John Greenleaf Whittier Part 9

To these notes of personal traits it only remains to add a list of the offices of dignity and honor which have been held by Mr. Whittier.

Besides his various editorial, secretarial, and legislative positions, he served as Overseer of Harvard College from 1858 to 1863. He was a member of the Electoral College in 1860 and in 1864. The degree of Master of Arts was bestowed upon him by Harvard College in 1860, and the same degree by Haverford College in the same year. He was elected a resident member of the American Philosophical Society in 1864, but never accepted the honor, notwithstanding the fact that his name appeared for two or three years on the Society's roll. In 1871 he was made a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

PART II.

a.n.a.lYSIS OF HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS.

CHAPTER I.

THE MAN.

_"Not by the page word-painted Let life be banned or sainted: Deeper than written scroll The colors of the soul."_

MY TRIUMPH.

To a.n.a.lyze and describe the _poetry_ of Whittier is a comparatively easy task, for it is all essentially lyrical or descriptive, and is resolvable into a few simple elements. His poetry is not profound; but it is sweet and melodious,--now flashing with the fire of freedom and choked with pa.s.sionate indignation, and now purling and rippling through the tranquil meadows of legend and song. Such a poem as Emerson's "Sphinx," groaning with its weight of mystical meaning, Whittier never wrote, nor could write. Neither is he dramatic, nor skilled in the subtile harmonies of rhythm and metre. As an artist he is easily comprehensible. But to fathom the _man_,--to drop one's plummet into the infinite depths of the human mind, to peer about with one's little candle among the dusty phantoms and spent forces of the past, and through the endlessly crossing and interblending meshes trace confidently up all the greater and the finer hereditary influences that have moulded a human character,--and then discover and weigh the post-natal forces that have acted upon that character through a long and varied life,--this is a very difficult task, and demands in him who would undertake it a union of historic imagination with caution and modesty.

The moral in Whittier predominates over the aesthetic, the reformer over the artist. "I am a man, and I feel that I am above all else a man."

What is the great central element in our poet's character, if it is not that deep, never-smouldering moral fervor, that unquenchable love of freedom, that--

"Hate of tyranny intense, And hearty in its vehemence,"

which, mixed with the beauty and melody of his soul, gives to his pages a delicate glow as of gold-hot iron; which crowns him the Laureate of Freedom in his day, and imparts to his utterances the manly ring of the prose of Milton and Hugo and the poetry of Byron, Swinburne, and Whitman,--all poets of freedom like himself?

[Ill.u.s.tration: Handwriting: John G. Whittier]

And what is love of freedom but the mainspring of Democracy? And what is Democracy but the rallying-cry of the age, the one word of the present, the one word of the future, the word of all words, and the white, electric beacon-light of modern life?

At the apex of modern Democracy stands Jesus of Nazareth; at its base stand the poets and heroes of freedom of the past hundred years.

Christian Democracy has had its revolutions, its religious ferments and revolts, and its emanc.i.p.ations of slaves. Quakerism is one of its outcomes. Democracy produced George Fox; George Fox produced Quakerism; Quakerism produced Whittier; Whittier helped destroy slavery. He could not help doing so, for with slavery both Democracy and Quakerism are incompatible. Whittier fought slavery as a Quaker, he has lived as a Quaker, and written as a Quaker; he has never fully emanc.i.p.ated himself from the shackles of the sect. To understand him, therefore, we must understand his religion.

The principles of the sect are all summed up in the phrases _Freedom_ and the _Inner Light_. Historically considered, Quakerism is a product of the ferment that followed the civil war in England two centuries ago.

Considered abstractly, or as a congeries of principles, it has a sociological and a philosophical root, both of these running back into the great tap-root, love of freedom, whose iron-tough, writhen fibres enwrap the dark foundation rocks of human nature itself.

Sociologically speaking, Quakerism is pure democracy, an exaltation of the majesty of the individual and of the ma.s.s of the people. It is the pure precipitate of Christianity. It is a protest against the hypocrisy, formalism, tyranny, of priestcraft, king-craft, and aristocracy.

Philosophically, its theory of the Inner Light is identical with the doctrine of idealism or innate ideas, held by Descartes, Fichte, Sch.e.l.ling, Cousin. It means individualism, a return to the primal sanities of the soul. "I think, therefore I am." My thinking soul is the ultimate source of ideas and truth. In that serene holy of holies full-grown ideas leap into being,--subjective, _a priori_, needing no sense-perception for their genesis.

