CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A 
 COLLECTION MADE BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 1854-1919 
 
 AND BEQUEATHED TO 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022228062 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3281.F64 
 
 Whittienprpphet, seer and man.By B. 0. 
 
 3 1924 022 228 062 
 
WHITTIER. 
 
WORKS BY B. O. FLOWER. 
 
 THE CBNTURY OP SIR THOMAS 
 
 MORE. (Illustrated.) Fancy cloth, - |l.SO 
 
 PERSONS, PLACES AND IDEAS : Mis- 
 cellaneous Essays. (Richly illus- 
 trated.) Cloth, - - - - - I3.00 
 
 GERALD MASSEY : Poet, Prophet and 
 
 Mystic. (Illustrated.) Cloth, - - |i.oo 
 
 CIVILIZATION'S INFERNO ; or, Studies 
 
 in the Social Cellar. Cloth, - |i.oo 
 
 THE NEW TIME : A Plea for the Union 
 of the Moral Forces for Freedom and 
 Progress. Cloth, - - - |i.oo 
 
 LESSONS LEARNED FROM OTHER 
 LIVES : A Book of Short Biographies 
 for Young People. Cloth,- -. - - - jSi.oo 
 
 WHITTIER : Prophet, Seer arid "an. 
 
 (With frontispiece.) Cloth, - -$1.00 
 
HITTIER: PROPHET, 
 SEER AND MAN. 
 
 WITH PORTRAIT. 
 
 By B. O. slower, author of 
 "THE CENTURY OF SIR THOMAS MORE," 
 "GERALD MASSE Y," "CIVILIZATION'S 
 INFERNO," "THE NEW TIME," ETC. 
 
 THE ARENA PUBLISHING 
 CO., BOSTON, MASS. 
 MDCCCXCVI. 
 

 Copyrighted, 1896, 
 By B. O. FIvOWER. 
 
 All Sights Reserved. 
 
THIS VOLUME IS 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO 
 
 MY NIECE, 
 
 ©crtttt&c ISi, 38fnlCB, 
 
 WHOSE BRIGHT, THOUGHTFUL, 
 
 AND SINCERE NATURE HAS 
 
 ENDEARED HER TO ALL 
 
 WHO KNOW HER 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER ?AGK 
 
 Introduction iii 
 
 I. A Barefoot Boy who was ai^so a 
 
 Dreambr 3 
 
 II. A Prophet op Freedom 45 
 
 III. A Modern Apostle oe I^oety Spirituality 105 
 
 IV. Whittier, the Man 131 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
" thro' all this tract of years 
 
 Wearing the white flower of a blameless life." 
 
 — Tennyson, in " Idylls of the King." 
 
 " For manners are not idle, but the fruit 
 Of loyal nature, and of noble mind." 
 
 —Itnd. 
 
3^nttotiuctton. 
 
 ^HE life of Whittier, no less than 
 his inspiring lines, bears a mes- 
 sage of deep import to present- 
 day civilization. In the fever and intoxication 
 of modern existence, rife, too, as it is, with 
 artificiality and duplicity, he maintained a 
 lofty serenity of soul and in his simplicity, 
 naturalness, and candor proved the falsity of 
 the teachings of certain modern sophists, 
 who claim that the Christ-life cannot be 
 lived in the environment of modern times. 
 He, more than any of the illustrious singers 
 who were his contemporaries, preserved 
 from youth to silver age the soul of a child. 
 Many men who in their higher and truer 
 moments have given the world noble and 
 elevating thoughts, have themselves signally 
 
failed to live up to their fine teachings and, 
 in unguarded moments and hours of temp- 
 tation, have so fallen that the recollection 
 of their shortcomings rests like a sable 
 cloud over their noble utterances. Not so 
 with Whittier; his life was exceptionally 
 pure, and while I imagine no man ever 
 reaches at all times his ideals, our Quaker 
 poet, in a greater degree than most of us, 
 maintained that serenity of soul, that purity 
 of thought and kindliness of nature, which 
 reflect the divine side of man. That he 
 sometimes fell short of his high ideals, is 
 shown in many of his own lines, notably in 
 the following from "My Triumph:" 
 
 Let the thick curtain fall ; 
 I better know than all 
 How little I have gained, 
 How vast the unattained. 
 
 tP tP 'TF ^* 
 
 Sweeter than any sung, 
 
 My songs that found no tongue ; 
 
 Kobler than any fact, 
 
 My wish which failed of act. 
 
And this consciousness of a failure to 
 live up to his own highest level in thought 
 and aspiration is further illustrated in the 
 following touching story told by Mrs. Mary 
 B. Claflin, in her " Personal KecoUections of 
 Whittier : " 
 
 " The morning mail," observes this lady, 
 "usually brought him a great number of 
 letters (often as many as fifty) ; and one 
 morning as he was looking over the pile be- 
 fore him, he lingered a long time over one, 
 and looked troubled, as though it contained 
 some sad news. At length handing it to 
 me, he said : ' I wish thee would read that 
 letter;' and then, with his head downcast, 
 and his deep, melancholy eyes looking, as it 
 seemed, into the very depths of human 
 mysteries, he sat still till I had finished it. 
 
 " It was written by one whose life had 
 been spent on a remote farm among the hills 
 of New Hampshire, away from every privi- 
 lege her nature craved — a most pathetic let- 
 
ter written, it seemed, out of the deepest 
 human longing for sympathy, for compan- 
 ionship and uphfting. The lonely woman 
 wrote, she said, to tell Mr. Whittier what 
 his poems had been to her during all the 
 years of her desolate heart-yearning for 
 education, for enlightenment, and for touch 
 with the great outside world. She added : 
 ' In my darkest moments I have found light 
 and comfort in your poems, which I always 
 keep by my side ; and as I never expect to 
 have the privilege of looking into your face, 
 I feel that I must teU you, before I leave 
 this world, what you have been through 
 your writings to one and, I have no doubt, 
 to many a longing heart and homesick soul. 
 I have never been in a place so dark and 
 hopeless that I could not find light and com- 
 fort and hope in your poems ; and when I 
 go into my small room and close my door 
 upon the worries and perplexing cares that 
 constantly beset me, and sit down by my 
 
window that looks out over the hills, which 
 have been my only companions, I never fail to 
 find in the volume, which is always by my 
 side, some word of peace and comfort to my 
 longing heart.' 
 
 "The letter was such as would bring 
 tears from any sympathetic heart, and I 
 remarked, returning it to him, 'I would 
 rather have the testimony you are constantly 
 receiving from forlorn and hungry souls — 
 the assurance that you are helping God's 
 neglected children — ^than the crown of any 
 queen on earth.' 
 
 "With tearful eyes and choking voice, 
 he replied : ' Such letters greatly humiliate 
 me. I can sometimes write from a high 
 plane, but thee knows I cannot live up to 
 it aU the time. I wish I could think I 
 deserved all the kind things said of me.' " 
 
 This touching incident is thoroughly 
 characteristic of the life of one in whom we 
 find humiUty, sincerity, simplicity, sym- 
 
pathy, only equalled by a passionate devo- 
 tion to freedom, justice, and truth — a man 
 who was at once a poet of nature, an apostle 
 of liberty, and a prophet of progress. He 
 interpreted in a manner thoroughly intelli- 
 gible to the most unschooled mind the 
 profoundest truths of life, which pertain to 
 the spirit, and which come only to the mystic, 
 who in the hushed chambers of his soul hears 
 speak the still, small voice of the Infinite. 
 Finally, and crowning all, his life, of which 
 I have spoken, was such as to give special 
 emphasis to his inspired Unes, conferring 
 on them a peculiar value for aspiring youth. 
 
 ¥Hi 
 
A BAREFOOT BOY WHO WAS 
 ALSO A DREAMER. 
 
" Blessings on thee, little man, 
 Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan ! 
 "With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
 And thy merry whistled tunes; 
 With thy red lip, redder still 
 Kissed by strawberries on the hill; 
 With the sunshine on thy face. 
 Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace; 
 From my heart I give thee joy, — 
 / was once a barefoot boy I " 
 
 —Whittier's " Barefoot Boy." 
 
 " I think at the age of which thy note inquires, I found 
 about equal satisfaction in an old rural home with the 
 shifting panorama of seasons, in reading the few books 
 within my reach, and in dreaming of something wonderful 
 and grand in the future." 
 
 — Whittier to a youthful correspondent. 
 
I. M 25accf00t 25op tol^o toajtf al^o a 
 2Di:eamei'. 
 
 [OHN GREBNLEAF WHITTIER 
 was born on the 17th of Decem- 
 ber, 1807, in a typical New Eng- 
 land farmhouse, a short distance from the 
 town of Haverhill, in Massachusetts. His 
 father was poor ; rigid economy and inces- 
 sant +'"'^ on the part of all members of the 
 household were required in order to provide 
 life's necessities and Hft a debt which hung 
 over the dear old homestead. If, however, 
 the little Quaker boy was schooled in pov- 
 erty, it cannot be said that he was poor in 
 any other sense than that he possessed little 
 of that which gold may purchase. As a 
 matter of fact, few children enter the arena 
 
o£ life so dowered with inestimable riches as 
 the little barefoot boy, who was destined to 
 become New England's poet of home life 
 and America's prophet of freedom. Behind 
 him were generations of /pure, high-minded 
 and sturdy ancestors. In his parents we 
 find united the rare charm which marks the 
 Uf e of the consistent and profoundly rehg- 
 ious Quaker and the sturdy, almost austere 
 morality of the Puritan shorn, however, of 
 that harsh, unrelenting and intolerant spirit 
 which not unfrequently shadowed and made 
 repulsive the otherwise noble lives of the early 
 Puritans. 
 
 Nor were the hereditary influences and 
 prenatal conditions more favorable than the 
 environment that enclosed his early years. 
 Biographers have frequently deplored the 
 poverty of Whittier's parents, which pre- 
 vented the youth from having access to 
 many books adapted to the young ; but I 
 am by no means convinced that this appar- 
 
ent misfortune was not a blessing, rather 
 than an evil. Many of the men who have 
 accomplished most for the moral uplift and 
 enduring progress of the race have had 
 access to but few books in youth. Indeed, 
 the studious child who possesses few books 
 soon assimilates their contents and uncon- 
 sciously acquires the habit of retaining the 
 facts which have been drawn from their pages, 
 in a manner quite unknown to those who are 
 surfeited with literature and who early learn 
 to skim over rather than carefully peruse a 
 printed page ; and this early acquired habit 
 of retaining facts remains with the person 
 throughout life. Again, the thoughtful and 
 ambitious child whose literature is so limited 
 that he soon masters the knowledge con- 
 tained in the books within his reach early 
 tm-ns his mind in other directions in search 
 of knowledge ; he becomes a close observer 
 of Nature and, if possessed of imagination, 
 the sky, earth and sea, the changing seasons, 
 
the forest and the flowers, the birds and bees 
 — each of these bears a message to his brain. 
 We must also remember that the child who 
 from early youth has been surrounded by 
 books comes to rely too much on the opinion 
 and thoughts of others, and loses an origin- 
 ality in idea and expression which has never 
 been properly fostered by educational pro- 
 cesses. This, fortunately, Whittier escaped ; 
 what he lacked in book-learning was more 
 than made up by — 
 
 Knowledge never learned of schools, 
 Of the wild bee's morning chase, 
 Of the wild-flower's time and place, 
 Flight of fowl, and habitude 
 Of the tenants of the wood; 
 How the tortoise bears his shell. 
 How the woodchuck digs his cell. 
 And the ground-mole sinks his well; 
 How the robin feeds her young, 
 How the oriole's nest is htmg; 
 Where the whitest lilies blow. 
 Where the freshest berries grow. 
 Where the groundnut trails its vine. 
 Where the wood-grape's clusters shine; 
 
 6 
 
Of tlie black wasp's cunning way, 
 Mason of his walls of clay, 
 And the architectural plans 
 Of gray hornet artisans ! 
 
 Nature teaches those children who will 
 hearken to her words, and she is never false 
 in word or note or picture. If the literature 
 of the Whittier family was very limited, she 
 was prodigal with treasures which appealed 
 to the eye, ear and imagination of the 
 Quaker boy. 
 
 I was rich in flowers and trees. 
 Humming birds and honey bees ; 
 For my sport the squirrel played, 
 Plied the snouted mole his spade; 
 For my taste the blackberry cone 
 Purpled over hedge and stone ; 
 Laughed the brook for my delight 
 Through the day and through the night, 
 Whispering at the garden wall, 
 Talked with me from fall to fall; 
 Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 
 Mine the walnut slopes beyond. 
 Mine on bending orchard trees 
 Apples of Hesperides ! 
 Still as my horizon grew. 
 Larger gfew my riches, too. 
 
Whittier never lost sight of the treasures 
 which were his amid what men of to-day 
 would term biting poverty. On one occasion 
 when casting a retrospective glance over the 
 long vanished past, he thus characterized his 
 early lot : 
 
 A farmer's son, 
 Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feeling 
 All their fine possibilities, how rich 
 And restful even poverty and toil 
 Become when beauty, harmony, and love 
 Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat 
 At evening in the Patriarch's tent, when man 
 Makes labor noble ! 
 
 The old homestead of the Whittier family 
 has been endeared to the nation by the 
 many bits of descriptive verse which the 
 poet has woven into his poems of New Eng- 
 land Hfe. It was a large frame building 
 somewhat better than the average farmhouse 
 of the period. Around it grew a variety of 
 hardy trees, such as maple, walnut, butter- 
 nut, and the picturesque Lombardy poplar. 
 
In one of his prose sketches the poet thus 
 describes the site of the old home : 
 
 "It was surrounded by woods in all 
 directions save to the southeast, where a 
 break in the leafy wall revealed a vista of 
 low green meadows, picturesque with 
 wooded islands and jutting capes of upland ; 
 through these a small brook, noisy enough 
 as it foamed, rippled and laughed down the 
 rocky falls. By our garden side wound 
 silently and scarcely visible a still larger 
 stream known as the Country Brook." 
 
 Rising abruptly almost from the Whittier 
 garden was Job's Hill, a lofty eminence 
 from which a magnificent view of the sur- 
 rounding country could be obtained, 
 although the height was not so favorable in 
 this respect as Great Hill, a little distance 
 further on. It was on the slope of Job's 
 Hill that the young poet when quite small 
 suddenly found himself confronted with 
 
great peril, from which he was saved only 
 by what in a, human being we should call 
 presence of mind, on the part of a favorite 
 ox named Old Butler. Mr. Samuel T. 
 Pickard, whose " Life and Letters of Whit- 
 tier" is the latest and most authoritative 
 utterance on the life of the poet, thus 
 describes this interesting incident : 
 
 "One side of Job's hiU is exceedingly 
 steep — too steep for such an unwieldy ani- 
 mal as an ox to descend rapidly in safety. 
 Greenleaf went to the pasture one day with 
 a bag of salt for the cattle, and Old Butler 
 from the brow of the hiU recognized him 
 and knew his errand. As the boy was bent 
 over, shaking the salt out of the bag, the 
 ox came down the hiU towards him with 
 flying leaps, and his speed was so great that 
 he could not check himself. He would have 
 crushed his young master, but by a supreme 
 effort, gathering himself together at the 
 
 10 
 
right moment, the noble creature leaped 
 straight into the air, over the head of the 
 boy, and came to the ground far below with 
 a tremendous concussion and without serious 
 injury to himself." 
 
 The same author gives an additional 
 anecdote about this favorite ox, as related 
 by Mr. Whittier : 
 
 " Quaker meetings were sometimes held in 
 the large kitchen at his father's house. One 
 summer day, on such an occasion, this ox 
 had the curiosity to put his head in at the 
 open window and take a survey of the 
 assembly. WhUe a sweet-voiced woman was 
 speaking. Old Butler paid strict attention, 
 but when she sat down and there arose a 
 loud-voiced brother, the ox withdrew his 
 head from the window, lifted his tail in air 
 and went off bellowing. This bovine criti- 
 cism was greatly enjoyed by the younger 
 members of the meeting." 
 
 11 
 
The most important room in the old 
 homestead, as it was lovingly called by the 
 poet, was the kitchen, immortalized in 
 " Snow-Bound ; " but, besides this room, on 
 the ground floor were other apartments, one 
 of which was always regarded somewhat as 
 a sanctuary by the children and was known 
 as " mother's room." On the second floor 
 were several chambers which possess special 
 interest for lovers of the poet. In one of 
 these the young poet made his experiment 
 in lifting, which Trowbridge has so aptly 
 described in one of his delightful little 
 poems. The story is as follows : One day 
 during the working hours young John, mus- 
 ing on the fact that he found no difficulty 
 in lifting his brother Matt, and that his 
 brother had also frequently lifted Mm, came 
 to the conclusion that, if the two lifted 
 together, both would simultaneously rise. 
 This conclusion, it will be seen, although 
 plausible on its face, like so many things in 
 
 12 
 
life which involve factors that have not 
 been considered was destined to prove a dis- 
 appointment to the youthful experimenter. 
 The poet imparted his deductions to his 
 brother, who thought them reasonable, and 
 forthwith the experiment was tried in their 
 room. Somehow it did not work, but as 
 Trowbridge observes : 
 
 'Twas a shrewd notion none the less. 
 And still, in spite of ill success, 
 
 It somehow has succeeded. 
 Elind Nature smiled on that wise child, 
 
 Nor could her love deny him 
 The large fulfilment of his plan; 
 Since he who lifts his brother man 
 
 In turn is lifted by him. 
 
 Whittier was an ethical philosopher rather 
 than a scientist, and the idea he conceived 
 was neither false nor unphilosophical in the 
 ethical realm, or world of conduct, as his 
 own life illustrates. 
 
 Many of those most delightful pictures of 
 
 13 
 
New England life which were indelibly im- 
 pressed upon the sensitive plate of his brain, 
 at this time when nature taught the artless 
 boy, hold for us a special charm, due to 
 their revealing the secret hopes, loves and 
 disappointments which entered into his life. 
 While it is probable that Whittier does not 
 reproduce in detail actual experiences when 
 he reveals to us love welling high in his 
 heart — for pictures of this character are 
 usually held sacred and carefully guarded 
 from an unsympathetic world, even when 
 the profound emotions which they awaken 
 lend power to the flights of the imagination 
 — there can be little doubt but that he 
 experienced every emotion which he so sim- 
 ply and beautifully depicts. Thus, when we 
 read the following exquisite lines from " My 
 Playmate," we see behind the moaning 
 pines on Eamoth Hill, the falling blossoms 
 eddying in the fitful breeze, the melody of 
 the robin's song or the gay plumage of the 
 
 14 
 
oriole, beyond the violet-sprinkled sod, be- 
 yond the graceful waving branches of the 
 birch, beyond all these beauties and melodies 
 of Nature, the workings of the human 
 heart; we catch a glimpse of something 
 which is always sacred, something in the 
 presence of which " the soul kneels though 
 the body may remain erect," and that some- 
 thing is the Holy of Holies of the human 
 heart from which the poet for a moment 
 lifts the veil : 
 
 The pines were dark on Bamoth Hill, 
 
 Their song was soft and low ; 
 The blossoms in the sweet May wind 
 
 Were falling like the snow. 
 
