Part 8

“Nor do we derive anything of substantial consolation from the spiritual philosophy. For myself I do not feel the need of it to assure me of the continuity of life--that my mother still lives and loves us. All I now ask for is the serene and beautiful child-like trust which has made holy and pleasant the passage of our dear mother. I no longer ask for _sight_--I feel that _faith_ is better. But I can only speak for myself. Others may find solace and comfort in what appears to them to be a communication direct and certain with the loved ones who have entered into the new life....

“Our neighbors have been very kind and considerate. We miss thee very much,” he goes on to say, “especially these long winter evenings when it is very hard for us to sit alone with our thoughts. Elizabeth seems quite overworn and exhausted; but I hope is slowly gaining--and for myself I have been little better than sick for the last six weeks. But I am very thankful I was able to be with my mother to the last. I find no real consolation in anything short of a prayerful submission to the Divine Providence.... Elizabeth sends thee her love and hopes soon to write thee herself.”

Shortly after the death of his sister Elizabeth, this same friend was most desirous to give the poet direct evidence that it was possible to communicate with spirits from another world. Such proof was difficult to her sincere nature unable to avail itself of shadowy methods, therefore lacking mediumistic powers.

But one day in the garden room she was making the experiment, the poet listening with the deepest interest. He was of the mind of Mortimer in “Henry the Fourth,” who when Glendower boasted to him, “I can call spirits from the vast deep,” retorted, “Why, so can I; and so can any man. But will they _come_ when you do call for them?” The spiritualist, however, was full of hope, and was beginning to believe that some revelation was to be vouch-safed to her--when, suddenly, she ceased all effort and became her natural self.

“I can do nothing,” she announced. “The spirits will not come. An unbeliever is near.”

Whittier was not amazed at the reticence of the spirits. All that he wondered at as he told the story was how his companion had devined the approaching footsteps to be--as they proved--those of a strong disbeliever in spiritualism, although a firm believer in spirituality.

* * * * *

Yet everything which held a possibility of throwing light upon the unknown world had the greatest interest for Whittier.

One evening going to the doctor’s house, he found the elders of the family out of town. The poet seated himself for a few moments--possibly not to disappoint the young people who welcomed his coming.

“If you’ll stay, Mr. Whittier,” said one of them, “we’ll have ‘planchette’.” For that magic and impish toy, as it was then considered, was at the time at the zenith of its fame. Today it bears the name of “ouija.”

Up sprang the poet and whipped off his overcoat. A table was cleared. Paper, of which planchette required a lavish supply, was brought. And the poet and the only member of the family capable of coaxing anything out of planchette sat down to the witchy little instrument which then as today aroused wondering questions.

It was upon its good behavior that evening and poured forth voluble answers. While in general most unreliable, at times it did seem to have a power of divination. All the autumn of that year a “fire-bug,” still at large and undiscovered, had been doing great damage in the neighboring city of Newburyport. That evening planchette, after many aliases, did actually give a name which, later, proved to be that of the criminal. Whittier was vastly entertained with the whole performance; and--most unusual with him--it was approaching the large hours of the night when he went home.

But as he rose from the table, he revealed the extent of his faith in the powers of the tricksy little toy. Turning to his coadjutor, he said to her:

“If thee can write planchette as well as that, thee can write a book.”

But she never did.

The next instant Whittier had gone--after the manner of his flittings.

* * * * *

But he met in a different vein something which seemed to its narrator a hint from the spirit world--a dream which had come to her after the death of her father. In this dream she had seen him standing, a vision of health and beauty, beside the double of himself lying in last agony. He had looked down upon the suffering form as if he himself were no longer one with it; and to emphasize this had thrown a covering over the dead face. This dream had been twice repeated with only slight variations.

Whittier listened with eager interest; and then turning to the narrator, he said impressively:

“That was a good dream. I think that was sent to comfort thee.”

The poet would sometimes talk of the relations of those gone to another world to their dear ones still here; and would wonder if the departed knew of sorrow or loss to them--or, still worse, of sin in the earth-bound ones whom they watched. Yet, if this were so, he said, their outlook into the future must be larger than ours, or their faith much greater; and so, they would perceive, or believe, that all would yet be well.

XXVIII

In memory of the dear ones gone before, Whittier was desirous to buy back the old birthplace in Haverhill. To his friend, Colonel F----, conducting the negotiations for him, he wrote:

“I would leave it to any three competent judges of property in the neighborhood to fix a price, if we could not agree among ourselves.”

The purchase, however, fell through on account of the unreasonable price demanded. The owners reckoned upon Whittier’s vanity in desiring to get possession of the scene of “Snow-Bound.”

