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WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 A RECORD OF NINETY 
 YEARS 
 
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WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 A RECORD OF NINETY YEARS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 ELIZA ORNE WHITE 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 ^be fiiterjSitie pxe0 Cambritige 
 
 1917 
 
COPYRIGHT, T917, BY ELIZA ORNE WHITE 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published February iqij 
 
CD 
 
 UJ 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 TO MY SISTER 
 
 ROSE WHITE NEAD 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In the introduction to his matchless Life of Alice 
 Freeman Palmer, Professor Palmer says: "To leave 
 the dead wholly dead is rude." 
 
 It is this feeling that has impelled me to get 
 together these letters of my father's. His person- 
 ality was so striking, his individuality had so 
 unique a touch, and his influence was so great 
 upon those with whom he came in contact in his 
 quiet life, while the records I had to draw from 
 were so full, that I could not bear to let silence 
 close around him, if anything I could do would 
 help to perpetuate his memory. 
 
 My father was a faithful and beloved pastor in 
 a country parish for twenty-seven years, and dur- 
 ing his long life through a vital period In our his- 
 tory he took a keen interest, not only in national 
 affairs, but in all the public matters which related 
 to the welfare of the community In which he lived. 
 
 In making the extracts from his letters I have 
 chosen many passages that show his lighter side; 
 for no sketch of my father would be complete that 
 [ vli ] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 did not show the racy love of fun which helped to 
 light up the graver side of his character. His deep 
 faith and spiritual outlook made him a help in 
 time of trouble, while with his perennial sense of 
 humor he was a stimulating and delightful com- 
 panion in the everyday affairs of life. 
 
 The world is so rapidly changing that I have felt 
 that these annals in the life of a country minister 
 in the middle years of the nineteenth century will 
 have a certain historic value for us of to-day. 
 
 Eliza Orne White 
 
 Brookline, Massachusetts, 
 January 3, 191 7. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Childhood — 1821-1831 .... 
 II. Exeter Academy — 1835-1836 
 
 III. Harvard College — 1836-1840 
 
 IV. Europe and the Divinity School — 1840- 
 V. Eastport and St. Louis — 1846-1847 
 
 VI. Marriage and West Newton — 1848-1850 
 
 VII. Early Years in Keene — 1851-1861 
 
 VIII. The Civil War— 1861-1865 . . . 
 
 IX. Letters to a Child — 1860-1866 . 
 
 X. Later Years in Keene — 1866-1876 . 
 
 XI. Europe and Last Year in Keene — 1871- 
 
 XII. From Sixty to Ninety — 1881-1911 . 
 
 Index 
 
 84s 
 
 878 
 
 I 
 
 IS 
 
 28 
 
 SI 
 66 
 89 
 96 
 
 143 
 
 184 
 197 
 220 
 248 
 277 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 William Orne White Frontispiece 
 
 From a photograph 
 
 William Orne White 54 
 
 From a painting by Thomas Badger in 1840 
 
 Margaret Eliot White , . 98 
 
 From a painting by Chester Harding in 1849 
 
 William Orne White 250 
 
 From a painting by Ellen Day Hale in iQog 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 A RECORD OF NINETY YEARS 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 182I-183I 
 
 William Orne White was born on the 12th of 
 February, 1821, a birthday which had been appro- 
 priated some years earlier by Abraham Lincoln 
 and Charles Darwin. He was the son of Daniel 
 Appleton White, judge of the Probate Court in 
 Salem, Massachusetts. His mother, whose maiden 
 name was Eliza Orne, died a few weeks after his 
 birth, and he used to say he supposed her friends 
 thought it a pity that the child survived the 
 mother. And yet the frail little baby was destined 
 to struggle through a delicate childhood and youth 
 and reach a hardy old age, finding an ever- 
 increasing zest in life, which he enjoyed as few 
 people do, until the time of his last illness, which 
 shadowed his final year. 
 
 [ I ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 He was seventh in descent from William White, 
 who came over from England in 1635 and landed in 
 Ipswich, Massachusetts, removing to Haverhill in 
 1640, where he lived a long and useful life, dying 
 at the age of eighty in 1690. He was also seventh 
 in descent on his mother's side from John Home, 
 the name being changed to Orne in the next gen- 
 eration. There was a tradition in the family that 
 the Homes came from Holland and were descend- 
 ants of Count Home who was executed with Count 
 Egmont. 
 
 John Home also lived to a good old age, dying 
 when he was eighty-two, in 1685. William Orne 
 White's grandfather, William Orne, was a promi- 
 nent merchant of Salem, Massachusetts, and the 
 first to send a ship to Brazil from that port. He 
 married Abigail Ropes, daughter of Judge Ropes 
 of Salem, who held his position under the English 
 Crown at the time of the breaking-out of the 
 Revolution. He had to decide whether to be loyal 
 to his king or to his country. The stanch old Tory 
 decided in favor of his king, and the windows of 
 his house were broken by stones that were thrown 
 by the patriot mob as he lay dying. The house is 
 still standing on Essex Street in Salem. It is known 
 as the Ropes Memorial and is open on certain 
 
 I 2 ] 
 
CHILDHOOD 
 
 afternoons to the public. Here one can picture the 
 loyalist judge as he sat at his desk in one of his 
 Chippendale chairs, with his Sheffield plate candle- 
 sticks on the mantelpiece, in those days when the 
 very furniture took on a grace of line that must 
 have added to the daily pleasure of living. One 
 can imagine him as he lay ill in his four-poster bed 
 in the southeast chamber, while the mob threw 
 stones against his windows. His daughter Abigail, 
 who married William Orne, was of so rare and 
 lovely a character that her father once said that 
 she had never done or said a thing which he wanted 
 to change. The mantle of her feminine charm — 
 for goodness alone could not have elicited such a 
 compliment from a father — evidently descended 
 on her only daughter, Eliza Orne, for all who knew 
 her felt the warmest affection for her. 
 
 In the relic room of the Ropes Memorial there 
 is a silhouette of Eliza Orne, — Mrs. Wetmore, as 
 she was then, — taken shortly before her marriage 
 to Judge White. It is a charming profile, spirited, 
 if not regularly pretty. I have an earlier silhouette 
 of her in my possession. It is a piquant face, and 
 with the hair worn with a high comb behind, and 
 a few waving tendrils about the forehead, and a 
 dress cut down in a point in front with a little frill 
 
 [3 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 about the neck, the picture might stand as a por- 
 trait of gracious girlhood for all time. 
 
 She was married at the age of twenty to William 
 Wetmore, and when still very young she was left a 
 widow. It was many years later, on August i, 1819, 
 that she married Daniel Appleton White and, 
 after a brief year and a half of happiness, she died 
 on March 27, 1821, In the thirty-seventh year of 
 her age. But If she lived so brief a time there was 
 the compensation of having those few years filled 
 with affection, and with the sorrows and joys that 
 make life a rich experience. She must have had a 
 warm and loving nature, for her two young step- 
 daughters were passionately devoted to her. After 
 her death, the eldest, Elizabeth Amelia, wanted to 
 be called Eliza, and when she was an old woman 
 she used to tell her niece, Eliza, of those early days 
 when their lonely house was brightened by the 
 new mother, who sat by the parlor window In the 
 lamplight every evening, watching eagerly for her 
 husband's return. One of his brothers, who was a 
 farmer, used to say how welcome she made him 
 feel when he came to the house, with her simple 
 cordiality, as she said, "I am so glad to see you, 
 brother John." She was evidently a great reader, 
 for there Is a bookcase with its shelves filled with 
 
 [4] 
 
CHILDHOOD 
 
 books containing her name, ranging from volumes 
 of sermons and a set of Shakespeare to Mrs. Glass's 
 Cookery Book. Not only was she loved by the 
 friends of her own class, but by the poor, and it 
 is recorded that at her funeral there was a pa- 
 thetic woman in shabby black whom she had once 
 befriended, bowed with grief and shaking with 
 sobs. 
 
 Although my father could not remember his 
 mother, he always tenderly cherished her memory 
 and she had a very great influence over his life. 
 I have spoken of his ancestors because it is inter- 
 esting to trace the qualities of heart and mind 
 which they gave him. On many occasions he had 
 the same unflinching spirit in standing out for the 
 right as he saw it, that was shown by his loyalist 
 great-grandfather, while from his mother he in- 
 herited various traits, among them the power of 
 winning and keeping aflfection. 
 
 It was a composite household into which William 
 was born. Judge White had first married Mary 
 Wilder Van Schalkwyck, but she died four years 
 after her marriage, leaving two daughters, Eliza- 
 beth Amelia and Mary Wilder, who were twelve 
 and ten years older than William. After the death 
 of his mother, my father's cousin, Amelia White, 
 
 [ 5 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 came to keep house for her uncle, and lived with 
 him until her marriage, which occurred before the 
 little boy was three years old. He was devoted to 
 her and remembered her marriage as the tragedy 
 of his childhood. He used to describe the scene 
 even towards the end of his life, his memory going 
 back eighty-six years, to the time when he saw his 
 beautiful cousin standing up to be married to the 
 Reverend William B. O. Peabody, whom he re- 
 garded as a fierce brigand, because one of the serv- 
 ants had told him that Mr. Peabody had come 
 to take his cousin Amelia away. He passionately 
 wished that he were old enough to fight him and 
 keep his beloved cousin all to himself. In a letter 
 written long afterwards he says: "Her wedding 
 was the great sorrow of my childhood, standing 
 out in my memory from everything else in those 
 few years." 
 