 The blossoms drifted at our feet, 
 
 The orchard birds sang clear ; 
 The sweetest and the saddest day 
 
 It seemed of aU the year. 
 
 For, more to me than birds or flowers, 
 
 My playmate left her home, 
 And took with her the laughing spring. 
 
 The music and the bloom. 
 
 IS 
 
She kissed the lips of Mth and kin, 
 
 She laid her hand in mine : 
 What more could ask the bashful boy 
 
 Who fed her father's kine ? 
 
 She left us in the bloom of May; 
 
 The constant years told o'er 
 Their seasons with as sweet May morns, 
 
 But she came back no more. 
 
 She lives where all the golden year 
 
 Her summer roses blow ; 
 The dusky children of the sun 
 
 Before her come and go. 
 
 There, haply, with her jewelled hands 
 She smooths her silken gown — 
 
 No more the homespun lap wherein 
 I shook the walnuts down. 
 
 I see her face, I hear her voice — 
 
 Does she remember mine ? 
 And what to her is now the boy 
 
 Who fed her father's kine ? 
 
 What cares she that the orioles build 
 
 For other eyes than ours, — 
 That other hands with nuts are filled. 
 
 And other laps with flowers ? 
 
 16 
 
O playmate in the golden time I 
 Our mossy seat is green, 
 
 Its fringing violets blossom yet, 
 The old trees o'er it lean, 
 
 The winds so sweet with birch and fern 
 
 A sweeter memory blow. 
 And there in spring the veeries sing 
 
 The song of long ago. 
 
 And still the pines of Kamoth wood 
 
 Are moaning like the sea, — 
 The moaning of the sea of change 
 
 Between myself and thee ! 
 
 Again, these simple but natural lines have 
 won their way into the hearts of EngUsh- 
 speaking people, because in them our poet, 
 in picturing a boyhood scene, has imbued it 
 with sentiment so dehcately expressed and 
 so true, that the heart of humanity, being 
 one, responds to that which recalls youth's 
 sweet dream, when for the first time all 
 things are glorified with the indefinable 
 rapture of love's awakening : 
 
 IT 
 
still sits the schoolhouse by the road, 
 
 A ragged beggar sunning ; 
 Around it still the sumachs grow, 
 
 And blackberry vines are running. 
 
 Within, the master's desk is seen, 
 Deep scarred by raps official ; 
 
 The warping floor, the battered seats, 
 The jackknife's carved initial; 
 
 The charcoal frescos on its wall; 
 
 Its door's worn sill, betraying 
 The feet that, creeping slow to school, 
 
 Went storming out to playing I 
 
 Long years ago a winter sun 
 
 Shone over it at setting; 
 Lit up its western window panes, 
 
 And low eaves' icy fretting. 
 
 It touched the tangled, golden curls 
 And brown eyes, full of grieving. 
 
 Of one who still her steps delayed 
 When all the school were leaving. 
 
 For near her stood the little boy 
 
 Her childish favor singled. 
 His cap pulled low upon a face 
 
 Where pride and shame were mingled. 
 
 18 
 
Pushing with restless feet the snow 
 
 To right and left, he lingered, 
 As restlessly her tiny hands 
 
 The blue-checked apron fingered. 
 
 He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt 
 
 The soft hand's light caressing, 
 And heard the tremble of her voice, 
 
 As if a fault confessing : 
 
 " I'm sorry that I spelt the word ; 
 I hate to go above you. 
 Because," — ^the brown eyes lower fell, — 
 " Because, you see, I love you! " 
 
 Still memory to a gray-haired man 
 
 That sweet child-face is showing. 
 Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave 
 
 Have forty years been growing ! 
 
 He lives to learn, in life's hard school, 
 
 How few who pass above him 
 Lament their triumph and his loss. 
 
 Like her, — ^because they love him. 
 
 But of all the poems descriptive of child 
 life and New England scenes and incidents 
 which were absorbed by his plastic brain 
 whUe he was still a boy and destined to be 
 marvellously developed in later years, none 
 
 19 
 
equals that superb idyl of the old-time New 
 England winter, " Snow-Bound." In this 
 creation we have some wonderfully faithful 
 pictures, almost photographic in quality, 
 although to a certain extent idealized. 
 " Snow-Bound " was written in 1866 ; it was 
 the first important work produced by the 
 poet after he had exchanged the helmet of 
 the aggressive reformer for the robe of the 
 poet-priest of nature. And in this counter- 
 feit presentment of his childhood's home 
 during that memorable New England winter 
 we see a.subtle and almost indefinable ideal- 
 ization which might be compared to the pur- 
 ple mantle which rests over the distant hUls 
 at eventide. Here we see the power of the 
 poet in describing home-life, in depicting 
 character ; and here, too,>we see the moralist 
 and philosopher. 
 
 Whittier was first of aU a teacher ; to him 
 duty was august, her commands imperative. 
 This did not please the dilettanti. It has 
 
 20 
 
always offended those who fail to see the 
 highest and divinest mission in art. The 
 teacher, the philosopher, the moralist — these 
 must he sneered down. They are disquiet- 
 ing ; they compel us to think ; they startle 
 our conscience ; they compel us to boldly 
 take sides in the great battle of progress 
 which is being waged, or win the contempt 
 of our better selves. It is not pleasant to 
 break with conventionalism, it is also peril- 
 ous to do so ; let us remain as we are ; let 
 us parley with wrong if we cannot ignore it, 
 but do not compel us to join the maligned 
 and slandered minority. Such is the voice 
 of conventionalism. But the true prophet 
 cannot heed the smooth tongue of the 
 charmer. He has a mission; God's hand 
 has touched his eyes ; he sees the enormity 
 of the injustice on every hand ; he beholds 
 the splendid possibilities which lie beyond 
 humanity's conquest of animality or selfism. 
 He cannot remain silent ; he cannot proph- 
 
 21 
 
esy pleasant things. He is an optimist, and 
 therefore he refuses to allow the hideous 
 wrongs to fester when health and happiness 
 lie within the grasp of humanity the moment 
 shortsighted selfishness is exchanged for 
 wisdom. Whittier was always a teacher, 
 always a moralist. If in the later years he 
 came to some extent under the spell of con- 
 ventionalism and ceased to be the aggressive 
 reformer he had been in early manhood, he 
 never ceased to be a teacher. 
 
 Here is one of those rare glimpses em- 
 balmed in descriptive verse which reveal the 
 artist power in the poet and which constitute 
 one of the chief charms of many of Whit- 
 tier's pictures of life in New England. As 
 the reader wUl quickly recognize, it is taken 
 from " Snow-Bound " : 
 
 As night drew on and, from the crest 
 Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, 
 The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank 
 From sight beneath the smothering bank. 
 
We piled, with care, our nightly stack 
 Of wood against the chimney back, — 
 The oaken log, green, huge and thick, 
 And on its top the stout back-stick ; 
 The knotty forestick laid apart. 
 And iilled between with curious art 
 The ragged brush ; then, hovering near, 
 We watched the first red blaze appear, 
 Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 
 On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 
 Until the old, rude-furnished room 
 Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom. 
 # w « « « 
 
 Shut in from all the world without, 
 We sat the clean- winged hearth about, 
 Content to let the north-wind roar 
 In baffled rage at pane and door, 
 While the red logs before us beat 
 The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 
 And ever, when a louder blast 
 Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
 The merrier up its roaring draught 
 The great throat of the chimney laughed. 
 The house-dog on his paws outspread 
 Laid to the fire his drowsy head. 
 
 Next we find the reminiscent poet becom- 
 ing the moralizer, as was his wont, and the 
 great problem of the future, ever present 
 
 23 
 
when he gave himself up to serious musing, 
 challenges his attention, as it does more than 
 once in subsequent lines of the same poem : 
 
 What matter how the night behaved ? 
 What matter how the north-wind raved 1 
 Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 
 Could quench our hearth-iire's ruddy glow. 
 'O Time and Change! — ^with hair as gray 
 As was my sire's that winter day, 
 How strange it seems, with so much gone 
 Of life and love, to still live on ! 
 Ah, brother! only I and thou 
 Are left of all that circle now, — 
 The dear home faces whereupon 
 That fitful firelight paled and shone. 
 Henceforward, listen as we will, 
 The voices of that hearth are still ; 
 Look where we may, the wide world o'er, 
 Those lighted faces smile no more. 
 » * » * * 
 
 Tet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, 
 (Since He who knows our need Is just), 
 That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 
 Alas for him who never sees 
 The stars shine through his cypress trees ! 
 Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, 
 Nor looks to see the breaking day 
 Across the mournful marbles play! 
 
 24 
 
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, 
 The truth to flesh and sense unknown. 
 
 That Life is ever lord of Death, 
 And Love can never lose its own! 
 
 We come very near to the heart of that 
 memorable little circle, as we read these lines 
 in which some members of the group are 
 described in Whittier's frank, graphic and 
 simple manner : 
 
 We sped the time with stories old, 
 Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told. 
 
 Our mother, while she turned her wheel 
 Or run the new-knit stocking-heel. 
 Told how the Indian hordes came down 
 At midnight on Cochecho town, 
 And how her own great-uncle bore 
 His cruel scalp- mark to fourscore. 
 Eecalling, in her fitting phrase. 
 So rich and picturesque and free 
 (The common unrhymed poetry 
 Of simple life and country ways). 
 The story of her early days, — 
 She made us welcome to her home ; 
 Old hearths grew wide to give us room; 
 
 25 
 
We stole with her a frightened look 
 At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, 
 The fame whereof went far and wide 
 Through all the simple country side; 
 We heard tlie hawks at twilight play, 
 The hoat-horn on Piscataqua, 
 The loon's weird laughter far away. 
 
 Our uncle, innocent of books, 
 
 Was rich in lore of fields and brooks. 
 
 The ancient teachers never dumb 
 
 Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. 
 
 In moons and tides and weather wise, 
 
 He read the clouds as prophecies, 
 
 And foul or fair could well divine, 
 
 By many an occult hint and sign, 
 
 Holding the cunning-warded keys 
 
 To all the woodcraft mysteries ; 
 
 Himself to Nature's heart so near 
 
 That all her voices in his ear 
 
 Of beast or bird had meanings clear, 
 
 Iiike Apollonius of old. 
 
 Who knew the tales the sparrows told, 
 
 Or Hermes, who interpreted 
 
 What the sage cranes of Kilns said ; 
 
 A simple, guileless, childlike man, 
 
 Content to live where life began. 
 
 38 
 
Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 
 And voice in dreams I see and hear, — 
 The sweetest woman ever Fate 
 Perverse denied a household mate. 
 Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 
 Found peace in love's unselfishness, 
 And welcome wheresoe'er she went, 
 A calm and gracious element. 
 Whose presence seemed the sweet income 
 And womanly atmosphere of home, — 
 Called up her girlhood memories. 
 The huskings and the apple-bees. 
 The sleigh rides and the summer sails, 
 Weaving through all the poor details 
 And homespun warp of circumstance 
 A golden woof-thread of romance. 
 
 Through years of toil and soil and care, 
 From glossy tress to thin gray hair. 
 All uuprofaned she held apart 
 The virgin fancies of the heart. 
 
 There, too, our elder sister plied 
 Her evening task the stand beside ; 
 A full, rich nature, free to trust. 
 Truthful and almost sternly just. 
 Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act. 
 And make her generous thought a fact, 
 
 27 
 
Keeping with many a light disguise 
 The secret of self-sacrifice. 
 O heart sore-tried ! thou hast the best 
 That heaven itself could give thee, — rest. 
 
 As one who held herself a part 
 Of all she saw, and let her heart 
 
 Against the household bosom lean, 
 Upon the motley-braided mat 
 Our youngest and our dearest sat. 
 Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, 
 
 Now bathed within the fadeless green 
 And holy peace of Paradise. 
 
 With me one little year ago : — 
 The chill weight of the winter snow 
 
 For months upon her grave has lain ; 
 And now, when summer south-winds blow 
 
 And briar and harebell bloom again, 
 I tread the pleasant paths we trod, 
 I see the violet-sprinkled sod 
 Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak 
 The hillside flowers she loved to seek, 
 Yet following me where'er I went 
 With dark eyes full of love's content. 
 
 28 
 
I cannot feel that thou art far, 
 Since near at need the angels are ; 
 And when the sunset gates unbar, 
 
 Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 
 And, white against the evening star, 
 
 The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? 
 
 An incident in the life of the aunt re- 
 rred to above was frequently related by 
 hittier when talking over psychical and 
 iritual matters with friends greatly inter- 
 ted in such subjects. The main points in 
 is story, which is interesting alike to stu- 
 nts of psychical phenomena and to lovers 
 romance, are as follows : 
 The poet's aunt was betrothed to a young 
 m who was absent in the state of New 
 ark. One winter evening the Quaker 
 iiden had lingered over the great wood 
 e in the spacious kitchen until the others 
 ,d retired. At length she rose and, turn- 
 ^ to the window, beheld without in the 
 !ar moonlight which fell on a landscape 
 ■apped in snow her lover approaching on 
 
 29 
 
horseback. She hastened to the door, 
 noticing as she passed the window that he 
 had reined in his horse as if to leap from 
 the saddle. On opening the door, however, 
 no one was visible. Then a great fear fell 
 upon her, which grew into a nameless 
 terror ; she called her sister, and related the 
 strange vision, and expressed her forebod- 
 ings. In vain did the sympathetic sister try 
 to reason away her apprehensions, suggest- 
 ing that she had been dreaming ; the maiden 
 only shook her head, affirming that she had 
 never been more thoroughly awake. Some 
 days later a letter came to her written by a 
 stranger telling of the death of her lover at 
 the very time when she had beheld his 
 apparition. 
 
 To his mother, lovingly described in 
 " Snow-Bound," Whittier owed more than to 
 any other person for his success as a poet. 
 While the father, a plain, prosaic and 
 matter-of-fact man, frowned upon his verse- 
 
 30 
 
making and discouraged him, the mother 
 lent him sympathy and encouragement. She 
 also stored his mind with legends and stories 
 which later he immortalized in his simple 
 and heart-reaching lays. This mother was 
 a very superior woman, and the moulding 
 power which she exerted over her son cannot 
 be overestimated. Her influence, and the 
 poetry of Burns, were far more to the 
 poet than the benefits he received from the 
 district school, or the academy at which he 
 spent a short time. Burns was a real edu- 
 cator to Whittier ; the Scottish bard fulfilled 
 the function of a true teacher in calling out 
 or developing the latent power in the poet's 
 mind, and teaching him how to appreciate 
 the beauty in the commonplace things of 
 life. He was fourteen years old when a 
 copy of the Scotch poet's works fell into his 
 hands. In his autobiographical notes Whit- 
 tier thus refers to his introduction to 
 Burns : 
 
 31 
 
" When I was fourteen years old, my 
 first schoolmaster, Joshua Coffin, the able, 
 eccentric historian of Newbury, brought 
 with him to our house a volume of Burns' 
 poems, from which he read, greatly to my 
 delight. I begged him to leave the book 
 with me, and set myself at once to the task 
 of mastering the glossary of the Scottish 
 dialect at its close. This was about the 
 first poetry I ever read — with the exception 
 of that of the Bible, of which I had been a 
 close student — and it had a lasting influence 
 upon me. I began to make rhymes myself, 
 and to imagine stories and adventures. In 
 fact, I lived a sort of dual life, and in a 
 world of fancy as well as in the world of plain 
 matter of fact about me." 
 
 Robert CoUyer, in relating a conversation 
 which he had with the poet, quotes Whittier 
 as follows : 
 
 " Burns is to me the noblest poet of our 
 
race. He -was the first poet I read, and 
 he will be the last. ... I read Burns 
 every moment I had to spare. And this was 
 one great result to me of my communion 
 with him : I found that the things out of 
 which poems came were not, as I had always 
 imagined, somewhere away off in a world 
 and life lying outside the edge of our own 
 New England sky — they were right here 
 about my feet and among the people I knew. 
 The common things of our common life I 
 found were full of poetry." 
 
 It is the true teacher who so instructs the 
 childish mind that it learns to apprehend the 
 beauties and truths which lie around it, who 
 stimulates the imagination and awakens the 
 noble sentiments of the soul, who succeeds in 
 calling into independent action the reasoning 
 faculties, and centres the youthful thought 
 upon the vital problems of life as they affect 
 the peace, happiness and elevation of man. 
 
 3 33 
 
Whittier inherited a deeply poetic nature ; 
 his imagination was limited, but within its 
 bounds it was compelling in its power. He 
 also inherited a deeply spiritual nature. On 
 one occasion, when in conversation with a 
 friend, he described a sense of awe and 
 almost oppressive solemnity which suddenly 
 came over him one evening as he was driving 
 home the cows — ^he was only seven years of 
 age — ^when the thought, "Why am I dif- 
 ferent from those cows, what have I got to 
 do in life, what is life ? " swept in upon his 
 startled mind.* 
 
 "He never lost the impression of that 
 hour," observed his friend. "It affected 
 his whole life." 
 
 He was a born dreamer. In reply to a 
 little girl who wrote him of his childhood, 
 he said : " I think at the age of which thy 
 note inquires, I found about equal satisfac- 
 tion in an old rural home with the shifting 
 * " Whittier with the Children." By Margaret Sidney. 
 
 34 
 
panorama of seasons, in reading the few 
 books within my reach, and in dreaming of 
 something wonderfid and grand in the 
 future." In reminiscent moods the poet 
 often related how, when a boy, his imagina- 
 tion carried him far away from the work in 
 hand and, lost in dreams, he would lean upon 
 his hoe or spade untU his father, " a prompt, 
 decisive man," would call out, "That's 
 enough for a stand, John." 
 