But Transcendentalism differed from Quakerism in this: the former held that the illumination of the mind was a natural process; but Quakerism maintains that it is a supernatural process, the work of the "Holy Ghost." And herein Quakerism is inferior to Transcendentalism. But it is superior to it in that it does not believe in the infallibility of individual intuitions, but considers the true criterion of truth to be the universal reason, the "consensus of the competent." Yet the great danger that pertains to all moonshiny, or subjective, systems of philosophy is that their individualism will spindle out into wild extravagances of theory, and foolish eccentricities of manner and dress; and we shall find that, practically, Quakerism has as Quixotic a record as Transcendentalism. To say that both systems have performed n.o.ble and indispensable service in the development of mind is but to utter a truism.

We may now consider a little more closely the peculiarities of doctrine and life which characterize the Friends. The doctrine of the Inner Light, or pure spirituality, resulted in such tenets as these: the freedom of conscience; the soul the fountain of all truth, worthlessness of tradition and unsanctified learning; the conscience or voice within the judge of the Bible or Written Word; disbelief in witchcraft, ghosts, and other superst.i.tions; love of friends and enemies, the potency of moral suasion, moral ideas, and as a consequence the wickedness of war, and a belief in human progress as the result of peaceable industry; universal enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, every man and woman may be enlightened by the Inner Light,--hence equality of privilege, no distinction between clergy or laity or between s.e.x and s.e.x,--the right of woman to develop her entire nature as she sees fit. In the principles which define the att.i.tude of the Quaker toward social conventions, we find a queer jumble of the doctrines of primitive Christianity with the ideas of individual independence innate in the Germanic mind, and especially in the popular mind.[20] The Christian gospel of love forbids the Quakers to countenance war, capital punishment, imprisonment for debt, slavery, suppressment of the right of free speech and the right of pet.i.tion.

Their doctrine of equality in virtue of spiritual illumination forbids them to remove their hats in presence of any human being, even a king; leads them to avoid the use of the plural "you," as savoring of man-worship, and to refuse to employ a hired priesthood. Their doctrine of pure spirituality is inconsistent with sacerdotal rites and mummeries, such as baptism, the eucharist, forms of common prayer, etc.

Music, poetry, painting, and dancing also have a worldly savor and tend to distract the mind from its spiritual life. So do rich and gaudy robes: we must therefore have simplicity of dress. Hear William Penn on this subject:[21]--

"I say, if sin brought the first coat, poor Adam's offspring have little reason to be proud or curious in their clothes.... It is all one as if a man who had lost his nose by a scandalous distemper, should take pains to set out a false one, in such shape and splendor as should give the greater occasion for all to gaze upon him; as if he would tell them he had lost his nose, for fear they would think he had not. But would a wise man be in love with a false nose, though ever so rich, and however finely made?"

[Footnote 20: The same sterling material that went to the making of the Quaker went also to the making of the Puritan farmer-and-artisan victors of Naseby, and Worcester, and Marston Moor. The same faults characterized each cla.s.s. In stiff-backed independence and scorn of the gilt-edged poetry of conventional manners, and in the absurd extreme to which they carried that independence and scorn, the Quaker and the Puritan were alike. Only the Quaker out-puritaned the Puritan,--was much more consistent in his fanatical purism, scrawny asceticism, and contempt for distinguished manners and the n.o.ble imaginative arts.]

[Footnote 21: In his work "No Cross, No Crown."]

A natural corollary of the Friends' doctrine of inward supernatural illumination is their habit of silent worship, or silent waiting.[22]

It is probable that this feature of their religious gatherings has done much to cultivate that peculiar tranquillity of demeanor which distinguishes them.[23] They meet the burdens, bereavements, and disappointments of life with a placid equanimity in strong ant.i.thesis to the often pa.s.sionate grief and rebellion of other cla.s.ses of religious people. Finally, we may add to the list of their characteristics their great moral sincerity. "With calm resoluteness they tell you your faults face to face, and without exciting your ill-will."

[Footnote 22: Their ideas on this subject are very well stated in the following words taken from a Quaker pamphlet by Mary Brook: "Solomon saith, 'The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, are from the Lord.' If the Lord alone can prepare the heart, stir it up, or incline it towards unfeigned holiness, how can any man approach him acceptably, till his heart be prepared by him?--and how can he know this preparation except he wait in silence to feel it?"]

[Footnote 23: See Appendix I.]

The objections to the Quakerism of our day are that it is retractile, stationary, negative; it is selfish, narrow, ascetic, tame; it has no iron in its blood; it rarely adds anything to the world's thought. The Quakers are a hopelessly antiquated sect, a dying branch almost wholly severed from connection with the living forces of the tree of modern society. There are, it is true, a goodly number of liberal Quakers, who, in discarding the peculiar costume of the time of Charles II., which many of them even yet wear, have also thrown off the intellectual mummy-robes of the sect. Many adopt the tenets of Unitarianism, or make that religious body the stepping-stone to complete emanc.i.p.ation from an obsolete system of thought. But the ma.s.s of them are immovable. They have been characterized substantially in the following words by Mr. A.