 When William was three years old his father 
 married Ruth Hurd Rogers (January 22, 1824), 
 the widow of his most intimate friend. Her daugh- 
 ter, Emily Rogers, who was seven years older than 
 William, was like a real sister; while a brother, 
 Henry Orne White, born December 6, 1824, com- 
 pleted the family. '. 
 
 All who knew them during those early years 
 [ 6] 
 
CHILDHOOD 
 
 speak of the delightful atmosphere in the Salem 
 home, and of the way in which these diverse ele- 
 ments were welded into a peculiarly congenial 
 household by my grandfather, whom all his chil- 
 dren revered and loved. The relations between 
 William and his new mother were from the first 
 unusually cordial. In writing to her many years 
 after, he says: — 
 
 "Your recalling nothing, moreover, that is not 
 agreeable about my childhood may fairly, I think, 
 be due in good measure to your not seeking any 
 occasions for discipline. With some solemn talks, 
 I associate my sister Eliza, who was also so true a 
 friend, and with some sharp discipline, my dear 
 good father, but I cannot recall thus coming in 
 collision with you. You, doubtless, at the outset, 
 reflected upon the delicacy of the new relation, 
 and the proverbial acidity and sternness of it, and 
 so preferred not to 'magnify' your 'office' in the 
 way in which you may have supposed it sometimes 
 is magnified. 
 
 "With psalm-tunes and reading the Old Testa- 
 ment Sunday evening, and with sundry of the 
 garden flowers, and with 'Orion' in the heavens, 
 I associate you most pleasantly." 
 
 I have no record of my father's early childhood, 
 [ 7 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 other than the anecdotes he used to tell. Slight as 
 these are, they serve, when taken together, to 
 make a picture of the child, who was so like the 
 man of after life. Apparently he felt the call to 
 the ministry at an early age, for when he was barely 
 able to talk, his sister found him preaching to the 
 pigeons. 
 
 The following story shows his sensitiveness. 
 When he was a small boy a distinguished man 
 dined at his father's house. The little William, 
 full of admiration and friendliness, followed him 
 down the path and shyly gave him a wild flower. 
 He watched the great man pass through the gate 
 and saw him carelessly drop the flower, and the 
 little boy felt such pain at having his gift despised, 
 that it made him careful all his life of the feelings 
 of children. 
 
 Another more cheerful tale illustrates his general 
 benevolence and wish to help, so characteristic of 
 him, although in later life this impulse fortunately 
 was not attended with such comically disastrous 
 consequences. One morning he heard his father 
 and mother say at breakfast that they were going 
 to ask the venerable Colonel Timothy Pickering 
 to dinner. On the way to school he chanced to 
 meet the stately old man, and then and there he 
 
 f 8 1 
 
CHILDHOOD 
 
 gave the invitation, which was promptly accepted. 
 He thought no more about the matter, until, after 
 his return from school, he saw the colonel coming 
 down the street. 
 
 "Why, there comes Colonel Pickering!" Judge 
 White exclaimed in surprise. 
 
 "Yes," said William, "I met him and asked him 
 to come to dinner." 
 
 The consternation of the household at this reve- 
 lation was extreme, for it appeared that Judge 
 White had not been able to find what he wanted at 
 the market, and the colonel was not one to be 
 treated with informality. And here he was, com- 
 ing in at the gate. 
 
 My father used to tell with inimitable humor 
 of the dull and lifeless meal which followed, for 
 apparently the social gifts of his beautiful step- 
 mother were insufficient to meet the domestic 
 crisis, as Judge White asked the colonel, in a 
 subdued voice, if he would take a little salt fish. 
 
 The boy's life was diversified by many a trip 
 with his father in the old-fashioned chaise, as he 
 drove about the country attending the Probate 
 Court. Sometimes they went as far as Exeter, 
 where the relatives of his own mother lived, as 
 well as those of his stepmother. Occasionally they 
 
 [9l 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 went to the farm at Methuen, to see Judge White's 
 mother, a farm which is now in the heart of the 
 city of Lawrence. 
 
 William's grandmother was a woman of strong 
 personality, who had brought up a large family 
 of children, and had had to turn her hand to every- 
 thing. My father described her as she used to sit 
 at the window, in her neat white cap, reading the 
 Bible. On one occasion she passed the book to 
 him. 
 
 "Where shall I read, grandmother?" he asked. 
 
 "Anywhere you like, child. It is all good." 
 
 Whereupon he mischievously turned to the Old 
 Testament and read one of the lists of jaw-breaking 
 names. 
 
 Once, when he was playing by himself at the 
 farm, a neighbor's goose strayed from the flock 
 and wandered over on his grandmother's land. 
 The little boy impulsively took up a stone and 
 threw it at the intruder. He had not the smallest 
 expectation of hitting it, and when he saw the bird 
 topple over and found that he had killed it, his 
 surprise and consternation were great. When he 
 confessed the deed to his grandmother, his punish- 
 ment was swift. He was made to go over to the 
 neighbor with his confession and to pay for the 
 [ 10 1 
 
CHILDHOOD 
 
 goose. My father used to finish with a reminiscent 
 gleam in his eye, "And we had roast goose ioi 
 dinner." 
 
 Pumpkin pie was another dish which he asso- 
 ciated with those early days. He remembered how 
 his grandmother urged his father to let him "eat 
 his fill of pumpkin pie," and years after the taste 
 of this favorite dish made him "see his grand- 
 mother, as the taste of scarce any article had done 
 for many a year." He writes: "I was straightway 
 in grandmother's west room, before the open fire, 
 with candles on the table. Aunt Charlotte bringing 
 in the pie, and as father and I sat down to table, 
 I could again hear grandmother's voice, 'Now, 
 Daniel, do let the boy eat all he wants, for once,' 
 as father remonstrated about a second piece of 
 pie. 
 
 He also recalled the drives that he took with his 
 grandmother through Pelham and Methuen and 
 the pride with which she introduced him to her 
 friends as " My son Daniel's son." 
 
 When he was a very little child, William went to 
 Miss Hetty Higginson's Dame School for boys and 
 girls. She was an excellent teacher and evidently 
 had a great influence over her scholars, for he 
 counted her among his best friends. Judging by 
 [ II ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 the beautiful old chairs and table that she left him, 
 her house must have been most attractively fur- 
 nished. The table, or, more properly, the low-boy, 
 is of an ancient and unusually beautiful style, and 
 always held a position of great dignity in its owner's 
 house, being familiarly known to the family as 
 *'Miss Higginson." 
 
 It used to seem to us who listened to the tales of 
 his childhood as if my father never forgot any thing 
 or any person he had ever known, and when in 
 later life one of his fellow pupils at Miss Higglnson's 
 school became a near neighbor, it was a great 
 pleasure to him to go to see her and recall those 
 old days which terminated before he was seven 
 years old. 
 
 When his education at the Dame School was 
 finished, he went to Mr. Nichols's school for boys. 
 (December 3, 1827.) Here at the age of seven he 
 began to study Latin grammar. The foundation 
 laid thus early in the language stood him in good 
 stead throughout his life. 
 
 When William was ten years old he was sent 
 away to a boarding-school in Cambridge. It is 
 interesting to compare the prices of the present 
 day with those of more than eighty years ago, for 
 we read that the total expense for tuition, with 
 [ 12 1 
 
CHILDHOOD 
 
 board and lodging, was three hundred dollars a 
 year. 
 
 Mr. Wells's school was a famous one In Its day 
 and was delightfully situated on Brattle Street. 
 One can only hope the other small boys who shared 
 its privileges were not so miserable as William was, 
 for to him those few months were an unmitigated 
 tragedy. He said that his acute homesickness, 
 which lasted as long as he stayed there, was so 
 severe that it cured him of the malady for life, and 
 that never, even when he was 111 and friendless In 
 a foreign land, did he have anything approaching 
 to It. 
 
 The earliest of his letters in my possession dates 
 from this period, and after reading It we cannot 
 wonder that his father decided to take him away 
 from the school at the end of the first term. It 
 runs as follows: — 
 
 Cambridge, Monday noon, 
 June 20, 1 831 1. 
 
 My dear Father, — 
 
 I think that I will write a few lines to you as 
 
 I enclose this letter from Springfield. If you or 
 
 Mary or Mother have not written to me when 
 
 this reaches you, I hope you will, for as the boys 
 
 [ 13 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 still plague me and I do not feel very happy, It 
 always gives me great pleasure to hear from you 
 or others. If Mrs. Holmes takes this I hope you 
 will all write me by her, if convenient, as it will 
 make me feel very happy to hear from you, but if 
 it is inconvenient you need not or at least I shall 
 expect something from home. I look forward with 
 eagerness to the short span of two weeks when 
 I hope to see Salem. Give my love to Mother, 
 Henry and Mary and Cousin Nancy if you see her. 
 And believe me your affectionate son, 
 
 William Orne White. 
 
 Eliza if you write to her tell her I send great love. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EXETER ACADEMY 
 1835-1836 
 
 In 1835, when William was fourteen years old, he 
 went to Exeter Academy. He had the advantage 
 of living with the Reverend Isaac Hurd, who 
 was the brother of his stepmother, and he greatly 
 enjoyed the companionship of a step-cousin, Frank 
 Hurd, with whom he shared a room. He often 
 referred to this year as one of the happiest of his 
 boyhood. 
 
 From a packet of old letters filed away with great 
 care by his parents, I have been able to piece 
 together an account of his life In Exeter, and to 
 get some Idea of the Academy as it was more than 
 three quarters of a century ago. In reading over 
 these old letters one Is forcibly struck by the confi- 
 dence that existed between father and son, an inti- 
 mate comradeship, which differs greatly from one's 
 preconceived Idea of the formal relations of the 
 older and younger generation In those early years 
 of the nineteenth century. 
 