 The work on the farm was ill suited to 
 one so delicate as Whittier and, when seven- 
 teen years of age, he sustained from over- 
 exertion injuries from which he never re- 
 covered. Yet this apparent calamity was 
 not an unmixed evil, as it helped to gain for 
 him his father's consent to his going to the 
 Haverhill Academy. Heretofore, the only 
 regular schooling the poet had enjoyed had 
 been received in the district schools, which 
 were very indifEerent in character. He had 
 written many verses which his sister Mary 
 
had highly complimented. One day this 
 sister, who had always occupied a very 
 large place in the poet's heart, sent one 
 of his poems to Garrison for the Newbury 
 Free Press. The poet knew nothing of 
 the submitting of the lines, and the editor 
 was ignorant of the authorship. However, 
 on reading them Mr. Garrison promptly pub- 
 lished the poem. Whittier was spellbound 
 when he found his stanzas in print. In refer- 
 ring to this experience Mr. Pickard observes : 
 
 " His heart stood stiU a moment. Such 
 delight as his comes only once in the life- 
 time of any aspirant to literary fame. His 
 father at last called to him to put up the 
 paper and continue his work, but he could 
 not resist the temptation to take the paper 
 again and again from his pocket to stare at 
 his lines in print. He has said he was sure 
 he did not read a word of the poem all the 
 time he looked at it." 
 
Garrison foxmd out by inquiry who the 
 youthful poet was, and forthwith drove out 
 to the Whittier homestead to meet the young 
 author. On the editor inquiring of the 
 father for his son John, the worthy Quaker 
 became much agitated, fearing that his boy 
 had iu some way got into trouble or dis- 
 grace ; when, however, the facts were made 
 known, the old gentleman was much relieved, 
 but he frowned upon Garrison's suggestion 
 that the boy be encouraged in his literary 
 aspirations. " Poetry wiU not bring him 
 bread," exclaimed the old man — a fact 
 which Garrison could not then gainsay. 
 
 The visit, however, fanned anew the am- 
 bition of the dreamer boy. He importuned 
 his father to let him go to the academy 
 about to be opened in Haverhill. At length 
 it was agreed that if Whittier could earn 
 sufficient money by working nights to pay 
 his way he might go. The youth made 
 shoes during the winter evenings and thus 
 
 37 
 
earned enough for his first six months at the 
 academy. Subsequently he taught school 
 for a short time and assisted in posting 
 books, and in this manner earned enough 
 for his second term. 
 
 Thus, with the slight profit derived from 
 the district school and two terms at the 
 academy, Whittier went forth to play upon 
 the heartstrings of his fellow-men and touch 
 the conscience of a nation in a manner 
 seldom equalled in this century. He entered 
 upon the aggressive warfare that marked 
 his early manhood without the polish which 
 lent grace to the work of several of his con- 
 temporaries ; but he also escaped the pa- 
 ralyzing influence of soulless convention- 
 ahsm, whose skeleton fingers extend from 
 a dead past, and too often crush originality 
 and throttle the voice of conscience in aspir- 
 ing youths, while they are pursuing the 
 curriculum of our conservative educational 
 institutions. If he lacked in polish, he 
 
 38 
 
possessed what were of far more importance 
 — a heart aflame with love of justice, a 
 nature pure and simple, and a brain stored 
 with "knowledge never learned in books 
 and schools." His boyhood days, if un- 
 eventful, were far from uninteresting ; and 
 the pictures he has given us of old New Eng- 
 land life, no less than the hopes, joys and 
 sorrows which filled the horizon of his boy- 
 ish world, are dear to our people, and will 
 continue to be a source of pleasure and in- 
 spiration for many generations to come. 
 
 Ah ! thou little barefoot dreamer boy, 
 who wanderedst over the hills and vales round 
 thy native home, revelling in the beauty and 
 fragrance of our wild flora, charmed by the 
 matchless music of the forest's feathered 
 orchestra, awed by the sublimity of Nature 
 in her grander manifestations, thou child 
 of pure and honest parents, had we more 
 lives like thine, the curses of our day and 
 generation would lose their power, and in 
 
 39 
 
the place of feverish hate, misery, poverty, 
 drunkenness, debauchery, bigotry, intoler- 
 ance and woe, we should see peace, love, 
 prosperity, purity and nobility open their 
 blossoms on every side ; earth would put on 
 Eden-like beauty ; and humanity, with great 
 strides, would sweep onward and upward to- 
 ward the sun-bathed plane of perfect civiH- 
 zation. And all peoples, even as the voice 
 of one man, could unite in these words from 
 thy song of triimiph : 
 
 The airs of heaven blow o'er me; 
 A glory shines before me 
 Of what mankind shall be, — 
 Pure, generous, brave, and free. 
 
 A dream of man and woman 
 Diviner but still human. 
 Solving the riddle old, 
 Shaping the Age of Gold. 
 
 The love of God and neighbor; 
 An equal-handed labor ; 
 The richer life, where beauty 
 Walks hand in hand with duty. 
 
 40 
 
I feel the earth move sunward, 
 I join the great march onward, 
 And take, by faith, while living, 
 My freehold of thanksgiving. 
 
 41 
 
A PROPHET OF FREEDOM. 
 
" O Freedom ! if to me belong 
 Nor mighty Milton's gift divine, 
 
 Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song ; 
 Still with a love as deep and strong 
 As theirs I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine ! " 
 
 — Whittier. 
 
 " Or should he deem wrong there at the public weal, 
 IiO ! the whole man seemed girt with flashing steel, 
 His glance a sword-thrust, and his words of fire 
 Like thunder tones from some old prophet's lyre." 
 
 — Hayne. 
 
 " We already see — and the future will see it more clearly 
 
 — that no party ever did a vaster work than his party ; that 
 
 he, lilie Hampden and Milton, is a character not produced 
 
 in common times." 
 
 — E, C. Stedman. 
 
 U 
 
II. % tj^topt^et of free&otti, 
 
 j N the history of many ian individual, 
 especially among those who have 
 left their impress on their age, 
 there comes a time when the trend of the 
 life seems to turn on the most insignificant 
 happening. This apparently destiny-shap- 
 ing event or decision does not, of course, 
 change the character of the individual, mak- 
 ing him good or bad when before he had 
 been the opposite, although it may greatly 
 strengthen and develop good or bad chai^ 
 acteristics previously existing in his nature. 
 It must be borne in mind that behind the 
 momentous though seemingly Tinimportant 
 occurrence, is the individual's personality 
 with its dower of qualities received through 
 the complex and interblended influences of 
 
 45 
 
heredity, and prenatal and postnatal condi- 
 tions. There is the brain with its potential 
 grasp, its imagination, and the marvellous 
 alchemic power by which ideas are trans- 
 muted into HAang agencies capable of in- 
 fluencing other minds, and shaping the 
 destiny of nations and of civilizations. 
 There is the conscience, awake, or asleep 
 but present, — there is the soul, awaiting the 
 moving of the waters by the spirit of God. 
 But this trivial something, which is yet so 
 influential if not so absolutely destiny-fixing 
 in character, acts as a branch which, falling 
 from a tree, changes the course of a river 
 near its source, so that it flows into the ocean 
 hundreds of miles from where it would have 
 entered the sea had nothing deflected its 
 current. Does anything happen in our 
 world ? Have the " ifs " of history any real 
 place in serious contemplation ? Is man a 
 creature of free will, or of destiny ? or do both 
 these agencies act and react upon each other ? 
 
 46 
 
I incline to think the last view correct. But 
 the fact that the most momentous events in 
 the history of humanity seem frequently to 
 have hung on the most trivial occurrences, 
 often the feeble will of a fragile child (as, 
 for example, in the case of the Maid of 
 Orleans), affords a most interesting subject 
 for speculation. And so with the lives of 
 many who have powerfully influenced the 
 brain and conscience of their fellow-men ; 
 frequently, it seems that the current of their 
 destiny has veered at the whim apparently 
 of trifles. 
 
 In the Ufe of Whittier we find one of 
 these momentous but seemingly insignificant 
 incidents, — the sister secretly sends her 
 brother's poem to William Lloyd Garrison, 
 whqse first impulse is to destroy without 
 reading it. The young editor, however, is 
 impelled to glance over the creation and is 
 impressed with its power. He publishes it, 
 and forthwith seeks to ascertain the name of 
 
 41 
 
the author ; after succeeding, he visits the 
 Whittier homestead and urges the father to 
 look favorably on the suggestion of his son 
 being allowed to secure a better education. 
 This visit exerts a most pronounced effect 
 upon the youthful poet. It fans to flame 
 his ambition, leading him to make one of 
 those all-compelling resolutions that brook 
 no failure. He succeeds in entering the 
 academy, and is subsequently launched upon 
 a literary career, editing three different 
 journals during 1828 and 1833.* 
 
 For five years after entering public life 
 Whittier practically refrained from casting in 
 his lot with the despised band of Abolition- 
 ists, who were then the recipients of aU the 
 epithets of abuse which unreasoning preju- 
 dice and easy-going conventionaHsm always 
 employ so prodigally when seeking to 
 clothe with ignominy those who insist on 
 
 *The American Manufacturer, the Haverhill Gazette, 
 and The New England Review. 
 
 48 
 
arousing the sleeping conscience of society 
 by demanding a higher regard for the de- 
 mands of justice and morality. The facts 
 involved seem to clearly indicate that it was 
 Garrison's influence which at last turned the 
 scales leading Whittier, after his five years 
 of waiting, to boldly embrace the cause of 
 Abolition. Not that his sympathies had at 
 any time been elsewhere than with the cause 
 of freedom, but he was a Quaker ; he loved 
 peace and his intuitive mind quickly per- 
 ceived, what many less far-seeing men failed 
 to appreciate, that the onward movement of 
 the Abolition cause meant riots, mobs and 
 bloodshed, — perhaps, it meant war and the 
 severance of the Union. He hoped to see 
 the cause triumph peaceably, even if so it 
 should be longer in the process of settle- 
 ment. Then again he had political and lit- 
 erary ambitions which he well knew would 
 be blasted if he espoused the unpopular cause. 
 He shrank from the contempt of his fellow- 
 
 49 
 
men, and he dreaded the savage conflict 
 which he felt would follow an aggressive 
 campaign for uaconditional abolition. He 
 cherished as long as possible the hope that 
 justice would triumph over greed ; but the 
 time came when he could not answer Gar- 
 rison's arguments to his own satisfaction, for 
 he could not close his eyes to the fact that 
 the trend of politics, and the commercial 
 demands and requirements of the time, were 
 distinctly opposed to his own vision of 
 gradual emancipation. In order to win 
 electoral votes from the South, the two 
 great parties throughout the North were 
 vying with each other in disciplining those 
 members who pleaded for freedom and jus- 
 tice to aU men. The cotton gin and the 
 increase of rice culture made the dream of 
 gradual emancipation thoroughly visionary ; 
 at least it seemed so to Whittier, who had 
 carefully studied the question with an earnest 
 desire to be convinced that the theory of grad- 
 
 50 
 
ual emancipation was probable, if the facts at 
 all warranted such a conclusion. His hope, 
 however, grew less and less the more he 
 considered the question. Garrison, who 
 through his early friendship with the poet 
 was able to approach nearer to his con- 
 science than anyone else, brought all his 
 influence to bear upon the young Quaker to 
 convince him of his duty, and to outweigh 
 "Whittier's natural reluctance to engaging in 
 aggressive warfare, his supersensitiveness, 
 and his ambition for political honors. 
 
 In 1833, Whittier crossed the Rubicon 
 by publishing at his own expense a carefully 
 prepared argument on " Justice and Expe- 
 diency." This done, he found himself 
 forced into the heart of the band who were 
 struggling for an interpretation of freedom 
 wider than the nation had yet recognized. 
 His poem inscribed to Garrison * reveals his 
 
 * According to Mr. Pickard, this poem was published in 
 the Haverhill Gazette in November, 1831 ; while Mr. Wil- 
 
 51 
 
strong attachment to the friend of his youth, 
 and his admiration for the moral courage of 
 the foremost apostle of AboHtion, as will be 
 seen from these stanzas : 
 
 Champion of those who groan heneath 
 
 Oppression's Iron hand : 
 In view of penury, hate, and death, 
 
 I see thee fearless stand, 
 Still bearing up thy lofty brow. 
 
 In the steadfast strength of truth, 
 In manhood sealing well the vow 
 
 And promise of thy youth. 
 
 * w « « 
 
 I love thee with a brother's love, 
 
 I feel my pulses thrill, 
 To mark thy spirit soar above 
 
 The cloud of human ill. 
 My heart hath leaped to answer thine, 
 
 And echo back thy words, 
 
 liam Sloane Kennedy, in his " Life of Whittier," main- 
 tains that it was not published until after " Justice and 
 Expediency." If Mr. Pickard is correct, it indicates that 
 the strong attachment of the poet for Garrison, and his 
 admiration for the man who was being so generally 
 maligned, led to this outburst of feeling, in verse which 
 reflected the sentiments of the youthful editor who was 
 not yet ready to cast in his lines with Garrison. 
 
 52 
 
As leaps the warrior's at the shine 
 And flash of kindred swords! 
 
 Have I not known thee well, and read 
 
 Thy mighty purpose long ? 
 And watched the trials which have made 
 
 Thy human spirit strong ? 
 And shall the slanderer's demon breath 
 
 Avail with one like me, 
 To dim the sunshine of my faith 
 
 And earnest trust in thee ? 
 
 In taking his stand Whittier made one of 
 those sublime sacrifices which evince the es- 
 sential divinity immanent in man. For even 
 those who do not sympathize with his de- 
 cision, deeming the action to have been 
 unwise, unless they be blinded by unreason- 
 ing prejudice will appreciate the grandeur 
 of soul which led an ambitious young man 
 with the most flattering political and literary 
 prospects before him to turn his back upon 
 honor, success, and the natural inclinations 
 of his nature, and consent to be a social 
 
 53 
 
outcast for the cause his conscience approved. 
 No one, be it remembered, was better ac- 
 quainted with the nature of the sacrifice 
 he was making than the poet ; he had care- 
 fully surveyed the whole field from the 
 position of one whose opportunities enabled 
 him to comprehend the magnitude of the 
 sacrifice. On this point, Mr. William Sloane 
 Kennedy observes : 
 
 " When Whittier espoused the cause of 
 the slave he had counted the cost, and knew 
 that he was burying all hope of pohtical 
 preferment and literary gains. Those who 
 gave themselves to the work knew not but 
 that it might be for a lifetime. To be shunned 
 and spat upon by society, mobbed in public, 
 and injured in one's business, — this was 
 what it meant to become an AboHtionist. 
 When Miss Martineau avowed her sympathy 
 with them, society shut its doors in her face. 
 When Longfellow put forth his Httle 
 
 54 
 
pamphlet of poems on slavery, weak and 
 harmless as they were, the editor of 
 GrahawHs Magazine wrote him to offer 
 excuses for the brevity of a guarded notice 
 of the poems, saying that the word ' slavery ' 
 was never allowed to appear in a Philadelphia 
 periodical, and that the publisher of the mag- 
 azine had objected to have even the name of 
 the book appear in his pages. Allusion 
 only can be made to a few of the innumera- 
 ble persecutions endured by the friends of 
 the black race. How Lydia Maria Child 
 was deprived of the use of the Athenaeum 
 Library, in Boston, because the first use she 
 had made of it was to prepare her ' appeal ' ; 
 how Dr. Follen was deprived of his pro- 
 fessorship in Harvard CoUege for his brave 
 espousal of Abolitionism; how Prudence 
 Crandall's schoolhouse was defiled with filth, 
 and its windows broken ; how Arthur 
 Tappan's house was sacked and his life 
 threatened; how Dr. Reuben Crandall 
 
 55 
 
(teacher of botany in Washington, D. C, 
 and brother of Prudence Crandall) for having, 
 at his own request, lent to a white citizen a 
 copy of Whittier's ' Justice and Expediency ' 
 was kept in a damp city prison for eight 
 months, until the seeds of consumption were 
 sown, and his life made a sacrifice ; how Amos 
 Dresser was flogged in the public square of 
 Nashville, and his fellow-student of Lane 
 Seminary, the eloquent Marius R. Robinson, 
 was dragged from his bed at night, and 
 tarred and feathered by ruffians, — all these 
 things are matters of history." 
 
 This noble sacrifice of the lower to the 
 higher afEorded the poet the keenest pleasure 
 throughout life, as such soul-victories al- 
 ways afford high-minded, sincere natures ; 
 and he attributed his later success largely 
 to this momentous decision. Toward the 
 close of his life he said as much to a youth 
 of fifteen years who sought his counsel, 
 
 56 
 
adding, " Join thyself to some unpopular but 
 noble cause, if thou wouldst succeed." The 
 poet had in mind, without doubt, the only 
 success which is worthy of the name, — suc- 
 cess from which flows the triumph of right 
 and the enlargement of human happiness. 
 The years 1834 and 1835 are known as 
 the " mob " years of the anti-slavery educa- 
 tional period. In New York, disturbances 
 were of frequent occurrence ; but the spirit 
 of lawlessness on the part of conventional 
 society which plumed itself on being ultra- 
 respectable was also present in various other 
 centres. It was on the twenty-first of Oc- 
 tober, 1835, that Garrison was mobbed by 
 the so-called " respectables " of Boston. In 
 writing of this outrage. Miss Martineau ob- 
 serves that an eminent Boston lawyer said to 
 her : " Oh ! there was no mob ; I was there 
 myself, and saw that they were all gentle- 
 men, — they were all in fine broadcloth. 
 * * * They only wanted to show him 
 
 57 
 
that they would not have such a person live 
 amongst them." 
 
 It is interesting to remember here that it 
 was this mobbing of Garrison that served to 
 sweep Wendell PhUHps into the ranks of the 
 Abolitionists. 
 
 In 1835 the poet and his friend, George 
 Thompson (an Enghshman, afterwards a 
 member of Parliament), were mobbed in 
 Concord, New Hampshire. The experience 
 was quite thrilling. The poet, who had ven- 
 tured forth for a stroU, was set upon by a 
 crowd of people who, by imbibing freely of 
 strong drink, had fortified themselves for 
 the arduous task of preventing free speech. 
 At first, only oaths and vile language were 
 hurled at the poet ; but mobs are nothing if 
 not intemperate, and soon mud, gravel and 
 stones were showered upon the young man, 
 who was beating a hasty retreat — before he 
 could reach a place of refuge, he had lost 
 his hat and had received a rather severe 
 
 68 
 
stone-bruise on his cheek. The disorderly 
 throng constantly grew in size and became 
 more violent and lawless as night came on. 
 Finally they gathered before the home of the 
 host of the two Abolitionists and demanded 
 Whittier and Thompson, declaring that if 
 they were not deUvered up to them they 
 would blow up the place. The inmates of 
 the house, however, were no cowards, nor 
 did they lose their presence of mind ; after a 
 hasty council, it was decided to hitch up the 
 carriage and, if possible, divert the attention 
 of the rapidly increasing crowd, until the 
 visitors could get beyond the danger line. 
 The plan succeeded. The attention of the 
 mob was cleverly diverted, while the door of 
 the carriage house was opened and the horses 
 plunged forward at a gaUop, carrying 
 Whittier and Thompson beyond the reach 
 of danger. 
 