But the poet was full of thoughtfulness of what his money should do for others. Long before the possibility of this purchase came to him, he used to say that a great part of the land in the old farm was “only good to help to hold the world together.” In his letter desiring to buy the property he stated that the part he wanted was about the poorest part of the farm. “And the house to anybody but myself,” he added, “would be only valuable as firewood.”

After his death the birthplace was bought by “The Whittier Homestead Association” which has its membership among lovers of Whittier in Haverhill and elsewhere. The care bestowed upon it and the many pilgrims who journey to it prove the house of greater value to his admirers than to the poet.

* * * * *

If anything in Whittier showed, pre-eminently, the quality of his soul, it was his absolute loyalty. His allegiance once given, he was always true, whether to person or to cause. The friends of his earlier days lost none of their dearness when wide fame and comparative wealth opened the world to him. His old companions seemed to be to him a part of the old family life that he cherished so unremittingly. In life he loved them; and he always carried in his heart the friends who had passed beyond the veil.

“The sudden death of one of my oldest friends, J. T. Fields, was a great shock to me,” he wrote. “For forty years we have been very intimate. No man save thy father has ever seemed nearer to me. It is very strange to outlive so many of my dear friends.” Of still another he says: “Thus our loved ones pass on. I at least shall soon follow.”

* * * * *

His letters are full of thought of those dear to him here or in the world beyond. About three years before his death he said in one of these:

“I have been miserably ill in August and September and have not been able to read or write much. My eyes fail me and I cannot use them without pain. I have thought a great deal of thy father during my illness. I shall never see a ‘beloved physician’ like him. When I was in C---- the only visit I made was to the house where he lived,” [in former days]. Elsewhere he says again: “Reading Miss Jewett’s new book, “A Country Doctor,” I could not help thinking of thy dear father. I have never ceased to miss him and have always been thankful that I was permitted to know and love him.”

* * * * *

“Don’t work too hard, too continuously,” he advised a young friend. “I have not been able for years to write more than half an hour at a time because I wrote too steadily long ago. My work, however, is nearly done. I am feeling what old age is more and more, pain, loneliness, and failing powers. But I have no right to complain. For the many blessings which remain I am very grateful, not the least of which is the love of my friends.”

Later, he wrote: “I can say but little for myself. The cold, wet season has been hard for me and has made me very sensible that I am old. I have little strength. Everything tires me. After writing a letter or seeing company, I feel exhausted.

“I am here [in Amesbury] at the election, and am glad of the result. I shall probably go back to Danvers soon. I dread the coming winter. But all will be as God wills and that will be best.”

But neither age nor illness made him neglect his vote.

Later, regretting a friend’s illness, he says:

“There is so much to be done in this world and so many of us are unable to take our part in the work our hands find to do.”

Again, he dreads the winter. “I wait for it in no defiant mood,” he says, “I can scarcely imagine that I am the same person who used to welcome it.”

* * * * *

A band of colored singers whom the Hampton Institute had trained to delight Northern ears with their music, came to the poet at Oak Knoll, and standing about him with a reverence born of their knowledge of what he had been to their race, they sang to him.

As the poet listened he was filled with remembrances of the days of slavery and the contrast of their present freedom and hope, and wept in gratitude and joy.

Happily, the length and sufferings marking the upward road of the race were concealed from him.

XXIX

“I go to Amesbury this week,” wrote the poet from Oak Knoll in one of his later years, “to attend our Quarterly Meeting there [the Quarterly Meeting of the Friends]. “I have not been very well this spring; but the east winds must be nearly over and I hope I shall feel better.”

“I suppose we all need to feel our weakness and dependence upon our Father,” he added, in answer to his correspondent, “and that it is well for us to find ourselves walking the Valley of Humiliation; but I like the hills and the sunshine, after all.” And the hills and the sunshine of joy were what he liked to lead others to when he could.

With his invincible diffidence as to his own work, he spoke of “My poem in the ‘Atlantic,’” deprecating its merit but referring to it as a sad revelation of “the old time.”

He had written before in the same strain of another of his poems there.

* * * * *

One day there came to him at Oak Knoll a person who had known him long and well but had recently done something thoughtlessly with which she afterward perceived that he had reason to be offended. She had come to him resolved to tell him of it, and believing that, since he was so kind, this would not be hard to do.

But it was hard; and as after the greeting she sat listening and saying little, the sense of her own mistake grew upon her. How could she bear it if he should lose confidence, even in her judgment?

“There is something I have done in regard to you, Mr. Whittier,” she began at last----“and I’m afraid you’ll be angry with me,” she added with a new fearfulness.

Instantly, he turned his face from the fire into which he had been gazing and looked at her. He read all her fears. His whole face softened. His flashing eyes met hers.

“I shall not be angry long,” he answered; and was silent, waiting.