 It Is hard to picture a life so different from ours. 
 [ 15 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 The long, slow journey by stage-coach was an 
 event In itself. On one occasion he speaks of hav- 
 ing a hasty dinner at Newburyport, at the house of 
 his Aunt Marston. 
 
 "There was but one man inside the coach," he 
 writes, "and he only went as far as Amesbury, 
 and as there was little baggage on, and only one 
 person outside with the driver, I experienced the 
 severest shaking I had had this many a day." 
 
 Once having arrived at his journey's end, the 
 provisions for comfort were not equal to those he 
 was accustomed to in Salem. 
 
 He says, in writing on December i6, "I think 
 you must be very comfortable at home with grates 
 and stove, both of which are a luxury which have 
 not been introduced into this bleak New Hamp- 
 shire village." 
 
 Some sort of a stove there must have been down- 
 stairs, for a little later he writes, "I am now sit- 
 ting down by the stove in the eating room, dearest 
 father (for the wind has prevented the making of 
 a fire in the chamber more than once since I re- 
 turned.)" 
 
 The fires in their open fireplace could not have 
 greatly raised the temperature of their bedroom, 
 for we learn that he and his cousin Frank had to 
 [ i6 1 
 
EXETER ACADEMY 
 
 break the ice In their water pitcher every morning 
 throughout the winter. 
 
 He took pictures and a writing-desk with him 
 from home, one of the old-fashioned desks small 
 enough to be "conveniently carried about." 
 
 Good resolutions for the coming year, and a keen 
 appreciation of the nuts, pears, and apples that 
 were sent him from home, mingle In his letters 
 with that delightful disregard for the conventional, 
 which made him such a refreshing correspondent 
 throughout his life, and gave to his personality a 
 flavor and piquancy that were all its own. 
 
 If at times we feel from the letters that the youth- 
 ful writer is so devoted to religion and to his 
 studies, as to be one of those saints destined by the 
 gods who love them to "die young," the next sen- 
 tence relieves our minds. ! 
 
 Soon after reaching Exeter he writes as follows 
 to his father: "I think as you do about the manner 
 of passing the Sabbath, and shall make It a point 
 to observe It In the manner you propose. I have 
 joined a Bible class who study the second part of 
 Allen's questions." 
 
 He goes on in the same letter: "You ask me 
 about my studies, what lessons I have studied In 
 Horace, etc. I have finished the first book since 
 [ 17 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 you have returned, and am now beginning to re- 
 view, getting five or six odes at a lesson. The pears 
 have ripened beautifully. I have given a dishful 
 to Aunt Hurd every day, and mean to carry some 
 to Aunt Orne to-day. I ought not to have omitted 
 that I get a lesson in Greek Grammar at present 
 in the afternoon." 
 
 The classics took a prominent part in the cur- 
 riculum of the Exeter Academy of those days. 
 Again he says: "I recited the last lesson in Gram- 
 mar this morning, and we translate an ode in 
 Horace for to-night's lesson; i.e., we translate an 
 ode into English and write it off on paper, which 
 we hand up to Dr. Abbot in the morning. My 
 Greek goes on very well. We have just finished 
 Lucian's 'Dialogues of the Dead.' Every Tuesday 
 morning we translate an ode, and every Friday we 
 write from Latin Tutor. The other mornings we 
 recite Horace, until we have finished the third 
 book, when, I suppose, we shall begin to review 
 our other studies. I shall want a 'Colburn's Alge- 
 bra' soon. I am reading Irving's 'Life of Colum- 
 bus' at present, which I am much interested in. 
 When you next send I should like to have you put 
 in a paper-knife and a pocketbook, both of which 
 articles I have occasion for. As I shall want some 
 [ i8 1 
 
EXETER ACADEMY 
 
 money to pay my fare to Portsmouth, and as we 
 have got to buy an axe between us, I shall need 
 some money." 
 
 This axe was a necessary part of their outfit, for 
 one of the duties which devolved on the boys was 
 chopping the wood for their open fire. 
 
 The home letters were always a great excitement 
 to William. They were often enclosed in "the 
 packet" which seems to have been sent frequently 
 from home, sometimes containing articles of cloth- 
 ing and the ever-welcome gingerbread, nuts, or 
 pears. On one occasion he writes, "Aunt Kurd 
 was strongly minded to tie my letter to a pillow- 
 case, which she wished to send on, to get some 
 crackers in, but will wait till mother comes, or 
 some other opportunity." And another time he 
 says, "Aunt Orne was much pleased with the con- 
 tents of her jars. The rose water, she wished me to 
 say to mother, was prime. The nuts, tender, I 
 know not, but delicious." 
 
 He had already acquired a passion for reading 
 the newspapers and a vivid interest in the ther- 
 mometer. During an Exeter winter he had abun- 
 dant chances to gratify both tastes. Many a walk 
 was taken to the house of his mother's relative by 
 marriage, "Aunt Orne," ostensibly for the purpose 
 [ 19] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 of making a friendly call, but I fear quite as much 
 for the sake of reading the "Salem Gazette," for 
 afterwards when In college, he begs his father to 
 send it to him, "as I can now no longer go over to 
 Aunt Orne's to tea and * bring the paper.'" 
 
 The winter of 1835-36 was unusually severe. On 
 December 16, 1835, he writes: "This morning I 
 took my walk as usual, of more than a mile out. 
 The wind was very high indeed, the thermometer 
 4° below zero. On my return I looked again and 
 found it 6° below, just after dinner 12° below, and 
 just before supper 14° below zero. It would not be 
 so remarkable, were it not for the very high wind 
 which has been blowing the whole time and still 
 continues to. Two of the boys had their ears 
 frozen, another his fingers, who came from a dis- 
 tance to the Academy." 
 
 On March 15, 1836, he writes: "I have enjoyed 
 my walks more than ever. Almost every day last 
 week, and this week too, the crust has been excel- 
 lent, and I have taken almost all my walks in the 
 fields and woods, and principally up and down the 
 river. The river last week afforded excellent exer- 
 cise, as we could walk, slide, etc., just as we 
 pleased. To-night, before tea, I walked on the 
 New-Market road almost a mile till I got opposite 
 [ 20 1 
 
EXETER ACADEMY 
 
 Pine Hill, when I crossed the large river and walked 
 home through the fields. Several teams had passed 
 across within a day or two, so there was a good 
 track across." 
 
 Exeter, February 14, 1836. 
 
 My dear Father, — 
 
 I was very much pleased to hear from home 
 again, and to have such good accounts of all at 
 home. The packet arrived just as I had returned 
 from Aunt Orne's where I took tea. I thank you 
 very much for your delightful letter, which it 
 afforded me real pleasure to read. Your present 
 was just such an one as I should have wished, and 
 corresponds very well with my other poets of the 
 same form. I was very much pleased at being so 
 kindly remembered' while away by all my friends 
 at home, and I value my presents, not only on 
 account of their intrinsic worth, but proving, as 
 they do, that though absent, I still am with you. 
 What you say about application and perseverance 
 is, I think, very just, and I hope that I may be 
 enabled to carry into effect all my good resolutions. 
 Upon reviewing the past year, I think I have an 
 hundred causes to be grateful for all the mercies 
 that I have enjoyed, and I hope that I am not 
 [ 21 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 insensible to all the advantages with which I am 
 surrounded. I finished Sir Henry Vane last week, 
 and have been much pleased with the perusal of it. 
 I liked all of Dr. Channing's "Slavery," though, 
 with some others, think the present hardly a fit 
 time for the debating the question. He seems to 
 have been handled rather roughly by some of the 
 Southern members, in Congress." 
 
 The letters from Exeter go on pleasantly with 
 their daily chronicle of studies, walks to Aunt 
 Orne's, and more stimulating expeditions with 
 young companions. 
 
 "Thank you for what you said about study and 
 exercise. Though I shall have to study pretty 
 hard, I shall not give up my walks. I stopped a 
 minute at Miss Emery's last evening, to see if she 
 had nothing to send, and as she had no more than 
 her love, I thought it would be hardly worth while 
 to fit out a bundle to send it, so as I have nothing 
 to send home at present, you will find this letter in 
 the Post-Office." 
 
 His Sundays seem to have been strenuous days, 
 
 for occasionally there were three services. Once 
 
 he writes: "Mr. Clement of Chester preached all 
 
 day on Sunday, and there was a third service at 
 
 [ 22 ] 
 
' EXETER ACADEMY 
 
 half past five, when I went again, and he preached 
 a sermon of fifty-seven minutes. He seems to be 
 much the smartest of the pack about here. . . . 
 
 "The highest and lowest, richest and poorest, 
 have never yet got along entirely without money, 
 and I confess myself to be in want of that article 
 at present, and will thank you to send some in the 
 next bundle." 
 
 He writes in August of that same year: "I know 
 of no summer that I have passed in such good 
 health as the present. I have had less of the head- 
 ache than usual, and am, I think, stronger and 
 better than in last winter. The exercise, of course, 
 goes on the same, morning and evening, and I find 
 my walks very pleasant, especially the latter, 
 evening, when I am generally accompanied by a 
 pleasant companion." 
 