 Many years later the poet chanced to be 
 in Portland, Maine, where he was accosted 
 
 69 
 
by a gentleman who inquired whether he 
 was not the poet Whittier ; on receiving an 
 affirmative answer, the gentleman in question 
 informed the poet that he had been in the 
 mob and, he continued, he beUeved a devil 
 possessed him that night, for he had no pre- 
 judice to satisfy or desire to harm either 
 Whittier or Thompson, but coming within 
 the influence of the mob he was seized by an 
 intense desire to kill them, and beUeved he 
 should have done so had they not escaped. 
 He stated that the mob was like a company 
 of demons, and he knew one man who 
 had mixed to dip the fugitives in a dye, 
 which its maker assured him would have 
 proved well-nigh indelible. " I have never 
 been able," concluded this man, " to accoimt 
 in a manner satisfactory to myself for the 
 strange mental condition I was in that 
 night." This confession is interesting to 
 students of psychology ; it illustrates the 
 strong psychological influence which some 
 
minds come under when exposed to the 
 thought waves generated by a gathering in 
 which intense passion has drowned reason, 
 and men and women have ceased to be the 
 creatures of aught else than prejudice and 
 brutal desire. 
 
 The meetings of the Abolitionists were 
 frequently broken up by turbulent bands, 
 even when no violence was shown, and many 
 are the ludicrous incidents which occurred at 
 these gatherings. On one occasion, a lady 
 who was accustomed to give the friends of 
 freedom no end of trouble by her con- 
 tinual interruptions and who, being pos- 
 sessed of some wit, usually created great 
 amusement among the unsympathetic on- 
 lookers who frequented these assemblies, 
 became so troublesome that in order to con- 
 tinue the meeting it was necessary to remove 
 the loquacious disturber. Finally, Wendell 
 Phillips and two other gentlemen gently 
 raised her chair and proceeded to carry her 
 
 61 
 
from the hall ; she was by no means discon- 
 certed but, in fact, seemed to enjoy the 
 situation. The trio had not proceeded far, 
 however, when she broke the silence by ex- 
 claiming : " I am better ofE than my Master 
 was, for He had but one ass to ride on, while 
 I have three to carry me." Whittier used 
 to relate another amusing incident that oc- 
 curred about this time : One of the public 
 meetings became very stormy, more on ac- 
 count of the opposing views entertained by 
 the friends of freedom than from the dis- 
 orderly class who usually gave trouble. Now, 
 there were seated on the platform William 
 Lloyd Garrison, whose head was very bald ; 
 William A. Burleigh, whose hair fell in a 
 great mane on his shoulders ; and a negro. 
 Suddenly, during a momentary lull, some one 
 in the rear of the hall shouted : " Mr. 
 Speaker, Mr. Speaker, I have only a word to 
 say. If that negro will shave Burleigh and 
 make a whig for Garrison aU difference will 
 
be settled." The house instantly broke 
 forth in roars of laughter which lasted for 
 some time and seemed to put every one in a 
 good humor, as from that moment the meet- 
 ing passed off smoothly, a rare good humor 
 seeming to have taken the place of the 
 almost bitter spirit which had prevailed a 
 few moments before. 
 
 In 1838 the beautiful temple of freedom 
 in Philadelphia dedicated as Pennsylvania 
 Hall was burned by a mob. This act of law- 
 lessness created a deep impression on many 
 thoughtful minds throughout the North. In 
 his editorial in the issue of the Pennsylvania 
 Tribune which appeared after the burning, 
 Whittier speaks in these vivid, vital and pro- 
 phetic sentences of the outrage and the in- 
 fluence which it would exert upon the friends 
 of freedom : " Not in vain, we trust, has the 
 persecution fallen upon us. Fresher and 
 purer for the fiery baptism, the cause lives in 
 our hearts. * * * yfoQ unto us if we 
 
 63 
 
falter through the fear of man i * * * 
 Citizens of Pennsylvania ! your rights as well 
 as ours have been violated in this dreadful 
 outrage. * * * In the heart of your 
 free city, within view of the Hall of Inde- 
 pendence, whose spire and roof reddened in 
 the flame of the sacrifice, the deed has been 
 done, — and the shout which greeted the fall- 
 ing ruin was the shout of Slavery over the 
 grave of Liberty. * * * Are we pointed 
 to the smoking ruins of that beautiful 
 Temple of Freedom, which we fondly hoped 
 would have long echoed the noble and free 
 sentiments of a Franklin, a Rush, a Benezet, 
 a Jay; and as we look sadly on its early 
 downfall, are we bidden to learn hence the 
 fate of our own dwellings if we persevere ? 
 Think not the intimidation will drive us from 
 our post. * * * ^e feel that God has 
 called us to this work, and if it be His pur- 
 pose that we should finish what we have be- 
 gun, He can preserve us, though it be as in 
 
 64 
 
the lion's den, or the seven-fold heated fur- 
 nace." 
 
 Whittier's poems during tiiis period were 
 thrown ofE at white heat. In later life he 
 thus characterized them : " Of ihsar defects 
 from an artistic point of view it is not neces- 
 sary to speak. They wopc -the earnest and 
 nibeR' vehement expression of the writer's 
 thought and feeling at critical perio(^in the 
 great conflict between Freedom and Slavery. 
 Tte^i-ijpre written with no expectation that j 
 -tfeegrwould survive the occasions which called 
 th^ forth ; they-were protests, alarm sig- 
 nals, trumpet calls to action, words wrung 
 from the writer's heart, forged at white heat, 
 aa* of course lackiag the finish and careful 
 word-selection which reflection and patient 
 b rooding o ver them might have g iven.'^ They 
 were indeed trumpet calls, and did more to 
 awaken the sleeping conscience of the nation 
 than even our historians appreciate. /James 
 Russell Lowell was profoundly impressed, and 
 
 65 
 
generously expressed his appreciation of 
 Whittier in these striking lines : " Whittier 
 has always been found faithful to the Muses' 
 holy trust. He has not put his talent out at 
 profitable interest, by catering to the insolent 
 and Pharisaical self-esteem of the times ; nor 
 has he hidden it in the damask napkin of his- 
 torical commonplaces, or a philanthropy too 
 universal to concern itself with particular 
 wrongs, the practical redressing of which is 
 all that renders philanthropy of value. Most 
 poets are content to follow the spirit of their 
 age, as pigeons follow a leaky grain-cart, 
 picking a kernel here and there out of the 
 dry dust of the past. Not so with Whittier. 
 From the heart of the onset upon the serried 
 mercenaries of every tyranny, the chords of 
 his iron-strung lyre clang with a martial and 
 triumphant cheer ; and where Freedom's Spai^ 
 tan few maintain their inviolate mountain pass 
 against the assaults of Slavery, his voice may 
 be heard, clear and fearless, as if the victory 
 
were already won. It is with the highest 
 satisfaction I send you the enclosed poem, 
 every way worthy of our truly New England 
 poet." And Thomas Wentworth Higginsouj 
 in a tribute to Whittier written some years 
 since, thus expresses the wonderful influence 
 exerted by the poet over his youthful imagina- 
 tion : 
 
 At dawn of manhood came a voice to me 
 That said to the startled conscience, " Sleep no more !" 
 
 If any good to me or from me came, 
 Through life, and if no influence less divine 
 
 Has quite usurped the place of duty's flame ; 
 If aught rose worthy in this heart of mine. 
 
 Aught that, viewed backward, wears no shade of shame ; 
 Bless thee, old friend! for that high call was thine. 
 
 This brings us to notice some of Whittier's 
 poems relating to the anti-slavery struggle. 
 It cannot be expected that these stanzas will 
 thrill or influence us as they did the Northern 
 mind during the exciting days when they 
 
 67 
 
were written, any more than the picture of 
 an army rushing to glory and savage death 
 can awaken the horror and sense o£ anguish 
 that the actual battle would inspire. But 
 on the other hand we at the present time, 
 and especially those o£ us who have grown 
 up since the terrible civil strife, can view 
 these creations with eyes less blinded by 
 partiality or prejudice than would have been 
 possible if we had attempted to estimate this 
 phase of Whittier's life at an earlier day. 
 We who have grown to manhood and woman- 
 hood since the close of the civil war shall be 
 able to appreciate the high motives, the sin- 
 cerity and superb power of the poet, even 
 though the sympathies of some of us may 
 run counter to his thought. We are further- 
 more able to accord him a degree of justice 
 which it would not have been reasonable, 
 perhaps, for us to expect those of an older 
 generation to have shown ; for we appreciate 
 the fact that he necessarily viewed the ques- 
 
 68 
 
tion of slavery from a point of view -which 
 prevented his gaining more than a partial 
 grasp of the situation, and which preivented 
 his knowing of the brighter aspects of planta- 
 tion life, no less than of the difficulties and 
 perplexities which the Southerners had to 
 grapple with — about which, indeed, none of 
 the Abolitionists knew much. 
 
 Having thus reached a point sufficiently 
 removed from the conflict to enable us to 
 justly judge and impartially view the work 
 of the poet, whether we agree with him or 
 dissent from his view, we pass to the notice of 
 the poems more as the outgushing of a pro- 
 phetic soul that conscientiously sought to 
 awaken the sleeping conscience of the peo- 
 ple ; and in this judicial attitude we shall 
 notice his creations apart from their partizan 
 bearing, or even their specific relation to the 
 slavery question, as by maintaining this men- 
 tal posture we can consider Whittier's char- 
 acter as a typical reformer more fairly than 
 
would be possible if our views were colored 
 by passion or prejudice. 
 
 In the following lines the poet-seer strives, 
 through an appeal to reason, patriotism, 
 manhood, and man's innate sense of justice, 
 to avert the gloom and horror of war, and 
 the degradation which he felt a nation must 
 sink into which continued to be guilty of 
 slavery after the conscience had been called 
 to judgment : 
 
 Up, then, in Freedom's manly part, 
 
 From graybeard eld to fiery youth, 
 And on the nation's naked heart 
 
 Scatter the living coals of truth ! 
 Up, — while ye slumber, deeper yet 
 
 The shadow of our shame is growing ! 
 Up, — ^while ye pause, our sun may set 
 
 In blood, around our altars flowing ! 
 
 Oh ! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth, — 
 
 The gathered wrath of God and man, — 
 Like that which wasted Egypt's earth. 
 
 When hail and fire above it ran. 
 Hear ye no warnings in the air ? 
 
 Feel ye no earthquake underneath ? 
 Up, — up I Why will ye slumber where 
 
 The sleeper only wakes in death ? 
 
 70 
 
Up now for freedom ! — not in strife 
 
 Like that your sterner fathers saw, — 
 The awful waste of human life, — 
 
 The glory and the guilt of war : 
 But break the chain, — the yoke remove. 
 
 And smite to earth Oppression's rod. 
 With those mild arms of Truth and Love, 
 
 Made mighty through the living God ! 
 
 I always think of Jesus in the Temple 
 driving out the money changers, overturning 
 the tables and crying in austere tones, " It is 
 written my house shall be called a house of 
 prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves," 
 ■when I read the following verses, which are 
 taken from a poem entitled " Clerical Op- 
 pressors," called forth by the celebrated pro- 
 slavery meeting in Charleston, S. C, Sept. 4, 
 1835. To quote from the Courier of that 
 city, " The clergy of all denominations at- 
 tended in a body, lending their sanction to 
 the proceedings, and adding by their pres- 
 ence to the impressive character of the 
 scene." When Whittier read these lines a 
 
 71 
 
feeling of amazement gave place to one of 
 horror and indignation, as from his Ups 
 leaped forth such words as the following : 
 
 Just Grod ! — and these are they 
 Who minister at thine altar, God of Right ! 
 
 Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay 
 On Israel's Ark of light ! 
 
 What ! servants of thy own 
 
 Merciful Son, who came to seek and save 
 The homeless and the outcast, — fettering down 
 
 The tasked and plundered slave ! 
 
 Paid hypocrites, who turn 
 
 Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book 
 Of those high words of truth which search and burn 
 
 In warning and rebuke ; 
 
 Feed fat, ye locusts, feed! 
 
 And in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord 
 That, from the toiling bondman's utter need. 
 
 Ye pile your own full board. 
 
 How long, O Lord ! how long 
 Shall such a priesthood barter truth away, 
 
 And in thy name, for robbery and wrong 
 At thy own altars pray ? 
 
 72 
 
Woe, then, to all who grind 
 
 Their brethren of a common Father down ! 
 To all who plunder from the immortal mind 
 
 Its bright and glorious crown! 
 
 O, speed the moment on 
 
 When Wrong shall cease, and Liberty and Love 
 And Truth and Right throughout the earth be known 
 
 As in their home above. 
 
 These stanzas are unlike Whittier, — as 
 was Jesus' action in the Temple unlike the 
 general course pursued by that one of whom 
 it was written, " A bruised reed will he not 
 break, or smoking flax wiU he not quench ; " 
 and they indicate, no less vividly than did 
 the action of the great Nazarene, how pro- 
 foundly the sense of shame and indignation 
 was stirred in the poet at the spectacle of the 
 entire clergy of an opulent city lending sanc- 
 tion to the institution of slavery. 
 
 The poem entitled, "Massachusetts to 
 Virginia," created a profound impression 
 and was quoted at length throughout the 
 North. The rugged spirit of freedom and 
 
 73 
 
the love of justice which characterized the 
 sturdy Saxon people of olden time are very 
 marked in these lines from this notahle 
 poem : 
 
 We hear thy threats, Virginia ! thy stormy ■words and high 
 Swell harshly on the southern winds which melt along our 
 
 sky; 
 Yet, not one brown, hard hand foregoes its honest labor 
 
 here, — 
 No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear. 
 
 Wild are the waves which lash the reefs along St. George's 
 
 i bank, — 
 Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white and dank ; 
 Through storm and wave and blinding mist stout are the 
 
 hearts which man 
 The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape 
 
 Ann. 
 
 The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy 
 
 forms, 
 Bent grimly o'er their straining lines or wrestling with the 
 
 storms ; 
 Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves 
 
 they roam. 
 They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rocky 
 
 home. 
 
 74 
 
What means the Old Dominion ? Hath she forgot the day 
 When o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's steel 
 
 array? 
 How side by side, with sons of hers, the Massachusetts men 
 Encountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and stout Comwallis, 
 
 then? 
 
 Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call 
 
 Of her old House of Burgesses, spoke out from Faneuil 
 
 Hall? 
 When, echoing back her Henry's cry, came pulsing on each 
 
 breath 
 Of Northern winds, the thrilling sounds of " Libbett ok 
 
 Death !" 
 
 All that a sister State should do, all that a, free State may, 
 Heart, hand, and purse we proffer, as in our early day ; 
 But that one dark loathsome burden ye must stagger with 
 
 alone, 
 And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have 
 
 sown ! 
 
 Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden 
 
 God's free air 
 With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and manhood's wild 
 
 despair ; 
 Cling closer to the " cleaving curse " that writes upon your 
 
 plains 
 The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chains. 
 
 75 
 
We wage no war, — ^we lift no arm, — we fling no torch 
 
 within 
 The fire-damps of the quaMng mine beneath your soil of 
 
 sin ; 
 We leave ye with your bondmen, to wrestle, while ye can, 
 With the strong upward tendencies and godlike soul of 
 
 man ! 
 
 But for us and for our children, the vow which we have 
 
 given 
 For freedom and humanity is registered in heaven ; 
 No slave-hunt in our borders, — no pirate on our strand ! 
 No fetters in the Bay State, — no slave upon our land! 
 
 The spirit which throbs through the above 
 stanzas is the spirit of justice, of progress, 
 and the dawn ; and whether we are ready to 
 see as Whittier saw or not, we must recog- 
 nize the eternal soul of Right as pulsing 
 through the lines. And these verses from 
 " Texas," although they are not exactly what 
 one would expect from a Quaker, the spirit 
 being distinctly defiant, yet they must have 
 been electrifying in their effect upon the 
 aroused conscience of men and women who 
 were so far removed from slavery as to feel 
 
 76 
 
no personal or pecuniary interest in it, and 
 ■who had known little save the darker side of 
 the evil : 
 
 Up the hillside, down the glen, 
 Eouse the sleeping citizen ; 
 Summon out the might of men! 
 
 Like a lion growling low, — 
 Like a night-storm rising slow, — 
 Like the tread of unseen foe, — 
 
 It is coming, — it is nigh! 
 Stand your homes and altars hy; 
 On your own free thresholds die. 
 
 Clang the bells in all your spires; 
 On the gray hills of your sires 
 Fling to Heaven your signal-fires. 
 
 From Wachuset, lone and bleak, 
 
 Unto Berkshire's tallest peak. 
 
 Let the flame-tongued heralds speak. 
 
 O, for God and duty stand, 
 Heart to heart and hand to hand. 
 Bound the old graves of the land. 
 
 Whoso shrinks or falters now. 
 Whoso to the yoke would bow. 
 Brand the craven on his brow I 
 
 n 
 
" Make our TJnion-bond a chain, 
 Weak as tow in Freedom's strain, 
 Link by link shall snap in twain. 
 
 " Vainly shall your sand-wrought rope 
 Bind the starry cluster up, 
 Shattered over heaven's blue cope ! 
 
 " Give us bright though broken rays, 
 Eather than eternal haze. 
 Clouding o'er the Ml-orbed blaze. 
 
 " Take your land of sun and bloom; 
 Only leave to Freedom room 
 For her plough, and forge, and loom; 
 
 " Boldly, or with treacherous art. 
 Strike the blood- wrought chain apart; 
 Break the Union's mighty heart; 
 
 " Work the ruin, if ye will; 
 Pluck upon your heads an ill 
 Which shall grow and deepen stUl. 
 
 * * # « * 
 
 " We but ask our rocky strand, 
 Freedom's true and brother band, 
 Freedom's strong and honest hand,- 
 
 " Valleys by the slave untrod, "^ 
 And the Pilgrim's mountain sod, 
 Blessed of our fathers' God!" 
 
