passed that one or more of these was not written, overflowing with kindly words and good humor, though these, it is true, could give no hint of that lambent gleam of the marvelous eyes, nor of that sudden compression of the upper lip with which he repressed a smile when he had flashed out a bit of humor.

Whittier was not only quick in repartee, but quick and lithe in all his movements, and quick in his mental processes. His friend, Judge G. W. Cate, says he latterly read books very rapidly by inspection, turning the leaves and seizing the contents by intuition. The poet's imagination, continues Judge Cate, was wonderful. Years ago he may have read an accurate description of some remote place--Malta, Jerusalem, or some smaller town in the far East. He would then converse at any time as readily about such a place as if he had been there. It was this vivid remembrance of places, Whittier himself said, which made him not care so much to visit them in person. He was never a traveler, not having been farther from home than Philadelphia (half a century ago), and Washington somewhat later. He said that he should like to be in California or Florida for a winter, but the getting there appalled him, and so he sat contentedly in his Northern study, with its bright open fire, finding in its crumbling embers a compensatory dream of the _Morgenland_ with its palms, mirages and luxuriant blossomry. He followed with deep interest the toils and adventures of his friend Greely in the arctic regions, and rejoiced with all his neighbors when word came of his rescue. And at another time he said he "would rather shake hands with Stanley than with any other man in the world just then."

The sincerest mourners at Whittier's funeral were women. One of the peculiarities of his life was the devotion and loving care given to him by noble women--sisters, mother, nieces, cousins and such poet friends as Lucy Larcom, Mrs. Spofford, Rose Terry Cooke, Sarah Orne Jewett, Celia Thaxter, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Mrs. Annie Fields. He was always an ardent defender of woman suffrage, and such advocates of that noble cause as Adelaide A. Claflin publicly expressed their sorrow on the death of their coadjutor and friend.

He was not only liberal in politics, but also in religion, and while remaining from choice in the creedless church of his fathers, yet he had sympathies that allied him with the broad humanitarian movements of the times in religion. There was no shred of bigotry in his nature. Who ever heard of a persecuting Quaker? It is they who have always patiently suffered persecution. Whittier, indeed, belonged with the advance guard of the Friends, in spirit at least, and he said in a letter written shortly before his death, "For years I have been desirous of a movement for uniting all Christians, with no other creed or pledge than a simple recognition of Christ as our leader."

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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."

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Transcriber's Note: Although the Contents lists an Appendix, there was no actual appendix or page 375 in the scanned copy. Other copies of this book were found to have the same problem.

End of Project Gutenberg's John Greenleaf Whittier, by W. Sloane Kennedy