 This was a great contrast to the summer before 
 when he was so pale and thin that he was greeted 
 by a frank relative with, "William, you look as if 
 you were in the last stages of consumption." 
 These words were peculiarly sinister because more 
 than one of his young uncles on his mother's side 
 of the house had died at an early age of this dreaded 
 disease. This cutting remark, which might have 
 had a serious effect on him, proved to be most for- 
 [ 23 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 tunate, for it goaded him into prompt action and 
 this boy of fourteen intuitively discovered the 
 value of open-air treatment for threatened lung 
 trouble. He immediately went down to the 
 wharves in Salem and engaged to go for a ten days' 
 fishing cruise with a redoubtable "Captain Small." 
 At the end of the time he came home sunburned 
 and vigorous, having gained as many pounds as 
 the number of days he had been away. 
 
 Toward the end of his year in Exeter there was 
 an "exhibition" in which he took part, his task 
 being to compare Homer and Virgil. When one 
 hears of the higher standard of education now, it is 
 interesting to look back at the tasks these boys 
 had to undertake eighty years ago. He writes on 
 August I, 1836: "Dr. Abbot has given two char- 
 acters to two of the boys to write upon, each one 
 taking his own man, and after they had done he 
 wished me to draw a sort of parallel or comparison 
 between the two men. We have decided to take 
 Homer and Virgil, which he seemed to prefer we 
 should write upon. The Exhibition takes place 
 now in about three weeks, and we shall have to be 
 ready within a fortnight, I suppose, in order to 
 rehearse before the day comes." 
 
 [24] 
 
EXETER ACADEMY 
 
 Exeter, August lo, 1836. 
 Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 Many thanks, dearest father, for your long and 
 beautiful letter. I am very much indebted to you 
 for the pains you were at in hunting up those 
 musty volumes, and sending them so promptly. 
 Saturday afternoon and most of Sunday I passed 
 in reading about the Iliad and Odyssey from the 
 books that you sent, and Monday had permission 
 to stay out to write. By the way, all the boys who 
 have parts, are allowed a day (many of them have 
 taken two) to write in. This morning was rather 
 auspicious, but the afternoon so hot, that I found 
 myself nodding over my paper! However, I did 
 as much as I could, and the rest I finished at my 
 odd times yesterday, and this morning. I have not 
 spent so much time upon it as most of the others, 
 because I have no time to spare. As it is, you must 
 expect to see what a boy of fifteen, who has never 
 been in the regular habit of writing but for a short 
 time, would be apt to stumble upon. . . . You see, 
 by what I have said above, how I pass my Sundays, 
 and I am inclined to think the two next will hardly 
 be more hallowed by me. However, the way that 
 I have kept my Sundays for the last eleven months 
 [ 25 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 will excuse, as I think, a little dereliction at the 
 end of the year. . . . 
 
 I am now anticipating the time when I shall 
 have the pleasure of rejoicing in the light of your 
 countenance. Come, and stay a good while. It 
 will do you good, and I think you would enjoy 
 yourself. You know it is probably the last time 
 that you will have a peculiar interest in the town. 
 
 The essay is preserved with the letters, and the 
 following extracts show his vivid interest in the 
 characters described by the two poets: — 
 
 "In the Iliad we have Achilles, Agamemnon, 
 Diomed, Menelaus, and a host of others, all war- 
 riors, yet all marked by a variety of feature and 
 disposition, and each seeming to perform his part 
 in the great design, with perfect order and har- 
 mony. The sage Nestor, retaining in his age the 
 vigor and animation of youth, appears in beautiful 
 contrast with Priam, enfeebled by years, yet affect- 
 ing; delighting us with the strength of his paternal 
 attachment. If Virgil is wanting in the energy and 
 heat of Homer, he seems to surpass him in the 
 pathos and tenderness of his scenes. Pallas and 
 Evander, Nisus and Euryalus, ^neas and Andro- 
 mache, seem to appear before us as we read. The 
 f 26 1 
 
EXETER ACADEMY 
 
 whole of the second book of the ^neid abounds 
 in exciting images of fear and sorrow. . . . 
 
 "When we review the pages of these two noble 
 poets, and contemplate the beauty and elegance 
 of both, we feel hardly able to give the preference 
 to either, and are ready to say with Quintilian, — 
 
 '"Fortasse equalitate pensamus."' 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 HARVARD COLLEGE 
 I 836-1 840 
 
 William Orne White entered Harvard College 
 in 1836, In time to be present at its two hundredth 
 anniversary. He shared his college quarters with 
 Edward B. Peirson, of Salem, who was most con- 
 genial and who was his warm friend to the end of 
 Dr. Pelrson's life. That first year they roomed at 
 I Holworthy, and the young Freshman says, in 
 writing to his father, "Things look quite comfort- 
 able now In Number One; that is the number you 
 know we are told we must all look out for"; and 
 he adds, "The Sophomores have been about for 
 two or three evenings, and they took care of 
 Number One." 
 
 Cambridge was so much nearer home than 
 Exeter that there were many chances for seeing 
 his family, and his letters therefore were less fre- 
 quent. They give, however, a vivid picture of the 
 Harvard of those days. There Is a delightful flavor 
 of restfulness about these early letters. The very 
 f 28 1 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE 
 
 methods of travel carry us back Into another 
 world; for in comparison with the mad rush of the 
 subway was the omnibus that went so seldom, and 
 the toll at the bridge. 
 
 After returning by stage from Salem, he writes: 
 "I had just time to run to Mr. Sargent's office, 
 and leave your letter at his door, as the office was 
 shut. I caught up with the omnibus just as It was 
 making round the corner, and secured a ride out, 
 not without having rolled myself and bundle at 
 full length in Brattle Street, to the admiration of 
 many pygmy urchins." 
 
 But If the modes of travel seem antiquated to us, 
 there are passages In the letters that show that 
 human nature has not changed. He writes on 
 May 19, 1837: "Dr. Palfrey preached an uncom- 
 monly good sermon on 'the times' on Sunday, 
 from Haggal ist, 5, 'Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, 
 Consider your ways.' He traced the present mis- 
 fortunes as principally caused by a 'gambling spirit 
 In trade,' and the 'too profuse style of living for 
 the last years.'" The letter continues: "There is 
 a great deal of Inconvenience suffered by every 
 one more or less for the want of 'specie.' I luckily 
 have a few coppers to pay my toll, in case I go Into 
 town. I was amused to hear a person say, who 
 [ 29 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 *had been to have his hair cut,' that the man 
 would not take a bank bill or trust him; he went 
 about to all the stores to no purpose to have it 
 changed and was obliged to borrow the twelve and 
 a half cents." 
 
 The young student warns his father not to take 
 the stories that he hears too seriously; for there was 
 the same exaggeration in spreading reports by 
 those who love to make a sensation as there is now. 
 He says: "One of the Juniors sent off was proved 
 to have been unjustly dismissed and this it is 
 probable excited somewhat the ire of his classmates 
 and led to the blowing up of sundry windows in 
 University Hall and the lower floor of Hollis. One 
 Junior has been since sent away, whether for sus- 
 picion of that I am uncertain, or for scraping at 
 prayers, — the latter I think. The President gave 
 notice at prayers that the faculty had determined 
 to present to the grand jury at Concord in Decem- 
 ber the names of such as they had reason to think 
 connected with the explosions, unless a full con- 
 fession should be made before that time. The 
 evening after this there was an explosion louder 
 than before. This is all (except one evening some 
 noise at prayers) that has taken place and prob- 
 ably little more will come of it. The blowing up 
 [ 30] 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE 
 
 many think very foolish, as it will only increase 
 the term bills of each student, the expense being 
 divided among the whole." 
 
 There were similar disturbances some years 
 later; as in 1846 he writes: "Sanger says the Cam- 
 bridge 'city watch' has been of great service in 
 keeping good order in the place. The watch do not 
 scruple to break into a room of carousing law stu- 
 dents at night if they are disturbing the neighbor- 
 hood." 
 
 There is certainly more than one kind of pleas- 
 ure to be found in reflecting on "the good old 
 times." 
 
 In that period before the days of the elective 
 system, the Freshmen had stiff courses; William 
 writes on September 13, 1836: "Yesterday we 
 recited our lessons as usual. In Herodotus at ten, 
 in Livy at eleven, in geometry at two p.m. To-day, 
 instead of Herodotus, we recited in Buttman's 
 Greek Grammar, which I have bought. We get a 
 lesson I believe every Tuesday in it. On Thursday 
 we recite in Grecian Antiquities, which I have also 
 got. To-morrow {in locum Livii) we recite in 
 Zumpt's Latin Grammar." 
 
 But as usual his letters are interspersed by 
 lighter touches. He says in the same letter: "If 
 [ 31 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 you have time, and think it worth while, you may 
 get two mats to send by the baggage wagon, one 
 to put In the entry, and another by my room. 
 I find the absence of them a more serious incon- 
 venience than mother will believe when she reflects 
 upon the mud, that sometimes crept onto the 
 Brussels carpet, suspected of having found its way 
 in, under the passport of my boots." 
 
 A few days later he writes: "I should like some 
 more money, in case I get shovel, poker, broom, 
 etc. I got rid of one dollar with great ease, by just 
 stopping at the dentist's a few minutes. If every 
 tooth in my head will sell for a dollar, I am worth 
 more, after all, than I ever imagined." 
 
 A little later in the same year, October 5, 1836, 
 it is interesting to note that he says in writing to 
 his father: "I hope you will be able to make good 
 your stand against the [Salem] tunnel, and that the 
 'experiment' may not begin with us." 
 