 78 
 
Whittier was unable to understand how 
 men could yield to expediency when Justice 
 and Right were at stake. To his soul at 
 white heat and strained to its utmost ten- 
 sion, the spectacle of men arguing that this 
 or that though just was not politic and there- 
 fore should not be entertained was so appall- 
 ing, that he scarcely knew how to frame 
 words to utter his horror and indignation. 
 In these lines, published in 1846, entitled 
 "The Pine-Tree," we hear a voice issuing 
 from a soul burdened by shame for the country 
 and weighed down with pity and grief : 
 
 Lift again the stately emblem on the Bay State's rusted 
 shield, 
 
 Give to Northern winds the Pine-Tree on our banner's 
 tattered field. 
 
 Sons of men who sat in council with their Bibles round the 
 board, 
 
 Answering England's royal missive with a firm, " Thus 
 SAiTH THE Lord ! " 
 
 Rise again for home and freedom ! — set the battle in array ! — 
 
 What the fathers did of old time we their sons must do to- 
 day. 
 
 79 
 
Tell us not of banks and tariffs, — cease your paltry pedler 
 
 cries, — 
 Shall the good State sink her honor that your gambling 
 
 stocks may rise ? 
 Would ye barter man for cotton ? — That your gains may 
 
 sum up higher, 
 Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our children through 
 
 the fire ? 
 Is the dollar only real ? — God and truth and right a dream ? 
 Weighed against your lying ledgers must our manhood kick 
 
 the beam ? 
 
 O my God ! — ^for that free spirit, which of old in Boston 
 town 
 
 Smote the Province House with terror, struck the crest of 
 Andros down ! — 
 
 For another strong- voiced Adams in the city's streets to 
 cry, 
 
 "Up for God and Massachusetts ! — Set your feet on Mam- 
 mon's lie! 
 
 Perish banks and perish traflSc, — spin your cotton's latest 
 pound. 
 
 But in Heaven's name keep your honor, — ^keep the heart o' 
 the Bay State sotmd! " 
 
 Where's the man for Massachusetts ? — ^Where's the voice 
 
 to speak her free ? — 
 Where's the hand to light up bonfires from her mountains 
 
 to the sea 1 
 
 80 
 
Beats her Pilgrim pulse no longer ? — Sits she dumb in her 
 
 despair ? — 
 Has she none to break the silence ? — Has she none to do 
 
 and dare ? 
 O my God ! for one right worthy to lift up her rusted 
 
 shield, 
 And to plant again the Pine-Tree in her banner's tattered 
 
 field! 
 
 In the following strong stanzas we again 
 hear the prophet speaking. He has ascended 
 the mountain far above the dull, plodding, 
 self-absorbed mUlions ; he has communed with 
 the Divine, and the possibilities for progress, 
 happiness and advancement which lie along 
 the path of any people who are ever loyal to 
 the demands of justice and humanity to all 
 are no less vividly impressed on his mind, 
 than the awful disaster which confronts those 
 who refuse to leave the " mess of pottage " 
 found in self-gratification, and who yield 
 allegiance to shortsighted selfism to the de- 
 triment of others. There is something very 
 fine and inspiring in these lines and, what is 
 still more important, they are as appropriate 
 
 6 81 
 
to-day as they were when the words flew 
 from the brain of the poet, as sparks from 
 the white-hot iron under the hammer of the 
 smith : 
 
 Forever ours ! for good or ill, on ns the burden lies ; 
 
 God's balance, watched by angels, is hung across the skies, 
 /shall Justice, Truth and Freedom turn the poised and 
 / trembling scale ? 
 
 Or shall the Evil triumph, and robber Wrong prevail ? 
 
 Shall the broad land o'er which our flag in starry splendor 
 waves 
 
 Forego through us its freedom, and bear the tread of slaves ? 
 
 The day is breaking in the East of which the prophets told, 
 And brightens up the sky of Time the Christian Age of 
 
 Gold; 
 Old Might to Eight is yielding, battle blade to clerkly pen, 
 Earth's monarchs are her peoples, and her serfs stand up 
 
 as men; 
 The isles rejoice together, in a day are nations bom. 
 And the slave walks free in Tunis, and by Stamboul's 
 
 Golden Horn! 
 
 The Crisis presses on us; face to face with us it stands. 
 With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx in Egjrpt's 
 sands I 
 
This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin; 
 TMs day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin; 
 Even now from starry Gerizim, orEbal's cloudy crown, 
 We call the dews of blessing or the bolts of cursing down! 
 
 By all for which the martyrs bore their agony and shame; 
 By all the warning words of truth with which the prophets 
 
 came; 
 By the Future which awaits us ; by all the hopes which cast 
 Their faint and trembling beams across the blackness of the 
 
 Past; 
 And by the blessed thought of Him who for Earth's freedom 
 
 died, 
 O my people! O my brothers! let us choose the righteous 
 
 side. 
 
 " Ichabod " is one of the most withering 
 blasts that ever leaped from the indignant 
 heart of an aroused prophet-poet. Its spirit 
 is wholly unlike that which characterizes 
 most of Whittier's lines ; but it is a creation 
 of great power — in its way, one of the most 
 terrible utterances to be found in our liter- 
 ature. And curiously enough it was aimed 
 at a kinsman of the poet — a New England 
 statesman who had once stood very high in 
 
 83 
 
the regard of Mr. Whittier, and for whose 
 intellectual powers he ever entertained the 
 greatest admiration. The circumstances 
 which gave rise to this poem are interesting 
 and may be briefly stated as follows : On the 
 seventh of March, 1850, Daniel Webster de- 
 livered a famous speech which struck dismay 
 to the hearts of all friends of abolition in the 
 North. In this oration he argued that no 
 further restrictions on the extension of 
 slavery in the territories of New Mexico and 
 California were needed ; that colonization by 
 free negroes should be encouraged ; and that 
 the Fugitive Slave Law must be obeyed. 
 He further averred that the labors of the 
 Abolitionists had served merely to fasten the 
 institution of slavery more firmly than ever 
 on the South. This address, strange as it 
 may appear to persons who do not under- 
 stand that conservatism is always ready to 
 bulwark an outgrown wrong if it be en- 
 throned in high places, was applauded by 
 
 84 
 
leading educators of Harvard and Andover 
 colleges. Indeed, an address of congratula- 
 tion was presented to Webster, signed by 
 eight hundred prominent citizens of the Old 
 Bay State, including Rufus Choate, WiUiam 
 H. Prescott, Jared Sparks, and Professor C. 
 C. Felton, of Harvard College. It was this 
 speech of Webster's, falling as it did with 
 crushing force upon the Abolitionists, that 
 called forth these terrible lines from Whittier : 
 
 So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn 
 
 Which once he wore ! 
 The glory from his gray hairs gone 
 
 Porevermore! 
 
 Revile him not, — the Tempter hath 
 
 A snare for all ; 
 And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, 
 
 Befit his fall! 
 
 O, dumb be passion's stormy rage, 
 
 When he who might 
 Have lighted up and led his age. 
 
 Falls back in night. 
 
 8S 
 
Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark 
 A bright soul driven, \ 
 
 Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, 
 From hope and heaven! 
 
 Let not the land once proud of him 
 
 Insult him now, 
 Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, 
 
 Dishonored brow. 
 
 But let its humbled sons, instead. 
 
 From sea to lake, 
 A long lament, as for the dead, 
 
 In sadness make. 
 
 Of all we loved and honored, naught 
 
 Save power remains, — 
 A fallen angel's pride of thought. 
 
 Still strong in chains. 
 
 All else is gone; from those great eyes 
 
 The soul has fled: 
 When faith is lost, when honor dies. 
 
 The man is dead ! 
 
 Then, pay the reverence of old days 
 
 To his dead fame; 
 Walk backward, with averted gaze. 
 
 And hide the shame! 
 
 In speaking of the origin of this poem 
 Whittier wrote : " My admiration of the 
 
 86 
 
splendid personality and intellectual power 
 of the great Senator was never stronger 
 than when I laid down his speech and, in 
 one of the saddest moments of my life, 
 penned my protest. I saw, as I wrote, with 
 painful clearness, its sure results, — the slave- 
 power arrogant and defiant, strengthened 
 and encouraged to carry out its scheme for 
 the extension of its baleful system, or the 
 dissolution of the Union, the guaranties of 
 personal liberty in the free States broken 
 down, and the whole country made the 
 hunting ground of slave-catchers. In the 
 horror of such a vision, so soon fearfully 
 fulfilled, if one spoke at aU, he could only 
 speak in tones of stern and sorrowful re- 
 buke." " This poem," observes Mr. Ken- 
 nedy, "has been compared to Browning's 
 ' Lost Leader ' — 
 
 " ' Just for a handful of silver he left us, 
 
 Just for a riband to stick in his coat — 
 
 SJ 
 
" ' He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, 
 He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves. 
 
 * » * » » 
 
 " ' Deeds -will be done — while he boasts his quiescence, 
 Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire; 
 'Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more.' " 
 
 Of the poems composed in war time none 
 is more stirring than " Ein' Feste Burg," 
 which opens with these memorable lines : 
 
 We wait beneath the furnace-blast 
 
 The pangs of transformation; 
 Not painlessly doth God recast 
 And mould anew the nation. 
 Hot bums the flre 
 Where wrongs expire; 
 Nor spares the hand 
 That from the land 
 Uproots the ancient evil. 
 
 The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared 
 
 Its bloody rain is dropping; 
 The poison plant the fathers spared 
 All else is overtopping. 
 East, West, South, North, 
 It curses the earth; 
 All justice dies. 
 And fraud and lies 
 Live only in its shadow. 
 
This poem was set to music and sung 
 with tremendous effect during the early days 
 of the civil war. After the Battle of Bull 
 Run, the famous Hutchinson family of 
 singers entered the lines of the Army of 
 the Potomac, hoping to reinvigorate the 
 drooping spirits of the Union soldiers with 
 their patriotic songs. On singing the " Ein' 
 Feste Burg," however. General McClellan 
 requested them to leave the Hnes. The 
 singers appealed to President Lincoln, and 
 this poem was read by Secretary Chase to 
 the president and cabinet ; after which the 
 president said : " It is just the kind of a 
 song I wish the soldiers to hear." The 
 cabinet voted unanimously in favor of its 
 being sung in the army, and the singers 
 were readmitted to the national camps. 
 
 Just here it is interesting to note the mar- 
 tial spirit which pervades many of Whittier's 
 lines, and his fondness for military imagery. 
 It was Nathaniel Hawthorne who humorously 
 
 89 
 
alluded to him as " A fiery Quaker youth to 
 whom the Muse had perversely assigned a 
 battle trumpet." This fondness for the 
 imagery of war perplexed Whittier not a 
 little, and more than once when referring to 
 it he expressed the conviction that there was 
 " somewhere in his make-up quite a dash of 
 the blood of the old sea king of the ninth 
 century." Of course, anything mihtary was 
 as foreign to the Quaker theory of life and 
 practice as was the shedding of blood ab- 
 horrent to Whittier, the poet. Nevertheless, 
 during the early days of the war many young 
 Quakers laid aside their drab for the soldier's 
 uniform. In northern New Jersey, for ex- 
 ample, a Quaker regiment was raised of one 
 thousand members, much to the grief and 
 dismay of many old and staid pillars in the 
 society of Friends. At one of its quarterly 
 meetings, the martial occupation of these stray 
 sheep brought forth severe criticism from 
 a number of members ; whereupon one sym- 
 
 00 
 
pathizer with those who had donned the blue 
 arose and told a little story : " He said that 
 his grandfather once had deahngs with an 
 obstreperous 'man of the world/ who pro- 
 voked him until his patience was worn 
 out. AU at once he threw ofE his coat and 
 laid it on the ground, saying, ' Lie there, 
 Quaker, till I give this rascal his dues ! ' and 
 then proceeded to give him a good drub- 
 bing." 
 
 The poet has given us a graphic pen pict- 
 ure of himself during the anti-slavery con- 
 flict in the following lines from " The Tent 
 on the Beach " : 
 
 And one there was, a dreamer born, 
 
 Who, with a mission to fulfill. 
 Had left the Muses' haunts to turn 
 
 The crank of an opinion-mill. 
 Making his rustic reed of song 
 A weapon in the war with wrong. 
 Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough 
 That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring and 
 grow. 
 
 91 
 
Too quiet seemed the man to ride 
 The winged HippogrifE Keform; 
 Was his a voice from side to side 
 
 To pierce the tumult of the storm ? 
 A silent, shy, peace-loving man, 
 He seemed no fiery partisan 
 To hold his way against the public frown. 
 The ban of Church and State, the fierce mob's 
 hounding down. 
 
 For while he wrought with- strenuous will 
 
 The work his hands had found to do, 
 He heard the fitful music still 
 
 Of winds that out of dream-land blew. 
 The din about him could not drown 
 What the strange voices whispered down; 
 Along his task-field weird processions swept. 
 The visionary pomp of stately phantoms stepped. 
 
 Great excitement prevailed throughout 
 the North when President Lincoln counter- 
 manded as premature General Fremont's 
 proclamation of freedom to the slaves in 
 Missouri belonging to those who had taken 
 up arms against the Federal government. 
 Whittier at once penned his memorable ode 
 to John C. Fremont, in which occur these 
 lines : 
 
Thy error, Fremont, simply was to act 
 A brave man's part, without the statesman's tact, 
 And, taking counsel but of common sense, 
 To strike at cause as well as consequence. 
 
 Still take thou courage! God has spoken through thee, 
 Irrevocable, the mighty words. Be Free! 
 
 A most interesting anecdote relating to 
 the above verses is related by Mrs. Jessie 
 Fremont. In September, 1863, she visited 
 Amesbury in order to see the poet, who, at 
 the time, was absent from his home. He, 
 however, soon returned and she met him in 
 a frank, enthusiastic manner, but did not 
 
 disclose her identity But here I must let 
 
 her describe the incident, as furnished to 
 Mr. Packard for his " Life and Letters of 
 Whittier": 
 
 " I began by telling him he had strongly 
 influenced my young life ; that I was but 
 twenty-two when I cut from a newspaper and 
 pasted in my prayer-book his 'Angel of 
 Patience ; ' that the lines 
 
" ' The throbs of wounded pride to still, 
 And make our own our Father's will,' 
 
 were the hardest to get hy heart I had ever 
 tried, for patience and submission were not 
 natural growths in my part of the country. 
 
 " ' Thy speech is Southern ; what is thy 
 name?' 
 
 " ' Not yet,' I said. ' I am Southern ; but 
 let me tell you more first. I want to teU you 
 of your last, your greatest help to us both — 
 to me and, greatest, to my husband.' 
 
 " And then I told him as briefly as I 
 could how over thirty thousand men were 
 next day to break camp for active pursuit of 
 the enemy, — ' the enemies of the Union, Mr. 
 Whittier.' It was Sunday evening; the 
 setting sun lit up the October colors of the 
 trees, and picked out the white of tents cov- 
 ering the many hills ; the men were hushed 
 into reverent stillness, for the bands played 
 the air, and then voices, swelling to thousands 
 on thousands, took up the familiar words : 
 
 94 
 
" ' Before Jehovah's awful throne.' 
 
 Before that awful throne who could know 
 how soon he must appear ? And why ? 
 What good attained for which a man should 
 lay down his life ? 
 
 " The day's mail was brought into the 
 General's tent. He had no heart to open it, 
 for his highest, dearest, purest hopes had 
 been flung back on him, and himselE dis- 
 approved. But I, who was always the secre- 
 tary and other-self, went on with the things 
 of every day, 'taking the burden of life 
 again ; ' and think of my reward when in the 
 New York Eoening Post there met my eye 
 your inspired, prophetic words ! 
 
 " Uplifted beyond the time of trial, I went 
 out with the paper to where, standing over 
 the fire — as he so often stood in lonely times 
 of suffering and dejection — was the General, 
 alone. I read him the whole. He was 
 speechless with increasing, overwhelming, 
 glorified feeling — transfigured. Taking the 
 
 95 
 
paper and bending to read it, for himself, by 
 the blazing logs, at length he said : 
 
 ** ' He speaks for posterity. I tnew I was 
 right. I want these words on my tomb- 
 stone : 
 
 " ' God hath spoken through thee, 
 Irrevocable, the mighty words. Be Free! ' 
 
 Now I can die for what I have done.' 
 
 " Whittier had grasped my arm, and his 
 eyes blazed. ' What is thy name ? ' 
 
 « ' Fremont.' 
 
 " Without a word he swung out of the 
 room, to return, infolding in his helping em- 
 brace a frail little woman, tenderly saying to 
 the invalid he was bringing from her seclu- 
 sion: 
 
 " ' Elizabeth, this is Jessie Fremont — under 
 our roof ! Our mother would have been 
 glad to see this day.' " 
 
 At length the long agony of suspense drew 
 to a close. The fierce battle waged by the 
 little Spartan band had given place to one 
 
 96 
 
of those profound awakenings which suggest 
 the on-sweeping of a prairie fire. The ar- 
 rogance of the government and the courts, 
 probably, did more than the agitation of the 
 abolitionists to precipitate the war ; but 
 there can be no doubt but that the shafts of 
 Garrison, the eloquence of Phillips, the 
 clarion voice of brave Parker PiUsbury, the 
 fiction of Mrs. Stowe, the stirring songs of 
 the Hutchinson family, the writings of 
 Horace Greeley and, last but not least, the 
 poems of Whittier and LoweU were tre- 
 mendous educational forces, while the tragic 
 fate of John Brown gave great additional 
 impetus to the cause of abolition. When 
 Sumter was fired on the North was electrified, 
 and war grim and terrible ensued, during 
 which the evil of slavery went down ; with 
 peace came a wider freedom than we had 
 before recognized. Then the bosom of our 
 poet swelled with reverent thanksgiving, 
 while his heart was melted with pity for the 
 
 7 97 
 
misery, the heartaches, and the lives lost in the 
 awful strife. One day the news came that 
 the amendment had passed, aholishing slavery 
 in the United States, and Whittier, seated in 
 a meeting-house of the Friends, at Ames- 
 bury, heard the glad clanging of the bells in 
 celebration of the event. The hour was one of 
 the most impressive of his life. He was in the 
 humble sanctuary of his people worshipping 
 God ; the merry pealing of the bells brought 
 the message of a triumph of justice such as 
 he had scarcely dared to pray for ; and his 
 breast became tremulous with emotion, his 
 brain throbbed with exultant thoughts — a 
 great song of triumph and thanksgiving rose 
 in his soul, a song destined to live as long as 
 our language endures. And that is how the 
 following magnificent poem, known as " Laus 
 Deo ! " came to be written : 
 
 It is done! 
 Clang of bell and roar of gun 
 Send the tidings up and doTni. 
 