But the glance, the perfect assurance of the tone were more than comfort; they were comprehension and the glad evidence of a trust too firm to be lightly overthrown. And as she told her story, freely now, it turned out that he had known it, and in a moment by his tact and judgment had righted everything she had feared that she had tangled.

* * * * *

“I have been unable to write for some weeks except at rare intervals, as my eyes are failing me, and my general health and strength are so diminished,” he wrote from Amesbury in the May of 1889. “I never expect to write again except an occasional note in private correspondence. The mental effort of dictation which I have tried is too hard for me. Phebe [the adopted daughter of his cousin, Mrs. Woodman at Oak Knoll] has tried to be my amanuensis, but to little purpose. I can only read for a few minutes without pain. I should not venture to engage to write anything for the public. My work is over--I can do no more, but must silently wait for the end which cannot be far off. Letter after letter meanwhile comes to me which I cannot answer, and people come to see me whom I cannot talk with.”

* * * * *

Yet he rallied his strength. For it was after this letter that the last beautiful message of his poems--“At Sundown”--printed and not published at that time, was sent out by him in greeting to his friends.

* * * * *

Whatever his weakness and weariness of body, his prayer,

“Let my last days be my best,”

was answered. For the soul in him was that shining “light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”

After his recovery from “grippe” with which he had been dangerously ill, the writer held a long conversation with him at the home of his cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Cartland of Newburyport.

In this conversation he seemed in clearness of vision, wideness of range, strength and grasp of subject, and especially in a certain energy, to carry her back to his days of comparative bodily vigor. All that his soul had had or held, it had and held more firmly than ever, and it had gained that higher outlook spread before the eyes of him whose feet are upon the mountains.

Not only did Whittier believe in immortality, but his very presence helped others to believe in it.

XXX

“And all the windows of my heart I open to the day,”

sang the poet when through time and trial somewhat of the rest of eternity had come to him and in the beginning of age--that youth of immortality--he could say:

“... all the jarring notes of life Seem blending in a psalm.”

With all the elements so mixed in him--pride, power, ambition, indignation against wrong, intense love of liberty, keenness in character-reading, political acumen, delight in beauty, with humor illuminating all it lighted upon--and not inclined to overlook anything--we find in many-sided Whittier nothing more strongly marked than praise of all things good, which flows inevitably into worship of the Giver. For simplicity is not at all one idea; it is one purpose.

* * * * *

“I am a Quaker because my family before me--those whom I loved--were Quakers,” he said one day to his guest who had accompanied him to the Friends’ meeting and on returning sat in the garden room listening to his comments. “And also I am one because the faith pleases me,” he continued. “I believe in it.”

In the May of 1886, only six years before his death, the poet wrote:

“I hope thee are able to enjoy this beautiful springtime better than I can. I have been laid up with a cold for the last fortnight, and I have reached an age when I cannot afford to take cold at all. I hope to be able to go to Amesbury in season for Quarterly Meeting which I have never missed.”

He had never missed the Quarterly Meeting of the Friends--he at almost forescore and having always been so delicate in health!

* * * * *

It was wonderful that Whittier with his delicate health, his many illnesses, his extreme sensitiveness, even to the winds of heaven when they did not blow from the right quarter, should have fought through and helped to win a great battle for the freedom of millions of human beings.

Still more wonderful was it that he should have lived for almost a generation after this was won, to enjoy the fruits of his victory and of his genius. In 1883 he said in a letter:

“Many years ago a Boston doctor of eminence told me that I had disease of the heart. But if that had been so, I should not have been alive now.”

* * * * *

More than the absence of positive disease, however, upheld his strength. It was that constant renewal of vital force which comes from living in the Spirit, united with that same wise judgment in the management of his frail body that marked his course in all matters.

He voices this renewal of vitality when in “Our Master,” he says:

“We touch him in life’s throng and press, And we are whole again.”

They who have seen Whittier suddenly arrested in speech and action stand motionless with bent head and listening soul, and then for a moment uplift his face, his eyes glowing with inspiration, as if his own soul were sending back a message to the skies, can never doubt that there were moments when in the language of the prophets whom he loved, “an angel spake to him.”

Or was it that the heart of the Father Himself--the “Over-Heart,” as the poet has it--called to his heart?

Later, the poet would speak the message he had received. But the fullness, the joy of it no man could utter--unless he spoke in the tongue of Heaven.

* * * * *

It was in the garden room where the eyes of one who sat by in reverence had seen this bowed head, this look listening and rapt, this flashing upward glance responsive with joy and power, that the poet sat discoursing of many things of life and thought. In speaking of a creed--belief in the hard and fast-bound fate of all who did not reach what human beings considered the standard of faith--he said:

“If people really believed all the things that they think they believe concerning God and the future judgment of the lost, there would be no more smiling in the world.”