 He goes on to say: "A week ago on Tuesday, 
 I heard Mr. Adams's eulogy on Madison, or parts 
 of it, for there was such a crowd at the Odeon, 
 that I could hardly get in. The procession looked 
 very well, with two bands of music, behind and 
 before. I liked Mr. Adams's closing words very 
 much where he drew a comparison between the 
 [ 32 ] 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE 
 
 present and former times, and the different duties 
 incumbent on men of the present day." 
 
 The next week he writes: "I should like to have 
 you send a copious set of ancient maps. I find such 
 a thing a great 'desideratum' in my Latin and 
 Greek lessons. If mother is about 'commencing 
 operations' in regard to my winter coat, let it be 
 a frock, as I think it much warmer and more com- 
 fortable for cold weather. I am in want again of 
 a good umbrella; you recollect the last one you 
 gave me as a New Year's present, was made way 
 with, while I was absent at Methuen, the loss of 
 which was my misfortune rather than my fault. 
 The ancient green one of Emily's is here. I meant 
 to have told you, when you were here, that Don- 
 negan's lexicon that you got in Boston has several 
 pages left out in the body of the work, among 
 the deltas. It is not much inconvenience, but 
 I thought I would tell you, that it might lessen 
 some of your pride at having made a good bar- 
 gain." 
 
 Cambridge, October 13, 1836. 
 
 There has been but little variety in the week, 
 excepting the conflict of the elements on yesterday, 
 which in their capers shook our windows most lus- 
 l 33 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 tlly, and drew forth from one of our blinds the 
 most piteous sighs and wailings, that I ever re- 
 member to have heard a blind utter. I am much 
 indebted to the author of the cake and gingerbread 
 that came last week, as also to the gatherer of the 
 pears. The former, I reflect upon with pleasure, 
 the latter I continue to "anticipate much pleasure" 
 in discussing. 
 
 Cambridge, November 13, 1836. 
 My dear Mother, — 
 
 Frank heard from his "folks" who were all well, 
 except Miss Mary Emery who had come near 
 burning up. His mother said that she was taking 
 something out of the stove, when her dress caught 
 fire, and she screamed for water, but the black 
 woman who was washing, losing the small quantum 
 of sense that she was at other times blessed with, 
 went out after clean water (the woman was gen- 
 erally a great slut) ; the girl in the other room made 
 a cry which brought down Mr. Soule and his wife, 
 when the fire was put out by a pail thrown by 
 Mr. Soule. They thought it quite wonderful that 
 she escaped as she did, for her clothes were almost 
 all burned. I would not have detailed this at such 
 length, but that it illustrates the advantage of 
 [34] 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE 
 
 always going after clean water, for who would 
 think of throwing water from a washtub upon a 
 lady! 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Cambridge, February 24, 1837. 
 
 We were examined on Monday in Herodotus 
 (fifth and sixth books). You said you should like 
 to hear how the examinations were conducted. The 
 second and third divisions (which only were exam- 
 ined), were divided alphabetically into four sec- 
 tions, making six or seven in each. These came in, 
 the first at nine, next at ten, eleven, and twelve, 
 etc. G. S. Hillard and Mr. Cunningham were 
 among the examiners. There were six of these, I 
 believe. The examination, Very told us, was spoken 
 very well of by the committee. 
 
 Cambridge, March 24, 1837. 
 Friday morning. 
 
 Wednesday afternoon we were examined in 
 Algebra, by the same committee that examined us 
 in Geometry. Each one was called upon to do one 
 sum at the blackboard. 
 
 [35] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 Cambridge, April 28, 1837. 
 Friday morning. 
 
 Our table consists of twelve — eight were the 
 usual number at one table in commons. Names: 
 Bond, Capen, Crafts, Davis (Ch. G.), Henk, 
 Kimball, Peirson, Russell, Sanger, Smith, South- 
 worth, White. 
 
 Wednesday, July 12, 1837. 
 
 On Monday we were examined in Thucydides, 
 and shall have another examination on Friday in 
 Brutus, and no recitations after Saturday morn- 
 ing, Monday being Exhibition, and Tuesday Class 
 Day.i 
 
 William continues: "Yesterday afternoon our 
 class were examined in Analytic Geometry by the 
 same committee as before. I do not hear how the 
 examination was liked by the committee yester- 
 day, but Mr. Pierce has more than once said to 
 different persons that it was the best class in 
 Mathematics that he ever had, decidedly. Pro- 
 fessor Channing, to whom we have begun to recite 
 this year, says very much the same in regard to his 
 department — that the average mark for our reci- 
 
 ^ It is interesting to note that Class Day came on Tuesday in 1837, 
 just as it did again in 1912, when it was considered such a departure 
 from an old custom. 
 
 [ 36 1 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE 
 
 tatlons in Rhetoric Is higher than with any former 
 class he recollects." 
 
 Notwithstanding the young student's Interest 
 In his studies, he was keenly alive to the spirit of 
 the times, and his many-sided nature was open 
 to widely different Impressions. After hearing a 
 famous preacher of the time he writes: "Sunday 
 Mr. Ware preached all day, and yesterday [Fast 
 Dayl we had but one service, and to be sure and 
 split the day, and not slight either forenoon or 
 afternoon, that began at twelve o'clock." 
 
 He went, besides, to a course of Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson's lectures In which he was greatly Inter- 
 ested. He also writes enthusiastically of going to 
 hear Edwin Forrest: "Wednesday evening I heard 
 Forrest In 'Macbeth' and was much gratified by 
 what I saw of him. I read the play before hearing 
 it, but I do not think It lost much Interest on that 
 account. When he saw Banquo's ghost, and when 
 he heard that 'BIrnam woods were coming,' he 
 showed more feeling and raved more than I could 
 have thought possible. However, the principal 
 Interest was owing to him, and I do not feel as 
 though I should care about going in, unless when 
 such an uncommon actor Is there, and then I see 
 not why it may not be of benefit to any one." 
 I 37 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 In the summer vacation of 1837 William took a 
 trip to Quebec and Montreal with his father. He 
 thus describes it: — / 
 
 To R. H. W. 
 
 Lake Champlain, Monday afternoon, 
 August 21, 1837. 
 
 Our first afternoon and evening [at Quebec] were 
 chilly and stormy, and the letter we wrote to you 
 did much toward enlivening us. We were quite 
 sorry that we missed the mail of that day in send- 
 ing the letter, when we found it must be five days 
 or more before it reached you. We had intended 
 to leave Quebec that evening, but not knowing 
 that any boat would go we were contented to wait 
 another day, and hear the Governor's speech at 
 the opening of the Legislature. The next morning 
 about nine we called for Mr. DeBleury, who took 
 us over the new Parliament House which we were 
 much pleased with, as being both handsome and 
 convenient. From its top we had a very good view 
 of the city. We then again attended the parade 
 and music, fell in with Colonel Beard to whom 
 father was introduced by Mr. Freer, and found 
 him a kind and polite old gentleman. He took us 
 into the citadel, from the highest point of which 
 [ 38] 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE 
 
 we had a most grand and commanding view of the 
 city and whole adjacent country with the St. 
 Lawrence winding up and down, and sparkling in 
 the sun. . . . The [Council] room was quite a small 
 one, and it was with difficulty people were accom- 
 modated, but as soon as they complete the Parlia- 
 ment House, it will be otherwise. After waiting a 
 short time the Governor rode up in a splendid 
 barouche with four white, prancing horses; a 
 driver in white, trimmed with red, and two finely 
 attired footmen. He was escorted by a band and 
 the military. He came into the room in his feath- 
 ered hat and military dress, and then, after the 
 Chief Justice had formally given the Governor's 
 orders that the other branch (the Assembly) 
 should come in, and they were present, he read off 
 his speech (a short one too) and then the Chief 
 Justice read the same in French. The speech was 
 thought a mild and conciliatory one — but the 
 Assembly are at present bent on having their way, 
 and it is not thought they will at all harmonize 
 with the Council, and therefore there will be no 
 session, of any consequence. The Assembly is 
 elective, of which Papineau is Speaker; the Council 
 appointed for life by the Governor. 
 The John Bull left Quebec at six p.m. and we 
 [ 39] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 had quite a pleasant sail in the moonlight and sun- 
 set. We saw much to excite our admiration and 
 astonishment at Quebec. The houses and streets 
 are different from anything we had before seen, the 
 dogs harnessed in little carts, sometimes filled with 
 milk, or with little fellows whipping them onward. 
 The houses of both Montreal and Quebec being 
 roofed with tin, present a very striking appearance 
 to one who sees these cities for the first time. 
 
 On September 15, 1837, my father gives an 
 account of his studies for the Sophomore year: 
 " Since I returned, my time has passed with great 
 sameness, though my studies and hours of recita- 
 tion have been in a measure changed. Of these 
 perhaps you may like to hear a few words. We 
 continue one more year with Mr. Pierce and recite 
 to him immediately after prayers on Saturday and 
 Monday mornings, and two hours before evening 
 prayers on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, at 
 present at four p.m. The book we are now upon is 
 Analytic Geometry, and we are just in * Conic Sec- 
 tions.' To Professor Channing we recite at present 
 in Campbell's 'Philosophy of Rhetoric' at eleven 
 o'clock Monday and Wednesday mornings, half 
 the class reciting at ten, the other half at eleven, 
 [40] 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE 
 
 being divided alphabetically. We have not yet 
 begun to write translations or themes, but shall 
 begin in the course of a week or so, handing one in 
 to Professor Channing every other Saturday. To 
 Dr. Beck we recite (third division) at eleven o'clock 
 on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and to 
 Professor Felton on the same days at nine o'clock. 
 Besides this we have a recitation every Wednesday 
 at eight o'clock, in Greek or Latin, alternately. 
 We recite in Horace to Dr. B. and in the Odyssey 
 to Professor F. On Monday, Wednesday, and Fri- 
 day, the section that I am in (composed of some 
 of the class who have studied French elsewhere), 
 recite to Mr. Sales at five p.m. At present we are 
 studying Proverhes Grammatiques, and the Gram- 
 mar, and writing a short exercise for each recita- 
 tion." 
 