How the belfries rock and reel! 
 How the great gtrns, peal on peal, 
 Fling the joy from town to town! 
 
 Ring, O bells! 
 Every stroke exulting tells 
 
 Of the burial hour of crime. 
 Loud and long, that all may hear, 
 King for every listening ear 
 
 Of Eternity and Time! 
 
 Let us kneel: 
 God's own voice is in that peal, 
 
 And this spot is holy ground. 
 Lord, forgive us ! What are we. 
 That our eyes this glory see, 
 
 That our ears have heard the sound! 
 
 For the Lord 
 
 On the whirlwind is abroad; 
 In the earthquake he has spoken; 
 
 He has smitten with his thunder 
 
 The iron walls asunder, 
 And the gates of brass are broken! 
 
 Loud and long 
 Lift the old exulting song; 
 Sing with Miriam by the sea, 
 He has cast the mighty down ; 
 Horse and rider sink and drown; 
 " He hath triumphed gloriously I " 
 
 99 
 
Did we dare, 
 
 In our agony of prayer, 
 Ask for more than He has done ? 
 
 When was ever His right hand 
 
 Over any time or land 
 Stretched as now beneath the sun ? 
 
 How they pale, 
 Ancient myth and song and tale 
 
 In this wonder of our days, 
 When the cruel rod of war 
 Blossoms white with righteous law. 
 
 And the wrath of man is praise! 
 
 Blotted out! 
 All within and all about 
 
 Shall a fresher life begin; 
 Freer breathe the universe 
 As it rolls its heavy curse 
 
 On the dead and buried sin! 
 
 It is done ! 
 In the circuit of the sun 
 
 Shall the sound thereof go forth. 
 It shall bid the sad rejoice, 
 It shall give the dumb a voice. 
 
 It shall belt with joy the earth! 
 
 100 
 
King and swing, 
 Bells of joy 1 On morning's wing 
 
 Send the song of praise abroad! 
 With a sound of broken chains 
 Tell the nations that He reigns. 
 
 Who alone is Lord and God I 
 
 101 
 
A MODERN APOSTLE OF LOFTY 
 SPIRITUALITY. 
 
" In time to be 
 Shall holier altars rise to Thee, — 
 Thy Church our broad htunanity ! 
 
 " A sweeter song shall then be heard, — 
 The music of the world's accord 
 Confessing Christ, the Inward Word ! 
 
 " That song shall swell from shore to shore. 
 One hope, one faith, one love restore 
 The seamless robe that Jesus wore." 
 
 — Whittier. 
 
 " The world is growing better ; the Lord reigns; our old 
 planet is wheeling slowly into fuller light. I despair of 
 nothing good. All will come in due time that is really 
 needed. All we have to do is to work — and wait." 
 
 —Whittier, in Pickard^s " Life and Letters." 
 
 m 
 
111. % a^obent %fo^t\t of Itoftp 
 ^pintualttp. 
 
 INTERESTING as is the New 
 England poet when considered 
 as a barefoot boy, as the in- 
 spired prophet of freedom, as the charm- 
 ing lyric poet and graphic delineator 
 of New England life, and dear as he 
 is to us as the simple and sincere man, 
 it is as the true mystic or inspired 
 teacher of the higher life that he ap- 
 peals especially to the large and rapidly 
 increasing number of persons who, along 
 various lines of thought and experience, are 
 being brought to-day into what is essentially 
 a deeply spiritual attitude, although they 
 feel little or no attraction toward the empty 
 forms, creeds or dogmas which have so long 
 
 106 
 
claimed to constitute religion. The " voice 
 of God within," or "the Inner Light," of 
 Whittier is becoming a far greater reality to 
 the conscience of our civilization than Mam- 
 mon-worshipping and easy-going conven- 
 tionalists imagine. On this point the late 
 Mrs. Claflin observed : 
 
 " Mr. Whittier believed in following the 
 Inner Light, and when he thought he was 
 directed by that Inner Light, no power on 
 earth could influence him to turn aside. If 
 he decided to move at a' certain moment of 
 time, nothing could induce him to change 
 his mind ; no storm was severe enough to 
 deter him from going on the train he had 
 set his heart on. He used to teU a story of 
 one of his friends as an illustration of the 
 wisdom of being guided by and yielding to 
 the Inner Light : 
 
 " ' I have an old friend,' he said, ' who 
 followed the leadings of the Spirit, and 
 
 106 
 
always made it a point to go to meeting on 
 First-day. On one First-day morning, he 
 made ready for meeting, and suddenly turn- 
 ing to his wife, said, ' I am not going to 
 meeting this morning ; I am going to take 
 a walk.' His wife inquired where he was 
 going, and he replied : ' I don't know ; I am 
 impelled to go, I know not where.' With 
 his walking-stick he started, and went out of 
 the city for a mile or two, and came to a 
 country house that stood some distance 
 from the road. The gate stood open, and a 
 narrow lane, into which he turned, led up to 
 the house, where something unusual seemed 
 to be going on. There were several vehicles 
 standing around the yard, and groups of 
 people were gathered here and there. When 
 he reached the house, he found there was a 
 funeral, and he entered with the neighbors, 
 who were there to attend the service. He 
 listened to the funeral address and to the 
 prayer. It was the body of a young woman 
 
 107 
 
lying in the casket before him, and he arose 
 and said : ' I have been led by the Spirit to 
 this house ; I know nothing of the circum- 
 stances connected with the death of this 
 person ; but I am impelled by the Spirit to 
 say that she has been accused of something 
 of which she is not guilty, and the false 
 accusation has hastened her death.' 
 
 " ' The friend sat down, and a murmur of 
 surprise went through the room. The min- 
 ister arose and said, ' Are you a god or what 
 are you ? ' The friend replied : ' I am 
 only a poor, sinful man, but I was led by 
 the Inner Light to come to this house and 
 say what I have said, and I would ask the 
 person in this room who knows that the 
 young woman now beyond the power of 
 speech was not guilty of what she was 
 accused of, to vindicate her in this presence.' 
 After a fearful pause, a woman stood up and 
 said : ' I am the person,' and while weeping 
 hysterically, she confessed that she had wU- 
 
 108 
 
fully slandered the dead girl. The friend 
 departed on his homeward way. Such,' 
 said Mr. Whittier, ' was the leading of the 
 Inner Light.' " 
 
 The same writer makes with regard to 
 Whittier's religious convictions the following 
 interesting observations, which accord with 
 the spirit of his religious poems : 
 
 " Mr. Whittier was a many-sided man and 
 could adapt himseLE to any condition of 
 mind. He had great warmth of affection 
 for his friends; tenderness to the erring, 
 and capacity for suffering with others, were 
 marked traits in his character, — but he had 
 always faith in ultimate good for all. He 
 said, 'Surely God would not permit His 
 children to suffer if it were not to work out 
 for them the highest good. For God never 
 does, nor suffers to be done, but that which 
 we would do if we could see the end of all 
 
events as well as He. The little circum- 
 stance of death ■will make no difBerence with 
 me; I shall have the same friends in that 
 other world that I have here ; the same loves 
 and aspirations and occupations. If it were 
 not so, I should not be myself, and surely I 
 shall not lose my identity. God's love is so 
 infinitely greater than mine, that I cannot 
 fear for His children, and when I long to 
 help some poor, suffering, erring fellow- 
 creature, I am consoled with the thought 
 that His great heart of love is more moved 
 than mine can be, and so I rest in 
 peace.' " 
 
 How beautiEully are these thoughts of the 
 poet amplified in the following stanzas from 
 " The Eternal Goodness " : 
 
 But still my human hands are weak 
 To hold youi- iron creeds: 
 
 Against the words ye bid me speak 
 My heart within me pleads. 
 
 110 
 
Who fathoms the Eternal Thought? 
 
 "Who talks of scheme and plan ? 
 The Lord is God! He needeth not 
 
 The poor device of man. 
 
 I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground 
 Ye tread with boldness shod; 
 
 I dare not fix with mete and bound 
 The love and power of God. 
 
 Te praise His justice ; even such 
 
 His pitying love I deem: 
 Te seek a king; I fain would touch 
 
 The robe that hath no seam. 
 
 Te see the curse which overbroods 
 
 A world of pain and loss ; 
 I hear our Lord's beatitudes 
 
 And prayer upon the cross. 
 
 Tet, in the maddening maze of things, 
 And tossed by storm and flood, 
 
 To one fixed trust my spirit clings ; 
 I know that God is good! 
 
 Not mine to look where cherubim 
 
 And seraphs may not see. 
 But nothing can be good in Him 
 
 Which evil is in me. 
 
 Ill 
 
The wrong that pains my soul below 
 
 I dare not throne above; 
 I know not of His hate, — ^I know 
 
 His goodness and His love. 
 
 And so beside the Silent Sea 
 
 I wait the muffled oar; 
 No harm from Him can come to me 
 
 On ocean or on shore. 
 
 I know not where His islands lift 
 
 Their fronded palms in air; 
 I only know I cannot drift 
 
 Beyond His love and care. 
 
 The true mystic is further revealed in the 
 following verses from " In Quest " : 
 
 " The riddle of the world is understood 
 Only by him who feels that God is good, 
 As only he can feel who makes his love 
 The ladder of his faith, and climbs above 
 On th' rounds of his best instincts ; draws no line 
 Between mere human goodness and divine, 
 But, judging God by what in him is best. 
 With a child's trust leans on a Father's breast, 
 And hears unmoved the old creeds babble still 
 Of kingly power and dread caprice of will, 
 
 112 
 
Chary of blessing, prodigal of curse, 
 
 The pitiless doomsman of the universe. 
 
 Can Hatred ask for love ? Can Selfishness 
 
 Invite to self-denial ? Js Se less 
 
 Than man in kindly dealing ? Can Be break 
 
 Sis own great law of fatherhood, forsake 
 
 And curse His children ? Not for earth and heaven 
 
 Can separate tables of the law be given. 
 
 No rule can bind which Se himself denies; 
 
 The truths of time are not eternal lies." 
 
 So heard I ; and the chaos round me spread 
 To light and order grew; and, "Lord," I said, 
 " Our sins are our tormentors, worst of all 
 Felt in distrustful shame that dares not call 
 Upon Thee as our Father. We have set 
 A strange god up, but Thou remainest yet. 
 All that I feel of pity, Thou hast known 
 Before I was ; my best is all Thy own. 
 From Thy great heart of goodness mine but drew 
 Wishes and prayers ; but Thou, O Lord, wilt do, 
 In Thy own time, by ways I cannot see. 
 All that I feel when I am nearest Thee! " 
 
 Whittier stood in the midway between the 
 departing ideals of ancient orthodoxy and the 
 religion of the future. This is well illus- 
 trated in that exquisite poem, *' The Brother 
 of Mercy," which the reader will remember 
 
 113 
 
describes the death of one Piero Luca, an old, 
 gray porter, who for forty years had wrought 
 deeds of love and kindness. When the 
 hour came and the lengthened shadows 
 marked the close of life's day, a barefoot 
 monk seeks thus to comfort the humble, 
 Christ-lit soul of the dying man : 
 
 "My son," 
 The monk said soothingly, " thy work is done ; 
 And no more as a servant, but the guest 
 Of God thou enterest thy eternal rest. 
 No toil, no tears, no sorrow for the lost 
 Shall mar thy perfect bliss. Thou shalt sit down 
 Clad in white robes, and wear a golden crown 
 Forever and forever." 
 
 The following lines in a very real way re- 
 flect the poet's aversion to the ancient and 
 materialistic conception of God and heaven, 
 no less than his ideals of true religion, which 
 the Apostle James cogently summarized as 
 consisting in visiting the fatherless and 
 widows in their affliction, and keeping one's 
 self unspotted from the world : 
 
 114 
 
Piero tossed 
 On his sick-pillow : " Miserable me ! 
 I am too poor for such grand company ; 
 The crown would be too heavy for this gray 
 Old head ; and God forgive me if I say 
 It would be hard to sit there night and day, 
 Like an image in the Tribune, doing naught 
 With these hard hands, that all my life have wrought, 
 Not for bread only, but for pity's sake. 
 I'm dull at prayers : I could not keep awake. 
 Counting my beads. Mine's but a crazy head, 
 Scarce worth the saving, if all else be dead. 
 And if one goes to heaven without a heart, 
 God knows he leaves behind his better part. 
 I love my fellow-men ; the worst I know 
 I would do good to. Will death change me so 
 That I shall sit among the lazy saints. 
 Turning a deaf ear to the sore complaints 
 Of souls that suffer ? Why, I never yet 
 Left a poor dog in the strada hard beset, 
 Or ass o'erladen ! Must I rate man less 
 Than dog or ass, in holy selfishness ? 
 Methinks (Lord, pardon, if the thought be sin ! ) 
 The world of pain were better, if therein 
 One's heart might still be human, and desires 
 Of natural pity drop upon its fires 
 Some cooling tears." 
 
 Thereat the pale monk crossed 
 His brow, and, muttering, " Madman ! thou art 
 lost !" 
 
 115 
 
Took up his pyx and fled ; and, left alone, 
 The sick man closed his eyes with a great groan 
 That sank into a prayer, " Thy will be done I " 
 
 Then was he made aware, by soul or ear. 
 Of somewhat pure and holy bending o'er him, 
 And of a voice like that of her who bore him. 
 Tender and most compassionate: " Kever fear I 
 For heaven is love, as God himself is love ; 
 Thy work below shall be thy work above." 
 And when he looked, lo ! in the stem monk's place 
 He saw the shining of an angel's face ! 
 
 The poet's religious ideals are exquisitely 
 set forth in these stanzas : 
 
 O Love Divine ! — whose constant beam 
 
 Shines on the eyes that will not see. 
 And waits to bless us, while we dream 
 
 Thou leavest us, because we turn from thee ! 
 
 All souls that struggle and aspire, 
 
 All hearts of prayer by thee are lit ; 
 And dim, or clear, thy tongues of fire 
 
 On dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit. 
 
 Truth which the sage and prophet saw. 
 Long sought without, but found within, 
 
 The law of Love beyond all law, 
 The Life o'erflooding mortal death and sin ! 
 
 116 
 
The present broadening of man's ideas 
 concerning God is seen on every side, both 
 ■within and without the Church. The realiza- 
 tion that empty dogma and soulless creed are 
 no more religion than they were when Jesus 
 condemned the scribes and Pharisees of old, 
 is taking possession of the conscience of our 
 civilization, at least of those who hunger and 
 thirst after truth. Whittier thus anticipated 
 the noble views which to-day are coming to 
 be so generally accepted : * 
 
 Above, below, in sky and sod. 
 In leaf and spar, in star and man, 
 Well might the wise Athenian scan 
 
 The geometric signs of God, 
 The measured order of His plan. 
 
 And India's mystics sang aright 
 
 Of the One Life pervading all, — 
 
 One Being's tidal rise and fall 
 In soul and form, in sound and sight,— 
 
 Eternal outflow and recall. 
 
 # # # # # 
 
 * The Over-Heart. 
 
 117 
 
Fade, pomp of dreadful imagery 
 Wherewith mankind have deified 
 Their hate, and selfishness, and pride ! 
 
 Let the scared dreamer wake to see 
 The Christ of Nazareth at his side ! 
 
 What doth that holy Guide require ? — 
 No rite of pain, nor gift of hlood, 
 But man a kindly brotherhood. 
 
 Looking, where duty is desire. 
 To Him, the beautiful and good. 
 
 One would almost imagine the Quaker 
 poet had heen drinking from the fountain of 
 Eastern mysticism, after reading these verses 
 from "A Mystery": 
 
 A presence, strange at once and known, 
 
 Walked with me as my guide ; 
 The skirts of some forgotten life 
 
 Trailed noiseless at my side. 
 
 Was it a dim-remembered dream ? 
 
 Or glimpse through seous old ? 
 The secret which the mountains kept 
 
 The river never told. 
 
 But from the vision ere it passed 
 
 A tender hope I drew. 
 And, pleasant as a dawn of spring, 
 
 The thought within me grew, 
 
 118 
 
That love would temper every change, 
 
 And soften all surprise, 
 And, misty with the dreams of earth. 
 
 The hills of Heaven arise. 
 
 No poet of our time has been a firmer be- 
 liever in the present, or in the splendid future 
 to which mankind is slowly but laboriously 
 tending, than was Whittier. The very key- 
 note of his inspired conviction was sounded 
 in the " Chapel of the Hermits " in the fol- 
 lowing utterances : 
 
 Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight, 
 Through present wrong, the eternal right ; 
 And step by step, since time began, 
 I see the steady gain of man; 
 
 That all of good the past hath had 
 Eemains to make our own time glad. 
 Our common daily life divine, 
 And every land a Palestine. 
 
 O friend ! we need nor rock nor sand, 
 Nor storied stream of Morning-Land; 
 The heavens are glassed in Merrimack, - 
 What more could Jordan render back ? 
 
 119 
 
We lack but open eye and ear 
 To find the Orient's marvels here; — 
 The still, small voice in autmnn's hush, 
 Ton maple wood the burning bush. 
 
 For still the new transcends the old. 
 In signs and tokens manifold; — 
 Slaves rise up men ; the olive waves, 
 With roots deep set in battle graves ! 
 
 Through the harsh noises of our day 
 A low, sweet prelude finds its way; 
 Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear, 
 A light is breaking, calm and clear. 
 
 That song of Love, now low and far. 
 Erelong shall swell from star to star! 
 That light, the breaking day, which tips 
 The golden-spired Apocalypse ! 
 
 With, equal clearness were his beliefs as 
 regards duty expressed in these lines from 
 " Seed-Time and Harvest " : 
 
 It may not be our lot to wield 
 The sickle in the ripened field; 
 Nor ours to hear, on summer eves. 
 The reaper's song among the sheaves. 
 
 Yet where our duty's task is wrought 
 In unison with God's great thought. 
 
 120 
 
The near aud future blend in one, 
 And whatsoe'er is willed, is done! 
 
 The poet's trust in the Over-Soul is fre- 
 quently uttered, although at times there 
 seems to be a wavering in the tones. When 
 he is on the mountain top he is serene, and 
 then we find him unmoved in his profound 
 conviction. Thus, in the little poem entitled 
 " Trust," he exclaims : 
 
 " All is of God that is, and is to be; 
 
 And God is good." Let this suffice us still, 
 
 Besting in childlike trust upon His will 
 
 Who moves to His great ends unthwarted by the ill. 
 
