John Greenleaf Whittier Part 17

CHAPTER VI.

PROSE WRITINGS.

It is to be feared that the greater portion of the prose writings of Whittier will be _caviare_ to many readers of this day. He himself almost admits as much in the prefatory note to the second volume of the complete edition of his essays. That many of the papers are entertaining reading, and that they are written often in a light and genial and vivacious style, is true; and, as he himself hints, they will at least be welcomed and indulgently judged by his personal friends and admirers.

His prose work was done in a time seething with moral ideas; the air was full of reforms; the voice of duty sounded loud in men's consciences, and the ancestral buckler called--

"Self-clanging, from the walls In the high temple of the soul!"

_Lowell._

That particular era is now pa.s.sed. The great secular heart is now in its diastole, or relaxation. Hence it is that the philanthropic themes discussed by Mr. Whittier thirty years ago (and most of his essays are of a philanthropic character) possess but a languid interest for the present reading public. The artistic essays, however, are charming, and possess permanent interest. Let us except from these the long productions, "Margaret Smith's Journal" and "My Summer with Dr.

Singletary." Some have thought these to be the best papers in the collection. But to many they must appear frigid and old-fashioned in the extreme. They seem aimless and sprawling, mere _esquisses_, tentative work in a field in which the author was doubtful of his powers. They would ordinarily be cla.s.sed under the head of Sunday-school literature.

It has been suggested that the idea of "Margaret Smith's Journal" might have been derived from the "Diary of Lady Willoughby," which appeared about the same time. "The Journal" is a reproduction of the antique in style and atmosphere, and is said to be very successful as far as that goes. But certainly the iteration of the archaism, "did do," "did write," etc., gets to be very wearisome. The "Journal" purports to be written by a niece of Edward Rawson, Secretary of Ma.s.sachusetts from 1650-1686. The scene is laid in Newbury, where Rawson settled about 1636. We have pleasant pictures of the colonial life of the day, of the Quakers and Indians and Puritans, and, on the whole, the sketch is well worth reading by historical students.

"Old Portraits and Modern Sketches" consists chiefly of newspaper articles on modern reformers. They were originally contributed to the _National Era_. The portraits drawn are those of John Bunyan, Thomas Ellwood, James Nayler, Andrew Marvell, John Roberts, Samuel Hopkins, Richard Baxter,--and, among Americans, William Leggett and Nathaniel Peabody Rogers,--both anti-slavery reformers and journalists; and, lastly, Robert Dinsmore, the rustic Scotch-American poet of Haverhill.

The last three papers mentioned are the best.

The second volume of Mr. Whittier's prose writings bears the t.i.tle "Literary Recreations and Miscellanies," and consists of various reviews, thumb-nail essays, and indigenous folk-and-nature studies, made in the region of the Merrimack. These last are of most interest, and indicate the field which Mr. Whittier would have cultivated with most success. In the reviews of the volume the newspapery tone and journalist diction are rather unpleasantly conspicuous. As a critic, our poet is not very successful, because he is too earnest a partisan, too merciless and undistinguishing in his invective or too generous in his praise. For example, what he says about Carlyle, in reviewing that author's infamous "Discourse on the Negro Question," is true as far as it goes. But of the elementary literary canon, that the prime function of the critic is to put himself in the place of the one he is criticising,--of this law Mr.

Whittier has not, practically, the faintest notion. He considers everything from the point of view of the Quaker or of the reformer.

Numerous specimens of Mr. Whittier's prose have already been given in various parts of this volume, but for the sake of ill.u.s.tration we may add two more. For an example of his serious style take the following from "Scottish Reformers": "He who undertakes to tread the pathway of reform--who, smitten with the love of truth and justice, or, indignant in view of wrong and insolent oppression, is rashly inclined to throw himself at once into that great conflict which the Persian seer not untruly represented as a war between light and darkness--would do well to count the cost in the outset. If he can live for Truth alone, and, cut off from the general sympathy, regard her service as its own 'exceeding great reward'; if he can bear to be counted a fanatic and crazy visionary; if, in all good nature, he is ready to receive from the very objects of his solicitude abuse and obloquy in return for disinterested and self-sacrificing efforts for their welfare; if, with his purest motives misunderstood and his best actions perverted and distorted into crimes, he can still hold on his way and patiently abide the hour when 'the whirligig of Time shall bring about its revenges'; if, on the whole, he is prepared to be looked upon as a sort of moral outlaw or social heretic under good society's interdict of food and fire; and if he is well a.s.sured that he can, through all this, preserve his cheerfulness and faith in man,--let him gird up his loins and go forward in G.o.d's name. He is fitted for his vocation; he has watched all night by his armor.... Great is the consciousness of right. Sweet is the answer of a good conscience. He who pays his whole-hearted homage to truth and duty,--who swears his life-long fealty on their altars, and rises up a Nazarite consecrated to their service,--is not without his solace and enjoyment when, to the eyes of others, he seems the most lonely and miserable. He breathes an atmosphere which the mult.i.tude know not of; 'a serene heaven which they cannot discern rests over him, glorious in its purity and stillness.'"

For a specimen of our author's vein of pleasantry take the following bit of satire on "The Training": "What's now in the wind? Sounds of distant music float in at my window on this still October air. Hurrying drum-beat, shrill fife-tones, wailing bugle-notes, and, by way of accompaniment, hurrahs from the urchins on the crowded sidewalks. Here come the citizen-soldiers, each martial foot beating up the mud of yesterday's storm with the slow, regular, up-and-down movement of an old-fashioned churn-dasher. Keeping time with the feet below, some threescore of plumed heads bob solemnly beneath me. Slant sunshine glitters on polished gun-barrels and tinselled uniform. Gravely and soberly they pa.s.s on, as if duly impressed with a sense of the deep responsibility of their position as self-const.i.tuted defenders of the world's last hope,--the United States of America, and possibly Texas.

They look out with honest, citizen faces under their leathern vizors (their ferocity being mostly the work of the tailor and tinker), and, I doubt not, are at this moment as innocent of bloodthirstiness as yonder worthy tiller of the Tewksbury Hills, who sits quietly in his wagon dispensing apples and turnips without so much as giving a glance at the procession. Probably there is not one of them who would hesitate to divide his last tobacco-quid with his worst enemy. Social, kind-hearted, psalm-singing, sermon-hearing, Sabbath-keeping Christians; and yet, if we look at the fact of the matter, these very men have been out the whole afternoon of this beautiful day, under G.o.d's holy sunshine, as busily at work as Satan himself could wish in learning how to butcher their fellow-creatures, and acquire the true scientific method of impaling a forlorn Mexican on a bayonet, or of sinking a leaden missile in the brain of some unfortunate Briton, urged within its range by the double incentive of sixpence per day in his pocket and the cat-o'-nine tails on his back!"

PART III.

TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL.

CHAPTER I.

TWILIGHT AND EVENING BELL.

The pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sociates 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, Ma.s.s., 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 att.i.tude 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 cla.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstance 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 ma.n.u.script 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 pa.s.sing 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 b.u.t.terworth, 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!"