 On March 21, 1839, he writes from Cambridge: 
 " I think the tenour of my letters is too egotistical, 
 but how can I help it? Though there are a thousand 
 things that would interest you as much, there are 
 few matters that fall under my observation, except 
 those in which I figure myself, and your asking me 
 to tell you what I have been doing or planning 
 must be my apology for going into such details. 
 I 41 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 But this letter must vary its tone a little. So let 
 me send you into the old Watertown burying 
 ground (just beyond Mount Auburn), where you 
 might have seen me, on the last beautiful Sunday 
 morning, engaged in copying the following inscrip- 
 tion which I there came across. 
 
 "'Pious Lydia, made and given, 
 By God, as a most meet 
 
 Help to John Bailey 
 
 Minister of ye Gospel. 
 
 Good betimes, Best at last. 
 
 Lived by Faith. Died in peace. 
 
 Went off singing. Left us weeping. 
 
 Walk't with God till translated. 
 
 In ye 39 yeare of her age 
 
 April ye 16. 1691 ; 
 
 Read her epitaph. 
 
 In Proverbs 31. 10. 11. 12. 28. 29. 30. & 31.* 
 
 "The inscription was recut in 1821, so that it 
 was quite distinct. By her side (Pious Lydia's) 
 lies the veritable John Bailey himself, whose chief 
 characteristic (among many others) is that of 
 
 *A painful preacher,' 
 
 whence I apprehend his favorite topic must have 
 been (as was said of another) the 'eternity of hell 
 torments.' I took the walk, before alluded to, with 
 Stephen Phillips." 
 
 [42] 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE 
 
 Saturday, May 1 8, 1839. 
 
 My dear Father, — 
 
 I write, in a great hurry, to tell you about next 
 exhibition in July, the last Wednesday in the term, 
 you being more nearly interested in my success 
 than anybody here, or elsewhere. I have a Latin 
 oration, the first part in order in the exhibition, 
 not what I should like, but yet I must perform it. 
 Please suggest any subject you may think of, and 
 send it next week. I don't promise to take it, but 
 I should like your opinion on the subject. Henk 
 has the English oration, of course, Peirson an essay. 
 Clarke has an English version, and speaks immedi- 
 ately after me, second in order. Frank Parker also 
 has a Greek Dialogue with Hoffman, so you see 
 there are several people whom you know that have 
 parts. The pleasantest thing connected with the 
 whole is, that it does not occur on your Probate 
 Day. 
 
 In haste your 
 
 deadlanguage son 
 
 Wm: O. White. 
 
 Twelve minutes are allowed me. 
 [43 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 He spent a part of his winter vacation in the 
 year 1840 in Springfield, and writes: — 
 
 Springfield, January 20, 1840. 
 Soon after dinner, J. E. called in an open sleigh, 
 and asked me to join him in a ride to Chlcopee, 
 where he had business. I knew it was cold, but 
 thought I would like the variety of a ride, and 
 assented. But the mercury must be thousands of 
 degrees higher, and the Captain's old donkey 
 twenty times fleeter, before I get caught in such a 
 scrape again. I should have believed I was on the 
 Lapland snows, but oh! the Laplanders have the 
 nimble reindeer to hurry them across the snow, 
 and are not borne by dotard donkeys, at a funeral 
 pace across the wilderness. 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Cambridge, April 24, 1840. 
 
 This fine weather will tempt you to take some of 
 the family on a visit to Cambridge, ere long, I dare 
 say, and every day (Thursdays excepted) I shall 
 be happy to wait upon you. You can stroll about 
 the College grounds, and see where trees have 
 been decapitated, and annihilated, and trans- 
 migrated; you can look into the new library, and 
 [ 44 1 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE ' 
 
 see how neat and handsome the interior promises 
 to be, and the progress it makes pretty rapidly 
 towards completion; and exhausted by your walk, 
 expend your remaining strength in ascending to 
 my castle in the air, where from the window of my 
 bedroom, into which I have now moved for the 
 season (and whose appearance is so changed by an 
 improved adjustment of the furniture, that you 
 would not recognize it), you shall gaze out upon 
 the green beauties of Prospect Hill, and the busy, 
 fluttering windmill on its summit, together with 
 the bright fields and trees intervening, and then 
 wheel yourself around, and see the hills and trees 
 of Watertown, and then exclaim, "My son, you 
 are elevated into a most etherial sitivation!" 
 
 People in this goodly place have been somewhat 
 terrified by repeated attempts at incendiarizing, 
 during the last week or two, and there is now 
 a patrol established through the night. Mrs. 
 Craigie's barn, and the cottage on her premises, 
 at a considerable distance from each other, were 
 both one calm night discovered to be on fire, at the 
 same time. The obvious inference was that the 
 fire was not spontaneous or accidental. As a few 
 weeks ago plate had been stolen from Mr. Lowell's 
 house, another inference was that the design was 
 [45 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 that Mrs. Cralgie's house should burn, and peo- 
 ple be diverted by the fire at the cottage from 
 guarding properly the house, — when that should 
 be plundered. The Universalist meeting-house at 
 the Port came near burning down the other night. 
 Shavings were kindled on the floor of the house, 
 and the carpet wrapped around them, in order 
 that the fire might not burst out till pretty late, 
 but people coming out from a vestry meeting, 
 smelt the carpet, and of course soaked it. 
 
 Again William gives an account of his studies, 
 which continued to be of engrossing interest. He 
 was so fortunate as to study Spanish literature 
 three times a week with Professor Henry W. 
 Longfellow. 
 
 Friday, May 15, 1840. 
 Last evening Clarke and I went In to join the 
 great gathering at Faneuil Hall. We were early 
 enough to secure a snug corner, in which we could 
 sit as well as stand, and where there was a cool 
 breeze playing, so that our enjoyment was greater 
 than It would have been if jammed up, as almost 
 everybody was, for the house was crammed to 
 overflowing. Mr. Everett began by saying that 
 [46] 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE 
 
 he was glad to see that "old Faneull had not pulled 
 the string in, on this occasion." He had been 
 requested to explain the object of this meeting. 
 "Explain the object, why, my friends," said he, 
 "I think we've got beyond that. I should as soon 
 think of attempting to explain to you the original 
 of that picture which now looks down upon you." 
 He spoke of the fathers, who had formerly assem- 
 bled in that hall, and who though we might not 
 see them "with the eye of sense," were present to 
 assist and inspire us. After alluding to the great 
 feeling which animates the Whigs throughout the 
 country, and the encouragement for them to march 
 onward to battle, he said it was not too much to 
 say that "the sods would heave, the graves of our 
 fathers open," and (turning to the Washington on 
 horseback) "horseman and horse leap from the 
 pictured canvas, and go before you." He spoke 
 very finely for as much as twenty or twenty-five 
 minutes. 
 
 Mr. E. said afterwards, "the old coach of state 
 would roll on at the next election, driver, or no 
 driver." The most enthusiastic exhibition of feel- 
 ing during the evening was when Mr. Everett rose 
 again after Wickliffe, to introduce some one else. 
 W. had not mentioned E. particularly, he had been 
 [47] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 condemning the state generally, but when Mr. 
 Everett ^ rose they all seemed to feel what they had 
 lost in him, and hats, handkerchiefs, and all went 
 up, and everybody hurrahed at the top of their 
 lungs, and clapped till they were tired. 
 
 When he graduated in 1840, William Orne White 
 was the orator of his class, and his family came 
 from Salem to be present on the great occasion. 
 His friend, Margaret Eliot Harding, was also of 
 the company, she who was afterwards to share his 
 life for more than fifty years. A paper, preserved 
 through all these years in his stepmother's hand- 
 writing, shows with what care she arranged his 
 spread, and the list of the good things to eat brings 
 the scene vividly before one's mind.^ 
 
 It must have been with real regret that William 
 closed this chapter of his life, for it was a period 
 
 ^ In 1835, Edward Everett was chosen Governor of Massachusetts, 
 and again in 1836 and 1837, failing of election for the fourth year by 
 the loss of one vote in over one hundred thousand. 
 
 * Refreshments at William's room, Class Day, July 16, 1840. 
 
 I ham, a small-sized piece of boiled beef, currant jelly, 2 doz. lemons, 
 2 doz. oranges, boxes of strawberries, 2 do. raspberries, 2 boxes of 
 gooseberries, sugar, and cream, 5 quarts of ice cream, 4 doz. of currant 
 pound cake, 4 doz. of gingerbread, 4 pans of sponge cake, 4 doz. of 
 bread rolls. 
 
 Flowers from the Botanic garden ^l.OO. 
 
 Thomas's services very useful. Half the quantity of cake would 
 have been sufficient. 
 
 [48 ] 
 
HARVARD COLLEGE 
 
 that he dwelt on most tenderly in after years. How 
 little he could have Imagined then that he was to 
 live to be the last survivor of that class ! How little, 
 too, In those early days he would have desired It. 
 At one of his class reunions he said how sad would 
 be the lot of the last survivor of the class and how 
 little one would desire to have that fate. Where- 
 upon some of his companions said, "I don't know 
 about that." 
 