Yet no one could be farther from underestimating the danger of slighting human responsibility than was Whittier. His oft-repeated saying, “The Lord will do the best He can for us,” to Whittier always carried with it the certainty that God would respect man’s choice. It was linked with the poet’s assertions, “It’s better not to risk behaving in this world as if there were no other,” and, “We ought to do the best we can in this world.”

The intensity of this conviction he utters in his “Tent on the Beach,” where he speaks of taking in the crowded sail and letting his conscience steer--the conscience, not of a bigot, but of a saint.

* * * * *

Poet, philanthropist, saint, as he was--and not scientist--no man comes closer to that supreme science which is perception of the highest truths. That the love of the Father is unalterable, and the free choice of man inalienable, brings to his mind all the possibilities of endless sinning and suffering, side by side with the mercy that endures forever. In its vivid portrayal of Divine love rejected, his poem, “The Answer,” is one of the most remarkable religious poems of the language. In it he sings:

“No force divine can love compel.

“No word of doom may shut thee out, No wind of wrath may downward whirl, No swords of fire keep watch about The open gates of pearl;

“A tenderer light than moon or sun, Than song of earth a sweeter hymn, May shine and sound forever on, And thou be deaf and dim.

“For ever round the Mercy-seat The guiding lights of Love shall burn; But what if, habit-bound, thy feet Shall lack the will to turn?”

* * * * *

In such mood one day in the garden room the talk led up to the story of Lazarus and Dives, to the selfish luxury in which the latter had lived, his hard-heartedness, his terrible punishment, and in Hades his cry for mercy, if not for himself, yet for his brothers. After uttering many things of deepest interest, the poet sat silent with head bent and eyes upon the flower flame which he loved so well, and which in some way seemed to inspire him. Suddenly, he turned upon his hearer, his eyes kindled into splendor by the glow of his thought which flashed upon him and burst into instant speech.

“He would not stay there long,” he said of Dives; “he had begun to think of his brothers!”

* * * * *

Two visitors came to the poet’s house one day and while waiting for him to appear, one of them picked up the poem, “The Eternal Goodness,” then just published, and reading it aloud remarked, “Whittier could not have written that thirty years ago.”

It was true. As Whittier’s feet had climbed the steeps of self-sacrifice, the horizon of the Eternal had ever widened before his eyes. Many men has he trained in faith and leadership.

For while men’s minds struggled with questions as to the mind and methods of God, Whittier from the Spirit within him sang of the heart of God. Neither mete nor bound of creed could hold him whose communion was with the Spirit itself. His last message--“Love to all the world,” was the seal of those years of spiritual communion with Him who came to save the world.

In recalling those inspired poems, “The Eternal Goodness,” and “Our Master,” the remark he made one day to the writer becomes of especial interest.

“I asked Emerson,” said Whittier, as he sat talking beside the flower-filled hearth in the garden room, “doesn’t thee believe that Christ was more than other men--than mere human?” “Yes,” Emerson answered. “Then I said to him,” continued Whittier, “If thee does, thee ought to confess it in thy writings.”

“His eye was beauty’s powerless slave,”

Whittier most truly sings of himself.

For never a fair and beautiful thing of earth in his pathway was unseen by him; and never one did he pass by, save at the command which led him to higher beauty. No indifference or coldness, no lack of fervor or of sympathy marred his high nature. His poems are full of belief in the immanence of the Spirit that to him was no vague and distant Effulgence, but a present Companion.

This vision of Reality through the mists which clothe the seeming real was so vivid that to him every mountain was a possible Mount of Transfiguration needing but the revelation of the One always present to show forth its splendor.

* * * * *

Whittier is inspirer in patriotism, in honor, in holiness; comforter in distress and sorrow. To those who believe in the sacredness of a righteous cause, who hold their country’s honor high; to those who would listen to the voice of Nature in her true and deepest moods; to those who love

“All sweet accords of hearts and homes;”

--and more--to those who mourn their dead, or who sorrow over sins and seek the promise of the Father’s love--to all these when life’s strain is greatest Whittier declares that Reality which the soul craves.

In the sins, distresses, and sorrows overwhelming the world today, Whittier’s life and work stand forth filled with the strength builded upon Eternity. With inspiration he sings to the word:

“All which is real now remaineth, And fadeth never; The Hand which upholds it now sustaineth The soul forever.”

END

Transcriber’s Notes

Some minor punctuation errors and omissions were silently corrected.

Page 24: “Almesbury and its adjacent” changed to “Amesbury and its adjacent”

Page 123: “its wierdness” changed to “its weirdness”

Page 124: “paper of a wierd” changed to “paper of a weird”

Page 125: “Hugenot indignation” changed to “Huguenot indignation”

Page 126: “before sending to it the publishers” changed to “before sending it to the publishers”

Page 150: “of his sympanthy” changed to “of his sympathy”