 To a correspondent in 1881 he wrote : " The 
 world is growing better; the Lord reigns; 
 our old planet is wheeling slowly into fuller 
 light. I despair of nothing good. All will 
 come in due time that is reaUy needed. All 
 that we have to do is to work — and wait." 
 And again, in " The Grave by the Lake," 
 after giving us an exquisite picture of lake 
 and sky, mingled with philosophy and mus- 
 
 121 
 
ings, he breaks forth much as did the elder 
 prophets, speaking with the authority of one 
 who is moved by a lofty inner voice : 
 
 Hear' St thou, O of little faith, 
 What to thee the mountain saith. 
 What is whispered by the trees ? — 
 " Cast on God thy care for these; 
 Trust Him, if thy sight be dim : 
 Doubt for them is doubt of Him. 
 
 " Not with hatred's undertow 
 Doth the Love Eternal flow; 
 Every chajn that spirits wear 
 Crumbles in the breath of prayer; 
 And the penitent's desire 
 Opens every gate of fire. 
 
 " Still Thy love, O Christ arisen. 
 Teams to reach these souls in prison ! 
 Through all depths of sin and loss 
 Drops the plummet of thy cross ! 
 Never yet abyss was found 
 Deeper than that cross could sound! " 
 
 Therefore well may Nature keep 
 Equal faith with all who sleep, 
 
 122 
 
Set her watch of hills around 
 Christian grave and heathen monnd, 
 And to cairn and kirkyard send 
 Summer's flowery dividend. 
 
 It was given to Whittier to see the unity 
 of truth. He could never have been a Calvin- 
 ist, and I say this without the least disrespect 
 for the sincere leader of a great movement 
 which aimed to purify the Church, although, 
 from my point of view, in spite of the purity 
 of his motive, Calvin dwelt in the shadow, 
 while Whittier lived ia the sunlight of 
 spirituality. Calvin was naturally narrow in 
 his views ; Whittier also had his limitations, 
 but in the latter there are an inspiration and 
 breadth which lead the soul upward, and 
 radiate that largeness of spirit for the want 
 of which any civilization or religion must 
 wither. Thus, in the following lines,* the 
 poet asserts a saving spaciousness of thought 
 that, universally accepted and acted on, 
 
 * Miriam. 
 123 
 
would do more than we can comprehend 
 toward advancing brotherhood throughout 
 the world : 
 
 Truth is one; 
 And, in all lands beneath the sun, 
 Whoso hath eyes to see may see 
 The tokens of its unity. 
 No scroll of creed its fulness wraps. 
 We trace it not by school-boy maps. 
 Free as the sun and air it is 
 Of latitudes and boundaries. 
 In Vedic verse, in dull Korin, 
 Are messages of good to man; 
 The angels to our Aryan sires 
 Talked by the earliest household fires; 
 The prophets of the elder day. 
 The slant-eyed sages of Cathay, 
 Head not the riddle all amiss 
 Of higher life evolved from this. 
 
 Wherever through the ages rise 
 The altars of self-sacrifice, 
 Where love its arms has opened wide. 
 Or man for man has calmly died, 
 I see the same white wings outspread 
 That hovered o'er the Master's head I 
 
 « W * » 41 
 
 124 
 
So welcome I from eveiy source 
 The tokens of that primal Force, 
 Older than heaven itself, yet new 
 As the young heart it reaches to, 
 Beneath whose steady impulse rolls 
 The tidal wave of human souls; 
 Guide, comforter, and inward word, 
 The eternal spirit of the Lord! 
 Nor fear I aught that science hrings 
 Prom searching through material things ; 
 Content to let its glasses prove. 
 Not hy the letter's oldness move, 
 The myriad worlds on worlds that course 
 The spaces of the universe; 
 Since everywhere the Spirit walks 
 The garden of the heart, and talks 
 With man, as under Eden's trees. 
 In all his varied languages. 
 
 As the shadows of eventide fell over his 
 form the things of life dropped more and 
 more away, and the profound trust that had 
 been his stay through life filled his soul with 
 a great calm. In a letter to Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes, written in 1879, we find him thus 
 reiterating his convictions : " I realize more 
 and more that fame and notoriety can avail 
 
 125 
 
little in our situation; that love is the one 
 essential thing, always welcome, outliving 
 time and change, and going with us into the 
 unguessed possibilities of death. There is 
 nothing so sweet in the old Bible as the 
 declaration that ' God is loveJ " 
 
 In closing this sketch of the life of a true 
 mystic, I cannot do better than quote from 
 Mrs. Claflin's " Recollections " : 
 
 " If the worth of a life may be estimated 
 by the niunber of hearts comforted, the num- 
 ber of lives uplifted and inspired, Mr. Whit- 
 tier's measure will exceed that of most men 
 of this or any other century. * He has given 
 us the poetry of human brotherhood and 
 human purity. He has given us a Christ-like 
 example. He has sung to us of faith in God 
 and immortality.' 
 
 " The beautiful life finished its earthly 
 course on a perfect summer's morning, and 
 he entered the life for which he longed. 
 
 126 
 
His last words were characteristic. He was 
 breathing out his life ; his eyes were closed, 
 and his friends stood around the bed about 
 which had clustered so much loving interest, 
 waiting and watching for the last look, or the 
 last word, when he opened those eyes which 
 had often seemed to look into the mysteries 
 of eternity, and said with labored breath, 
 ' My — love — to — the — world.' " 
 
 As we see with broader vision, we appre- 
 ciate more and more the catholicity of Whit- 
 tier, and that true spirituality which is 
 expressed in deeds rather than in creeds — and 
 which is yet to redeem the world. 
 
 12T 
 
THE MAN. 
 
" In the habit as he lived." 
 
 — Shakegpeare. 
 
 " Like warp and woof all destinies 
 Are woven fast, 
 Linked in sympathy like the keys 
 Of an organ vast. 
 
 " All which is real now remaineth, 
 And f adeth never : 
 The hand which upholds it now sustaineth 
 The soul forever." 
 
 —Whittier. 
 
 130 
 
IV. €^e a^ati. 
 
 [HE life of Whittier, like that 
 of Emerson, was beautiful in 
 its simplicity and naturalness. 
 Aside from the conspicuous absence of the 
 spectacular or dramatic element in his make- 
 up, there was a marked freedom from that 
 pernicious artificiality which permeates 
 modern life and exalts the letter while it 
 ignores the spirit. The sincerity and trans- 
 parency of his life add greatly to the positive 
 inspiration from which posterity for ages to 
 come win imbibe high, fine truths, as from 
 a mighty limpid reservoir, — truths which, 
 like the teachings of the great Galilean, are 
 so simply clad that they appeal to the un- 
 lettered, no less than to the spiritually minded 
 among scholars. 
 
 131 
 
It is good to draw very near to such a 
 life, in the same way as it is helpful to 
 journey forth into the country in springtime, 
 when Nature is awaking, and on every hand 
 one feels an indefinable uplift born of the 
 glory of new life and its promised fruition. 
 
 Mrs. Mary B. Claflin, one of the poet's 
 most intimate friends, in writing of Whittier 
 says : * 
 
 " With him duty was commanding, and 
 he always kept before him and acted upon 
 the idea that ' beyond the poet's sweet dream 
 lies the eternal epic of the man.' " 
 
 It is necessary to note here, however, that 
 after the war of the Rebellion the poet ceased 
 to be, in a marked degree, an aggressive 
 reformer. True, his instincts were ever on 
 the side of justice, freedom, and progress ; 
 but after the emancipation of the slaves he 
 
 * " Personal Recollections of Whittier." 
 132 
 
laid aside the warrior's coat of mail for the 
 quiet Quaker garb, i£ I may use these ob- 
 jective terms to illustrate meutal conditions. 
 This has been to me a source of deep regret ; 
 yet who shall judge, when the point at issue 
 is merely a conviction of what is right? 
 Moreover, I can well understand the poet's 
 feelings, and it is but just that we examine 
 him from his own point of view when dis- 
 cussing this change, which so boldly con- 
 trasted with the after life of so heroic a soul 
 as Wendell Phillips. 
 
 Whittier had made a noble sacrifice when 
 he cheerfully surrendered his cherished 
 dream of political preferment and Uterary 
 success, and cast in his lot with the little 
 despised band of abolitionists, in conformity 
 with what he conceived to be Duty's august 
 demand. At the time of this great renuncia- 
 tion no epithets were too abusive, no ridicule 
 was too cutting, no slander or calumny too 
 gross to be meted out by easy-going conven- 
 
 133 
 
tionalists to the little band who seemed to 
 be in a hopeless minority, but who bravely 
 stood " on duty's vantage ground." After 
 his decision had been deHberately made he 
 fought valiantly nor faltered once, until the 
 great cause to which he had consecrated his 
 best energies was won, and the despised 
 and persecuted minority became illustrious 
 in the eyes of the majority. 
 
 Then, and not till then, the strong desire 
 for peace and rest, and an intense longing to 
 be able to ascend the mountain beyond the 
 range of the fierce tumult below, over- 
 mastered the aggressive spirit which was 
 peculiarly prominent in the early years of 
 Whittier's life. Moreover, it must not be 
 forgotten that he was at once reformer and 
 Quaker ; the traditions of his people and a 
 strong inward desire led him to seek that 
 repose which aids in the development of 
 spirituality. If Whittier had in him much 
 of the crusader, he also possessed in a large 
 
 134 
 
way the soul which has ever dominated the 
 oriental mystics and sages ; indeed, the 
 blending of these two elements in him was 
 very marked. From his soul could flash 
 that divine indignation which must have lit 
 up Jesus' eyes when he overturned the tables 
 of the money changers who had taken pos- 
 session of his Father's temple ; and yet few 
 natures so yearned for peace and harmony, 
 found only on the sunlit mountain peaks of 
 love. From his luminous heart flowed the 
 spirit of divine gentleness, compassion, and 
 love of humanity, which was voiced in so 
 characteristic an expression as his dying 
 message, no less than in such typical lines 
 as the following taken from his poem en- 
 titled " Worship " : 
 
 O brother man ! fold to thy heart thy brother; 
 
 Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; 
 To worship rightly is to love each other, 
 
 Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer. 
 
 135 
 
Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger, 
 And in its ashes plant the tree of peace ! 
 
 And in these typical stanzas from a poem 
 written to be read at the levee given by the 
 president of Brown University, June 29, 
 1870: 
 
 I touched the garment-hem of truth, 
 Yet saw not all its splendor. 
 
 And slowly learns the world the truth 
 That makes us all thy debtor. 
 
 That holy life is more than writ. 
 And spirit more than letter. 
 
 For truth's worst foe is he who claims 
 
 To act as God's avenger. 
 And deems, beyond his sentry beat. 
 
 The crystal walls in danger. 
 
 There is another fact which should be 
 remembered when we are considering the 
 change which marks Whittier as the prophet 
 of freedom on the one hand and the poet of 
 the inner light on the other, and that is 
 
 136 
 
his almost incessant invaUdism — insomnia 
 and neuralgia were the poet's familiar com- 
 panions. After a sleepless night he was 
 often heard to say to his intimate friends in 
 his quaint and semi-humorous way, " It is of 
 no use ; the sleep of the innocent is denied 
 me ; perhaps I do not deserve it." * 
 
 But it is not my present purpose to notice 
 Whittier psychologically so much as to view 
 him " in the habit as he lived ; " and, there- 
 fore, passing over this profoundly interesting 
 study, we come to view him in his home life. 
 
 Few men have ever so thoroughly enjoyed 
 
 * One who has suffered as did Whittier can readily see 
 how a soul constituted like his would yearn for peace and 
 rest. 
 
 This chronic invalidism, while it frequently rendered it 
 impossible for him to enjoy intercourse with kindred souls 
 and prevented him from attending public gatherings in 
 which he felt a deep interest, failed to mar his sweet dis- 
 position, or to ruffle the calm of a soul at once so profoundly 
 spiritual and yet so thoroughly human as was his. Vyhat 
 would have embittered most persons only seemed to add to 
 the serenity of his spirit. 
 
 137 
 
the companionship of their friends as did 
 our Quaker poet, and had his health per- 
 mitted he doubtless would have found 
 in social intercourse much pleasure which 
 under existing circumstances was denied 
 him. 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson was a great favor- 
 ite of Whittier, although their visits to each 
 other were necessarily infrequent. On one 
 occasion, described by Mrs. Claflin, when the 
 poet and philosopher were out driving, Emer- 
 son pointed out a small unpainted house by 
 the roadside and said, " There lives an old 
 Calvinist in that house, and she prays for 
 me every day. I am glad she does. I pray 
 for myself." " Does thee ? " said Whittier. 
 " What does thee pray for, friend Emerson ? " 
 '' Well," repUed Emerson, " when I first 
 open my eyes upon the beautiful world, I 
 thank God that I am alive and that I live so 
 near Boston." On another occasion Whit- 
 tier was telling Emerson of an original and 
 
 138 
 
somewhat remarkable farmer whom he knew. 
 The great transcendentalist became much 
 interested and remarked, " That man would 
 enjoy Plato." At a later date Emerson sent 
 the poet a copy of Plato to be loaned to his 
 friend. On returning it the farmer expressed 
 the satisfaction he had derived from the 
 volume, adding that " that Mr. Plato has a 
 good many of my idees." 
 
 Longfellow, Lowell, and Nathaniel Haw- 
 thorne were among other distinguished liter- 
 ary contemporaries whose friendship Mr. 
 Whittier greatly prized. With the latter, 
 who it win be remembered was a man of 
 moods, Whittier related to Mrs. Claflin the 
 following personal experience, which, though 
 humorous to the reader, must have been ex- 
 ceedingly embarrassing to the poet at the 
 time : " Thee knows," said Whittier, " I am 
 not versed in small talk ; but I wanted to 
 make a friendly call on Hawthorne, and one 
 morning (it chanced to be an ill-fated morn- 
 
 139 
 
ing for this purpose) I sallied forth, and on 
 reaching the house was ushered into a lugu- 
 brious-looking room, where Hawthorne met 
 me, evidently in a lugubrious state of mind. 
 In a rather sepulchral tone of voice he bade 
 me good-morning, and asked me to be seated 
 opposite him, and we looked at each other 
 and remarked upon the weather. Then 
 came an appalling silence, and the cold chills 
 crept down my back. After a few moments 
 I said, ' I think I will take a short walk.' I 
 took my walk, and returned and bade him 
 good-morning, much to my relief, and I have 
 no doubt to his." 
 
 Whittier was a man of strong soul-friend- 
 ships. Many of his dearest friends (such as 
 John Bright, for example) he loved through 
 spiritual kinship, although not enjoying per- 
 sonal acquaintance, and it is safe to say that 
 all over the world the humble and unpre- 
 tentious singer of New England was loved 
 as a brother, counsellor, and friend. In this 
 
 140 
 
connection Mrs. Claflin has recorded a de- 
 lightful episode relating to the meeting of 
 Dom Pedro and Whittier in the following 
 words : 
 
 "When Dom Pedro, the Emperor of 
 Brazil, was visiting Boston, he was invited 
 one morning to a private parlor to meet 
 some of the men who have made this city 
 famous in the world of letters. As one after 
 another was presented to him, he received 
 each one graciously, butwithout enthusiasm. 
 But when Mr. Whittier's name was an- 
 nounced his face suddenly lighted up, and 
 grasping the poet's hand, he made a gesture 
 as though he would embrace him, but seeing 
 that to be contrary to the custom of the 
 Friends, he passed his arm through that of 
 Mr. Whittier, and drew him gently to a 
 corner, where he remained with him absorbed 
 in conversation, until the time came to leave. 
 The Emperor, taking the poet's hand in both 
 
 141 
 
his own again, bade him a reluctant farewell, 
 and turned to leave the room, but, stUl un- 
 satisfied, was heard to say, ' Come with me,* 
 and they passed slowly down the staircase, 
 his arm around Mr. Whittier." 
 
 It seems to have been one of the " ironies 
 of fate " that Whittier, the home-lover and 
 a man preeminently domestic in his tastes, 
 shoxild have been denied the companionship 
 of a congenial wife. Many have been the 
 romances hinted at and which have been al- 
 leged to have entered into his early hfe. 
 Probably the one best authenticated appeared 
 some time after the poet's death in that 
 strictly edited daily, the Republican, of 
 Springfield, Massachusetts; although I have 
 found it impossible to absolutely verify the 
 authenticity of the story, it is so probable as 
 well as so interesting, that I give it below as 
 it appeared under the title of " Whittier's 
 Secret " : 
 
 142 
 
"The residence of eighteen months in 
 Hartford introduced him to a vigorous anti- 
 slavery circle of higher culture and a more 
 delicate refinement than any he had known, 
 and within that circle, incarnated in a most 
 lovely woman, he was to find his fate. 
 
 " Among the friends the biographer has 
 mentioned Judge Russ, a man well known in 
 that day for brilUant parts and a handsome 
 person. The family was distinguished for 
 beauty and brightness. Of those members 
 whom Whittier knew, Mary, the oldest, 
 married Silas E. Burrowes. Mrs. Burrowes 
 died of consumption in New York in 1841, 
 at the age of thirty-four. There survived 
 only an unmarried daughter, Cornelia, and 
 one son, Charles James Russ, who twenty 
 years later was a prominent lawyer in Hart- 
 ford. 
 
 " Cornelia, the youngest child, born in 
 1814, was but seventeen years old when she 
 parted from Whittier in 1831. He was 
 
 143 
 
twenty-four. The strong anti-slavery zeal of 
 the family threw the two young people much 
 together, and the clear brain and tender 
 heart of the poet yielded to very uncommon 
 charms. One who saw her during the last 
 year of her Hfe describes her in this 
 way : 
 
 " ' At twenty-eight Cornelia was a most 
 beautiful woman. She had dark blue eyes, 
 like pansies, with long, dark lashes, black 
 hair, and the most exquisite color. If she 
 was like the rest of the family, she was a 
 very brilliant woman.' 
 
 " Judge Russ, who was a member of Con- 
 gress in 1820, had died in 1832. Of this 
 Whittier probably heard through his friend 
 Law, but that he ever heard of the death of 
 Mary Burrowes or Cornelia there is no evi- 
 dence. When he was writing his letter of 
 sympathy to the friends of Lucy Hooper, 
 Cornelia was lying on her deathbed. She 
 had nursed her sister through her fatal iU- 
 
 144 
 
ness, had imbibed the poison, and followed 
 her in the April of 1842. 
 