 A fragment was found among his papers con- 
 taining a part of the notes for a speech that he 
 evidently made at one of his class dinners, In which 
 he gives a vivid description of the teachers of those 
 days : — 
 
 "If the name of Harvard still stands out bright; 
 If we can spell out the names In some old Latin 
 Quinquennial; if these groves and halls, and the 
 dear friends and teachers associated with them still 
 linger in our minds, surely we might dream our 
 lives away under far less happy auspices. 
 
 "If, among the thickening shadows, forms like 
 these flit across our vision, — Quincy, the magnif- 
 icent; Felton, ever genial and loving; Channing, 
 guarding the well of English undefiled; Longfellow, 
 the young Apollo that he was; Very, his "rapt soul 
 sitting in his eyes"; Sparks, of Websterian mien; 
 [49] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 Walker, in all his pulpit majesty; together with 
 hosts of dear companions inseparably associated 
 with these haunts, — while among them Alma 
 Mater herself should seem to be personified, we 
 need not fear to follow, as we see her pointing out 
 the distant goal toward which these pilgrims are 
 still pressing, and seeming to say, 'Sic itur ad 
 astral' '' 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 EUROPE AND THE DIVINITY SCHOOL 
 
 1 840-1 845 
 
 My father's health had been somewhat enfeebled 
 by his five continuous years of hard study, and 
 he had always shown such good judgment in his 
 plans for himself that his father consented to an 
 indefinite foreign trip, which lasted longer than 
 either of them expected, for he was away from 
 home two years. 
 
 This is the first letter that I find concerning 
 his voyage to India with Mr. Henry F. Bond. 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Springfield, July 24, 1840. 
 
 ... I am very well satisfied with the result of 
 your interview with Captain Perry. The more I 
 thought of the plan, the less I thought I should 
 like it, as long as there was a chance of going after- 
 wards with Bond. As to the latter's being an 
 invalid companion, I suppose he is just about as 
 much of an invalid as I am, and very little more.^ 
 
 ^ One of these two "invalids" lived to be eighty-eight and the 
 other ninety years old. 
 
 [ SI ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 Dr. Jackson thought a sea-voyage would be an 
 excellent thing for him. Yet even if Bond were 
 not at all in health, I should hardly think it a rea- 
 son for taking a separate vessel. As it is, since 
 he has failed once in trying to secure a vessel for 
 him, and I also, once, in trying to secure one for 
 me, I trust that it is fated that we shall be more 
 successful, by and by, when we try together, and 
 succeed in getting one that will take us both. 
 
 Mr. White and Mr. Bond took passage in the 
 Damariscotta, where Mr. Bond was engaged as 
 supercargo. It is interesting to note that the pas- 
 sage money for the long voyage to Calcutta was 
 only two hundred and fifty dollars. 
 
 They sailed on September 7, 1840. The first 
 chance to send a letter home occurred when they 
 were nineteen days out, when they met the barque 
 Olive and Eliza of Portsmouth. In after years my 
 father wrote: "I well recall the thrill which our 
 United States flag (flung out from our barque) 
 gave me. We had a country^ even out there on 
 the ocean." 
 
 The long voyage of nearly five months was un- 
 eventful and monotonous, and their food was not 
 all that could be desired; for their "American cap- 
 [ 52] 
 
EUROPE AND THE DIVINITY SCHOOL 
 
 tain saved two of his four barrels of flour to sell 
 in India, thus letting his passengers taste fresh 
 bread but once a month for a day or two during 
 the voyage." My father found much to enjoy, 
 however, for he did not have a seasick moment, 
 and he had always had an especial fondness for the 
 sea in all its phases. He took a large chest of books 
 with him, and spent much of his time in reading. 
 Nevertheless, I think it must have been with some 
 satisfaction that he saw the coast of India appear- 
 ing in the distance. They reached Kedgeree, fifty 
 miles from Calcutta, on January 21, 1841. 
 
 The two young men parted company at Cal- 
 cutta, Mr. Bond making the return voyage with 
 the Damariscotta, while my father took passage 
 in the brig Telegraphe for France. The first point 
 at which he touched was the Island of St. Helena. 
 
 One of the residents upon whom he called thus 
 wrote of him: "There was a son of Judge White's 
 here the day before yesterday, on his way to 
 France from Calcutta. We were much pleased 
 with him, and regretted his stay was so short; he 
 remained here about six or seven hours." 
 
 My father writes: "Well do I recall that day in 
 St. Helena : the languishing buildings at Longwood : 
 the still open grave whence, some four months 
 I 53 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE " 
 
 previous, the remains of Napoleon had been 
 taken to France: my horseback ride of a few hours, 
 and the soughing of the pines, etc., reminding 
 me of the sound of the waves; also my halting in 
 my English at Consul Carroll's in my talk with a 
 lady, so habituated had I become to talking in 
 French on the French brig Telegraphe." 
 
 His French stood him in good stead, for on his 
 arrival in France when he heard a cabman say, 
 "He's a foreigner, we'll charge him double," he 
 was able to reply, *'I may be a foreigner, but I 
 have not been on this boat all this time for noth- 
 ing." Whereupon, the man shrugged his shoulders, 
 laughed merrily, and came down to the normal 
 charge. 
 
 In the summer of 1841 he took a trip through 
 Switzerland where he greatly enjoyed mountain 
 climbing. Years after he writes: "Perhaps the 
 grandest instantaneous burst of scenery I ever wit- 
 nessed was in August, 1841, when, like the throw- 
 ing up of a curtain, at a sudden turn of the road 
 from Dijon to Geneva, the blue lake and the 
 whole extended Mont Blanc chain, glittering in 
 the afternoon sunlight, was disclosed to us be- 
 clouded ones. My French companions smote the 
 diligence and hands and voices were powerless 
 [54] 
 
William Orne White at the age of Jiineteen 
 
i.,a>^n/i^a/ /^u^ ^^M,onf^t>f ^^Ma^^^^M^^ y^SMO 
 
EUROPE AND THE DIVINITY SCHOOL 
 
 to express our pent-up feelings. That view I seem 
 to see even now." 
 
 From Switzerland he went down the Rhine 
 and in the autumn proceeded to Italy, which was 
 a storehouse of all that he most longed to see. 
 Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples were all 
 places of enchantment to him. His ascent of Ve- 
 suvius when he looked into the crater and his visit 
 to Herculaneum and Pompeii made an especial im- 
 pression upon him. He wrote to his father, "that 
 would alone reward one for a passage across the 
 ocean." And in another letter he says: "In May, 
 1842, Allan and I ascended Vesuvius, coming down 
 at midnight, under a full moon." 
 
 From Naples he took a French government 
 ship for Malta, Alexandria, etc., in company with 
 Dr. Henry J. Bigelow. At Alexandria they were 
 detained because my father was ill with fever. 
 The second week of his illness he began to im- 
 prove so rapidly that his companion felt easy in 
 leaving him. He grew worse, however, instead of 
 better. His illness proved to be a very serious one 
 and he was detained from January 25 to March 
 5. It was fortunate that he had been cured once 
 for all of homesickness when he was away at school 
 at the age of ten, as otherwise the situation would 
 [ 55 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 have seemed very desperate. To be alone in a 
 foreign country with an indifferent doctor and 
 an unsatisfactory nurse was enough to make any 
 but the stoutest heart lose courage. But before 
 leaving him Dr. Bigelow had called in Dr. Bell, 
 of Edinburgh, who was a charming man as well 
 as an excellent physician," in consultation with 
 the Alexandria doctor. My father writes, "He 
 would take no pay, being in the British Service 
 and waiting for transference to India." 
 
 As soon as he was able to travel, Mr. Perkins 
 Shepherd, who was a friend of Dr. Bigelow, and 
 Mr. Walker, of Cumberland County, England, in- 
 vited him to go up the Nile to Cairo with them in 
 the covered boat which they had engaged. My 
 father calls them "as capital angels of mercy as 
 ever lived." 
 
 He returned to Alexandria after an eleven days' 
 trip, the ascent of the highest pyramid being one 
 of its principal features. He was now so plump 
 and well that his former companions hardly rec- 
 ognized him. 
 
 One can picture the anxiety with which his 
 father at home waited for further news of his ill- 
 ness, but he was fortunately spared a knowledge 
 of the full extent of it until his son was on the road 
 I 56] 
 
EUROPE AND THE DIVINITY SCHOOL 
 
 to recovery, for "a straggling, clumsy letter," 
 written from his sick-bed, "happily did not ar- 
 rive till twelve months later, when W. O. W. saw 
 it opened in the Salem parlor." 
 
 From Alexandria he took the boat to Syra and 
 thence proceeded to Greece, his study of the clas- 
 sics giving him the keenest appreciation of Athens 
 and all the other historic places of which he had 
 read with such interest. 
 
 Perhaps his most unusual experience was a trip 
 taken with some chance companions through 
 Sicily. One of these was Mr. Allan, who after- 
 wards published an illustrated account of the 
 journey, and the other was a young Scotchman, 
 Mr. Drummond. 
 
 In writing to a relative many years later, he 
 says: "Taormina, in 1842, I could only see from 
 beneath. My foot was fiercely lame from an en- 
 counter with a stone in walking on Ithaca 'horrid 
 with cliffs,' as Homer hath it. So I looked up, 
 and had to be content with my fellow traveller 
 Allan's account of the view. He and I were 
 rowed up the Anapas near Syracuse, and touched 
 the papyrus. We did not ascend Pellegrino, but 
 we went out to Segesta where the temple, grandly 
 placed, exceeds in vastness the Neptune temple 
 [ 57] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 at Psestum. Fifty-seven years have scarce dulled 
 the mental photographs which Catania, Seliaun- 
 tium, Girgenti, Segesta, and Palermo fixed; as In 
 a steamer, chartered for the uncle of the Bismarck 
 Emperor William, with his sons and a few others, 
 we touched at Paestum, from Naples, and skirted 
 the Island of Sicily." 
 