M. Powell, himself a Quaker by birth, and an unwilling witness to the faults of a system of doctrines in which he sees much to admire:--

"In its merely sectarian aspect, Quakerism is as uninteresting, narrow, timid, selfish, and conservative as is mere sectarianism under any other name. The Quakers have little comprehension of the meaning of Quakerism beyond a blind observance of the peculiarities of dress and speech and the formality of the Meeting. They cling to the now meaningless protests of the past. They are inaccessible to new conceptions of truth. They have dishonored the important fundamental principle [of the Inner Light] and tarnished the Society's good name by subordinating it to narrow views of religion, to commercial selfishness, and to the prevalent palsying conservatism of the outside world."[24]

[Footnote 24: Mrs. John T. Sargent's "Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical Club."]

In all that is said in these pages by way of criticism of the Quakers, reference is had solely to their doctrines as a system of thought. Of their sweet and beautiful _lives_ it is hardly necessary to speak at length. Volumes might be filled with instances of their large-hearted benevolence and personal self-sacrifice in care for others. The loveliness of their lives is like a beautiful perfume in the society in which they move. As you see the Quaker women of Philadelphia, with their pure, tranquil faces, and plain, immaculate dress, moving about among the greedy and vile-mannered non-Quaker _canaille_ of that democratic city, they seem like Christian and Faithful amid the crowds of Vanity Fair. Their faces are like a benediction, and you thank heaven for them.

The liberal Friends in America have many great and n.o.ble names on their roll of honor. And surely a sect that has produced such characters as Lucretia Mott, John Bright, and John G. Whittier, must win our intellectual respect. But it is only because these persons, like Milton, were in most respects above their sect that we admire them. There are proofs manifold, however, throughout the prose and poetry of Whittier that he has nominally remained within the pale of Quakerism all his days. Doubtless such a course was essential to the very existence in him of poetic inspiration. His genius is wholly lyrical. A song or lyric is the outgushing of pure emotion. Especially in the case of the religious and ethical lyrist is faith life, and doubt death. Doubt, in Whittier's case, would have meant the cessation of his songs. To break away entirely from the faith of his fathers would have chilled his inspiration. He has not, it is true, escaped the conflict with doubt. As we shall see, no man has had a severer struggle to reconcile his faith with the terror and mystery of life. But, although his religious views have been liberalized by science, yet he has never ceased to retain a hearty sympathy with, and belief in, the Quaker principles of the Inner Light, silent waiting, etc.

That he has remained within the pale of Quakerism has been an injury to him as well as a help. It makes him obtrude his sectarianism too frequently, especially in his prose writings. By the very nature of the creed, he must either be blind to its faults, or constantly put on the defensive against the least a.s.sault, from whatever quarter it may come.

When he dons the garb of the sectary, he naturally becomes weakened, and loses his chief charm. We see then that he is a man hampered by a creed which forbids a catholic sympathy with human nature. He is shut up in the narrow field of sectarian morals and religion. He cannot, for example, enter, by historical imagination, into poetical sympathy with the gorgeous ritual and dreamy beauty of a European cathedral service.

And yet so pure, gentle, and sweet is his nature that it is hard to censure him for this peculiarity. It is regret rather than censure that we feel, regret that he has been so bound by circ.u.mstances that prevented his breaking wholly away from hampering limitations, and to be always, what he so often is, the strong and sweet-voiced spokesman of the heart of humanity.

Let us hear his gentle confessions of faith. In the autobiographical poem, "My Namesake," we read:--

"He worshipped as his fathers did, And kept the faith of childish days, And, howsoe'er he strayed or slid, He loved the good old ways.

The simple tastes, the kindly traits, The tranquil air, and gentle speech, The silence of the soul that waits For more than man to teach."

In "The Meeting" he has given us an "Apologia pro Vita Sua,"--a defence of his religious habits. He says he is accustomed to meet with the Friends twice a week in the little "Meeting" at Amesbury, chiefly for two reasons: first, because in the silent, unadorned house, with "pine-laid floor," his religious communings are not distracted by outward things as they would be if he worshipped always amid the solitudes of nature; and, secondly, he finds in "The Meeting" a heart-solace in the memories of dear ones pa.s.sed away, who once sat by his side there. He says, in reference to the Quaker service:--

"I ask no organ's soulless breath To drone the themes of life and death, No altar candle-lit by day, No ornate wordsman's rhetoric-play, No cool philosophy to teach Its bland audacities of speech,