 " The poem called ' Memories,' to which 
 Whittier attributed a special significance, 
 was written during Cornelia's last illness. He 
 thinks of her as still bright and living, and 
 when in 1888 he desired the poem to be 
 placed at the head of his subjective verse, 
 his heart was still true to her, but gave no 
 token that he knew hers had ceased to beat. 
 
 " After Cornelia's death her papers passed 
 into the hands of the only surviving member 
 of her family, Charles James Russ, who died 
 in 1861. At that time her private letters 
 came into the hands of his widow, who de- 
 stroyed most of them, but kept, from pure 
 love of the poet, the precious pages in which 
 Whittier had offered himself to her kins- 
 woman. I have not myself read the letter, 
 which is still in existence, but one who has 
 read it, the present possessor, writes me as 
 follows : ' The letter was short, simple, and 
 
 10 145 
 
manly, as you would know. He evidently 
 expected to call next day and learn his fate.' 
 Another who has seen the letter writes : ' It 
 was somewhat str£E — such a letter as a shy 
 Quaker lad would be likely to write, for that 
 he was in spite of his genius. He begged 
 her, if she felt unable to return his affection, 
 to keep his secret, for he said, ' My respect 
 and affection for you are so great that I 
 could not survive the mortification if your 
 refusal were known.' 
 
 " Corneha Russ was sought in marriage by 
 several distinguished persons, but she died 
 unmarried and she kept Whittier's secret. 
 His poem suggests that the stern creed of 
 Calvin held them apart — a thing very likely 
 to happen in Connecticut half a century ago ; 
 but if he had known that she had changed 
 her early connections for the more liberal 
 associations of the Church of England he 
 would have seen more distinctly 'that shadow 
 of himself in her ' of which the poem speaks. 
 
 146 
 
" Those who are familiar with * Memories ' 
 will recall the ' hazel eyes ' and ' light brown 
 hair ' which it commemorates, and fancy per- 
 haps that there is some mistake. It is not 
 likely that Whittier forgot the color of Cor- 
 neUa's eyes or hair. In some effusive moment 
 he had shown the poem to James T. Fields 
 and Edwin P. Whipple. In 1850, when 
 Cornelia had been dead eight years, they 
 wished to publish it, and he was very reluc- 
 tant. He had not outgrown his early passion, 
 and before it was printed he undoubtedly 
 changed a few descriptive words to screen 
 the truth, it may be from Cornelia herself. 
 She never saw it, but I think he died believ- 
 ing that she had. 
 
 " Rumors of this story reached me long 
 ago, but I would not print a mere surmise, 
 and by long and devious ways leading 
 through probate offices and town registers, 
 through church records and private papers, 
 in a varied correspondence that has occupied 
 
 147 
 
two months, have I followed the story as I 
 tell it." 
 
 Although denied a wife, Whittier enjoyed 
 for a long period the very intimate compan- 
 ionship of his best-beloved sister, as well as 
 the association of some other members of the 
 Kttle group who composed the home circle 
 when he was " a barefoot boy." For his 
 sister Elizabeth, however, he ever cherished 
 the deepest affection. She had poetic talent 
 and was a keen as well as a sympathetic critic. 
 Early in the autumn of 1864 this sister passed 
 upward, and in a letter to Lucy Larcom dated 
 Sept. 3, 1864, the poet wrote : * 
 
 " I feel it difficult even now to realize all 
 I have lost. But I sorrow without repining, 
 and with a feeling of calm submission to the 
 will which I am sure is best. If I can help 
 
 * " John Greenleaf Wliittier ; Life and Letters." By 
 S. T. Pickard. Vol. ii., p. 480. 
 
 148 
 
it, I do not intend the old homestead to be 
 gloomy and forbidding through my selfish 
 regrets. She would not have it so. She 
 ■would wish it cheerful with the ' old familiar 
 faces ' of the friends whom she loved and 
 still loves. I hope thee and other friends 
 win feel the same freedom to visit me as 
 heretofore." 
 
 In October of the same year, Whittier 
 wrote Grace Greenwood the following letter 
 which brings us very near to the heart of 
 the poet : * 
 
 " My dear sister's illness was painful and 
 most distressing, yet she was patient, loving, 
 and cheerful even to the last. How much I 
 miss her ! how much less I have now to live 
 for ! But she is at rest. Surely, few needed 
 it or deserved it more, if it were proper to 
 speak of deserve in that connection. A 
 
 * Ibid. Vol. ii., pp. 481, 482. 
 149 
 
pure, generous, loving spirit was hers. I 
 shall love all her friends better for her sake. 
 The autumn woods are exceedingly beautiful 
 at this time. I miss dear Elizabeth to enjoy 
 them with me. I wonder sometimes that I 
 can be cheerful and attend to my daily 
 duties, since life has lost so much of its 
 object. But I have still many blessings — 
 kind friends and books, and the faith that 
 God is good, and good only." 
 
 Running through many of Whittier's 
 letters is a strain of quiet humor, an example 
 of which is given by Mr. Pickard in the fol- 
 lowing passage : 
 
 " There was a report abroad early in '67 
 that Whittier was about to marry. He 
 refers to this in a letter to Lucy Larcom of 
 March 16. ' Credulity ! thy name is woman. 
 So thee beUeved that report almost ? Well, 
 it may be true, but the first intimation of it 
 
 150 
 
came to me through the newspapers. They 
 ought to know. I can't imagine how the 
 report was started. It vexed me, but of 
 course there was no help for it. It is the 
 crudest irony to congratulate a hopeless old 
 bachelor, within one year of sixty, on such 
 prospects. I don't know about this ' freedom 
 of the press.' " 
 
 To another correspondent who had written 
 him in regard to the same matter, the poet 
 replied : 
 
 " The idea of ofEering matrimonial congra- 
 tulations to a hopeless old bachelor trying to 
 thread a needle to sew on his buttons ! As 
 well talk of agility to a cripple or a rise of 
 government stocks to a town pauper. Of 
 course thee did not believe this sUly story. 
 I don't care much about it, but I should be 
 sorry to have to read congratulations upon it 
 by every mail. I wish the newspaper scamp 
 
 151 
 
who started it nothing worse than to be an 
 old bachelor like myself or to have a wife 
 Kke Mrs. Caudle." 
 
 Few persons outside the poet's circle of 
 friends knew that he was color-blind. His 
 biographer thus refers to this defect : 
 
 " Mr. Whittier had the misfortune to be 
 color-blind in respect to the shades of red 
 and green. But he thought he had an un- 
 usual appreciation of the yellows which fully 
 compensated him for this defect. He saw no 
 difiEerence in color between a red apple and 
 the leaves of a tree upon which it was grow- 
 ing. It was only the white or yellow rose 
 that had for him any beauty except of form. 
 He thought he enjoyed the splendors of an 
 autumn landscape in a wooded country as 
 much as the ordinary observer, especially if 
 there was a fair admixture of yellow foliage. 
 When he brought home bouquets of leaves 
 
 152 
 
it was noticeable that yellow greatly pre- 
 dominated. Perhaps his preference for the 
 golden-rod as the national flower was partly 
 due to its color. His mother discovered this 
 optical defect, when as a little boy he was 
 picking wild strawberries. He could see no 
 difference between the color of the berry and 
 the leaf. ' I have always thought the rainbow 
 heautiful^ he once said with an amused smile, 
 * but they tell me I have never seen it. Its 
 only color to me is yeUow.' A reddish brown 
 book was handed him on the cover of which 
 were lines of bright scarlet, and he was asked 
 to tell the colors as he saw them. He thought 
 the book was a dark yellow, and the scarlet 
 lines stood out to him as bright yellow." 
 
 As with other lives, he who studies that of 
 Whittier wiU constantly come across facts 
 which are perplexing. In his opinions he 
 was what his friends termed " firm," his critics 
 " set," and his enemies (for in the aggressive 
 
 153 
 
period of his life he made foes) " stubborn." 
 Then, again, there was present that strange 
 inward struggle between the Puritan and 
 Quaker, the " Peter and the John," the occi- 
 dental and the oriental. He was by turns a 
 shrewd and somewhat narrow New Englander, 
 and at other times a broad idealist and mystic. 
 Yet, with all this, his life was so pure, trans- 
 parent, and noble in purpose, and permeated 
 with so childlike a simphcity, that the outgnsh 
 of his soul best mirrored the man. Thus in 
 his letters and poems we gain a fine insight 
 into the character of the poet. His remark- 
 able self-control in later years was due to 
 self-mastery. Mr. Pickard observes : 
 
 " It would be a mistake to suppose that 
 gentleness was a necessity of his nature ; it 
 was in reality the result of resolute self-con- 
 trol and the habitual government of a tem- 
 pestuous spirit. He was quick and nervous 
 in movement, but never otherwise than dig- 
 
 154 
 
nified and graceful. In conversation he 
 spoke slowly and with precision, hesitating 
 occasionally without the slightest nervous- 
 ness for the word he wanted. This must 
 have been the result of his habit of self- 
 restraint, which became his second nature. 
 He religiously curbed his tongue, and said 
 of himself that he was born without an atom 
 of patience in his composition, but that he 
 had tried to manufacture it as needed." 
 
 Perhaps few men of so fine and lofty im- 
 pulses have ever felt more keenly their short- 
 comings than did Whittier. In a letter to a 
 friend written in 1879 he uses these touch- 
 ingly frank expressions : 
 
 " I have been looking over my life, and the 
 survey has not been encom-aging. Alas ! if 
 I have been a servant at all I have been an 
 unprofitable one, and yet I have loved good- 
 ness, and longed to bring my imaginative 
 
 155 
 
poetic temperament into true subjection. I 
 stand ashamed and almost despairing before 
 holy and pure ideals." 
 
 Other mental states are shadowed forth 
 quite as forcibly in various stanzas of which 
 the following is a fair example : 
 
 Better to stem with heart and hand 
 The roaring tide of life, than lie, 
 Unmindful, on its flowery strand, 
 Of Grod's occasions drifting by; 
 Better with naked nerve to bear 
 The needles of this goading air, 
 Than in the lap of sensual ease forego 
 The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know. 
 
 And again the following paraphrase of 
 a Sanscrit maxim, entitled " The Inward 
 Judge," reveals the firm conviction of the 
 poet: 
 
 The soul itself its awful witness is. 
 
 Say not in evil doing " No one sees," 
 
 And so offend the conscious One within, 
 
 Whose ear can hear the silences of sin 
 
 Ere they find voice, whose eyes unsleeping see 
 
 The secret motions of iniquity. 
 
 156 
 
Nor in thy folly say " I am alone." 
 For, seated in thy heart, as on a throne, 
 The ancient Judge and Witness liveth still, 
 To note thy act and thought : and as thy ill 
 Or good goes from thee, far beyond thy reach, 
 The solemn doomsman's seal Is set on each. 
 
 Another glimpse of the true poet and man 
 is found in these lines from " At Last " : 
 
 When on my day of life the night is falling, 
 And, in the winds from unsunned spaces blown, 
 
 I hear far voices oat of darkness calling 
 My feet to paths unknown. 
 
 Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant, 
 Leave not its tenant when its walls decay; 
 
 O Love Divine, O Helper ever present. 
 Be Thou my strength and stay! 
 
 « » « * * 
 
 Some humble door among Thy many mansions, 
 Some sheltering shade where sin and striving cease. 
 
 And flows forever through heaven's green expansions 
 The river of Thy peace. 
 
 There, from the music round about me stealing, 
 I fain would learn the new and holy song. 
 
 And find at last, beneath Thy trees of healing, 
 The life for which I long. 
 
 His strong faith in God, in man, and in 
 
 157 
 
the future is a very striking characteristic of 
 Whittier. It tinges his poems and lights up 
 his personal letters as the sun lights the pass- 
 ing cloud with splendor. Thus, in a letter 
 to Lucy Larcom we find this strong convic- 
 tion: 
 
 " As we glide down the autumnal slopes 
 of life how the shadows lengthen and deepen, 
 but * in the even-time there shall be light.' 
 ' Death,' said the heathen stoic,' is according to 
 nature, and nothing is evil which is according 
 to nature,' and there is deep wisdom and con- 
 solation in his saying. But as Christians our 
 trust is not alone in the steady sequence of 
 natui-e, but in the tender heart of our Father 
 and the infinite love revealed in His human 
 manifestation." 
 
 And again this same lofty faith is found 
 in these exquisite stanzas among other pieces : 
 
 O golden age, whose light is of the dawn, 
 And not of sunset, forward, not behind, 
 
 158 
 
Flood the new heayens and earth, and with thee bring 
 
 All the old virtues, whatsoever things 
 
 Axe pure and honest and of good repute. 
 
 But add thereto whatever bard has sung 
 
 Or seer has told of, when In trance and dream 
 
 They saw the happy isles of prophecy! 
 
 Let justice hold her scale, and truth divide 
 
 Between the right and wrong; but give the heart 
 
 The freedom of its fair inheritance. 
 
 Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so long, 
 
 At nature's table feast his ear and eye 
 
 With joy and wonder; let all harmonies 
 
 Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon 
 
 The princely guest, whether in soft attire 
 
 Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil. 
 
 And, lending life to the dead form of faith. 
 
 Give human nature reverence for the sake 
 
 Of One who bore it, making it divine 
 
 With the ineffable tenderness of God. 
 
 Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer, 
 
 The heirship of an unknown destiny. 
 
 The unsolved mystery round about us, make 
 
 A man more precious than the gold of Ophir, 
 
 Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things 
 
 Should minister, as outward types and signs 
 
 Of the eternal beauty which fulfils 
 
 The one great purpose of creation, love, 
 
 The sole necessity of earth and heaven. 
 
 It has been observed that every one puts 
 
 159 
 
much of himself into his work, and this is 
 peculiarly true of a life so transparent and 
 simple as that of Whittier. Thus, I think 
 that nowhere can we come into closer relation- 
 ship to the real man than by a careful perusal 
 of his works. His famiKar form has left us. 
 His benign snule is no more seen, even among 
 the small circle of his loved friends and com- 
 panions ; but his fine thoughts, his inspiring 
 words, which reveal his real worth as well as 
 the divine mind, remain to inspire, strengthen, 
 and ennoble the present generation and those 
 that are to come, while the remembrance that 
 his was a pure life, devoid of the feverish 
 artificiality which so marks our occidental 
 civilization, lends additional force to his lofty 
 thoughts. The life and work of one like 
 Whittier are an inestimable blessing to man- 
 kind, and his influence will continue forages 
 to come, for his thought was at once per- 
 meated with love and in alignment with 
 freedom, justice, and progress. 
 
 160 
 
Gerald Massey: 
 
 Poet, 
 
 Prophet, and 
 Mystic. 
 
 ""*"' England's Foet of the People. 
 BY B. O. KLO>?V^BR. 
 
 Illustrated by Laura Leb. 
 
 CBITICAI. PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
 Mr. B. O. Flower's latest work is a scholarly discussion of the 
 life and work of Massey, poet, prophet, and mystic. One of the 
 feature chapters is that in which the author traces the points of 
 resemblance between Massey and Whittier. There are frequent 
 quotations from the poet, but they are none too frequent, since they 
 reveal to us the inner life of the man, — Daily Advertiser, Boston, 
 Mass. 
 
 A most appreciative and tender tribute to one of England's lesser 
 but noble song writers. No such presentation of the poet's charac- 
 ter and work has yet been seen on this side the water. — Daily 
 Traveler, Boston, Mass. 
 
 A handsome volume, both in print and illustrations, which presents 
 briefly, but pointedly, the life and work of Gerald Massey. Our 
 author finds a striking resemblance between Massey and our own 
 loved Quaker poet, Whittier. Both were tireless reformers, "pas" 
 sionately in love with the beauty in common life." Both hated 
 injustice with all their powers of mind, with prophetic and intuitive 
 insight as to coming events. They both " revealed beauties within 
 and without the homes of the humble," and were fearless in denun- 
 ciation of wrong-doing. The work is handsomely illustrated, but 
 the text alone makes it an interesting and even charming book. Mr- 
 Flower makes free quotations from the gems of many of Massey's 
 inspiring songs, and brings out admirably the leading traits of 
 character that shaped his life and inspired his writing. — Daily 
 Inter-Ocean, Chicago, III. 
 
 Price, extra cloth, gilt side and back dies, $1,00. 
 
 Arena Publishing Co., - Boston, Mass. 
 
Civilization's Inferno 
 
 OR, 
 
 Studies in the Social Cellar. 
 
 By B. O. FLOWER, 
 
 This work contains vivid pen pictures of the social cellar as Mr. 
 Flower found it, and is one of the most fearless and able presenta- 
 tions of the condition of society's exiles which has ever been made. 
 
 It carries the reader into the social cellar where uninvited poverty 
 abounds, and from there into the sub-cellar, or the world of the 
 criminal poor. 
 
 It is rich in suggestive hints, and should be in the hands of every 
 thoughtful man and woman in America. 
 
 Absorbingly interesting and at times thrilling, no one can read its 
 pages without being made better for the perusal. 
 
 CRITICAL OPINION FROM REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN 
 JOURNALS. 
 
 It is a truthful and graphic delineation of the condition of the people in the social 
 undertow. Mr. Flower has a keen and profound sympathy with the di£5culties Aat 
 the poor are laboring under, and he describes what he nas seen with his own eyes in 
 terms that chill one's blood. He does not hesitate to call things by their right 
 names, and points out the magnitude of the peril, showing that no palliative meas- 
 ures will satisfy the people. — Daily Herald, Boston^ Mass. 
 
 Society, as it is now constituted, is nothing less than a sleeping volcano. Who 
 dares to say how soon the upheaval will come, or whether it can be evaded by the 
 adoption of prompt measures of relief? Certainly the condition of the lower social 
 strata calls for immediate action on the part of those whose safety is at stake. Mr. 
 Flower has accomplished a great work in setting forth the exact truth of the matter, 
 without any effort at palliation. It will be well, indeed, for the prosperous classes 
 of the community if they are warned in time. — Boston Beacon, Boston, Mass. 
 
 A thoughtful work by a thoughtful man, and should turn the minds of many who 
 are now ignorant or careless to the condition of the countless thousands who live in 
 the *' social cellar." No one can read the book without feeling that the author's 
 diagnosis of the case is true and gives each one his own personal responsibility. — 
 Courier-Journalt Louisville, Ky* 
 
 What General Booth has done for London, and Mr. Jacob Riis for New Yorki 
 Mr. Flower has done for cultured Boston. He is a professional man of letters, 
 and tells his story with the skill and knack of his craft. — Daily Constitution, 
 Atlanta, Ga, 
 
 Clotb, Sl.OO. Paper, 60 centB. 
 
 Arena Publishing Co., - Boston, Mass.