 My father used to relate how he and Mr. Allan 
 arrived at a small hut late one night and begged 
 for shelter. He described the alarming motions 
 of one of the men, who In pantomime seemed to 
 suggest to another the cutting the throats of these 
 strangers and throwing them over the clIfF. But 
 it afterwards appeared that he was merely sug- 
 gesting the manner of providing a substantial 
 breakfast for them. At another hut the woman 
 gathered her child to her to prevent the strangers 
 from looking at the baby with the "evil eye," but 
 a fuller acquaintance with them dispelled this fear. 
 
 The young man's most Interesting experiences 
 came in consequence of letters of introduction 
 to distinguished persons, such as Miss Joanna 
 Balllle whom he saw In Hampstead with her sis- 
 ters, and through the friends that he made In 
 traveling. His chance acquaintance, Mr. Drum- 
 mond, gave him letters to his relatives In Scot- 
 [ 58 1 
 
EUROPE AND THE DIVINITY SCHOOL 
 
 land which led to his .having a unique experi- 
 ence, for he stayed at a castle for a few days, 
 and the life there, which included a day of hunt- 
 ing, was very picturesque. The pleasant acquaint- 
 ance thus begun with the ladies of the castle led 
 to a correspondence at infrequent intervals which 
 lasted for many years. 
 
 He continued his habit of exercise which he 
 formed in Exeter, for he writes of "walking eight 
 miles before breakfast from Stratford to Warwick, 
 and eight miles before breakfast, from Salisbury to 
 Amesbury." 
 
 He also went to the English Lakes and on one 
 of his walks there had the great pleasure of see- 
 ing the poet Wordsworth. Finding himself in the 
 neighborhood of Wordsworth's house, he was 
 seized with the desire to stop and thank him for 
 the pleasure which his verses had given him. As 
 he went up the walk to the front door, he saw the 
 gray-haired poet sitting by the front window, and 
 to his great surprise it was he who opened the door. 
 In those days visitors from America were not so 
 frequent as they were later and the young man 
 was asked to stay to supper, a pleasant meal en- 
 livened by the conversation of the younger people. 
 It was there that he first saw the very large straw- 
 [ 59] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 berries such as he had not seen In America. It 
 would be interesting to have an account of all 
 that was said, but I can only add that Words- 
 worth followed him to the gate and wished him a 
 prosperous journey. 
 
 My father also greatly enjoyed his visit to the 
 Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Many 
 years after, he writes thus of his memories of 
 Cambridge to- a relative who sent him a gift from 
 that historic place: "I shall once more seem to be 
 seated in Old Trinity Hall, and to hear Professor 
 Whewell and the Duke of Cambridge speak, and 
 to see Mr. Everett, to whom the beasts would not 
 give a chance to speak, at the annual collegiate 
 dinner. Once more the Duke of Wellington, with 
 scarlet gown 'all flying down behind,' will amble 
 into town, the Chancellor elect, on his white pony. 
 Once more the distant figures in St. John's grounds 
 will flit to and fro in the lantern-lighted grove, as 
 the dance proceeds, while I lean upon the Cam — 
 his bridge, and see the picturesque spectacle." 
 
 He sailed from Southampton and reached Salem 
 in the latter part of September, 1842. His home- 
 coming was shadowed by the death of a little 
 namesake, William Orne White, the child of his 
 sister, Mrs. Caleb Foote. He got back just in time 
 f 60 1 
 
EUROPE AND THE DIVINITY SCHOOL 
 
 for the funeral of this baby who had been born 
 since he left home, and this must have been a deep 
 sorrow to one who Hved so much in his affections. 
 
 In the autumn of 1843 Mr. White entered the 
 Harvard Divinity School. I have found no record 
 of what led him to choose the ministry for his pro- 
 fession, but he once told a friend that the Rever- 
 end Henry Ware had more influence over him in 
 this choice than any one else. I do not believe 
 he ever considered any other profession; indeed, as 
 someone has said, he could hardly help himself, so 
 numerous were the ministers among his ancestors. 
 
 Mr. G. A. Ward wrote, December 20, 1842: 
 "We are much pleased to hear so favorably of 
 Cousin William's health and that he is preparing 
 himself for the Church; five of his ancestors on 
 his mother's side adorned that profession, at the 
 head of whom was the 'Matchless Mitchell' of 
 Cambridge, Mr. Porter of Medford, Mr. New- 
 man of Rehoboth, Mr. Sparhawk of Bristol, and 
 Mr. Sparhawk of Salem!" 
 
 To these can be added on his father's side 
 George Phillips, the first minister of Watertown. 
 Still farther back, on his mother's side, was 
 Henry Sewall who was settled at Tunworth and 
 at Baddesley in England. "His father was mayor 
 f 61 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE ' 
 
 of Coventry about 1590. I sailed for home from 
 Southampton," Mr. White wrote to Dr. James 
 Martineau many years later, "little recking that 
 this clerical ancestor and Richard Dummer, an- 
 other ancestor, sailed back and forth again and 
 again from that same port for America." 
 
 My father was not only drawn to the ministry 
 by the deeper side of his nature, which made the 
 life of the spirit so very real that the many trials 
 he had to meet were faced by him throughout his 
 long life as a minister with unfailing courage and 
 unquestioning faith, but his intense interest in 
 human nature and his never-failing sympathy 
 made a pleasure of what is sometimes drudgery to 
 a less fortunately constituted nature. To one 
 with his sensitive temperament and acute power 
 of suffering with others, the sadder parts of a min- 
 ister's life were peculiarly hard; but he was so 
 religious, in the truest sense of the word, that he 
 was always able to turn from the tragedies of suf- 
 fering and death, and be equally ready to share 
 in the laughter and happiness of little children, 
 and in the joy of young men and women; while 
 throughout his ninety years his enjoyment in the 
 world of nature and in books never flagged. 
 
 In his class of thirteen in the Divinity School 
 [ 62 1 
 
EUROPE AND THE DIVINITY SCHOOL 
 
 he had several warm friends. Chief among them 
 was Henry F. Bond, with whom he had taken the 
 voyage to India; another lifelong friend was 
 George M. Bartol, who was settled for fifty years 
 in Lancaster, Massachusetts. Thomas Hill and 
 John F. Moors were also friends, as well as class- 
 mates. He had a pleasant acquaintance with some 
 of the men in the other classes, including Joseph 
 Henry Allen, Octavius Brooks Frothingham, 
 Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Grindall Rey- 
 nolds. 
 
 This is the only letter that I find during the 
 period of his life at the Divinity School. 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Cambridge, Tuesday, April i, 1845. 
 
 (No bad intentions on this date.) 
 
 Dear Father: — 
 
 . . . Hill, ^ Henry's classmate in college and mine 
 now, gives a Sunday-School address Fast after- 
 noon, for Mr. Thompson's school. If you have 
 nothing better to do, I would hear him. He will 
 call on you and the rest, Thursday. If it is before 
 dinner, he will repay your inviting him to dine. 
 
 ^ Rev. Thomas Hill, president of Harvard College from 1862 to 
 1868. 
 
 [63 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 He Is quite original and thinks for himself; and 
 in spite of some eccentricities, there is no young 
 man coming forward, whom, for myself, on the 
 whole, I should prefer as a minister. 
 
 He can give you an account of a sermon we 
 heard from Father Taylor Sunday morning. His 
 chapel was crowded with as many as five hundred 
 sailors and he was listened to most attentively. 
 He spoke about the crucifixion and resurrection. 
 I had never heard him before and was more struck 
 than I thought I should be. . . . 
 
 A week ago to-day, Tuesday evening, I went to 
 a party at Mrs. Abbot Lawrence's; it was of mixed 
 ages and a "talking party." So I enjoyed it. . . . 
 Some people are troubled at the idea of the branch 
 railroad from Somerville, which will come (nearer 
 Dr. Palfrey's house) between Dr. P.'s house and 
 Divinity Hall and enter somewhere near Cam- 
 bridge Common. The Charter (Dr. Palfrey was 
 urgent for it) was obtained this winter, though 
 y* Cambridge people rather oppose it. They are 
 to use horse-power from Cambridge to Somer- 
 ville till they join the regular Charlestown road. 
 
 Our studies with Dr. Noyes in Interpretation 
 and Dogmatics continue as last term. We have 
 lectures in Pastoral Theology and exercises in 
 [64] 
 
EUROPE AND THE DIVINITY SCHOOL 
 
 Church Polity, etc., with Dr. Francis. I am look- 
 ing up a dissertation (another critical exercise 
 which we have) for Dr. Noyes this week on "The 
 errors of y^ early Christians in the interpretation 
 of the Scriptures." And some from their passion 
 for allegorizing are strange enough. One writer 
 finds in the meat which the ravens brought Elijah 
 a type of the wood of the Cross which the Jews 
 furnished as food for the nations; and in the ravens 
 a similitude to those Jews, who cried in a harsh 
 voice all at once like ravens, — "Crucify him! 
 Crucify him!" . . . 
 
 Believe me, in haste, with love to Mother and 
 the rest, dear father, 
 
 Your afF. son, 
 
 William. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 I 846-1 847 
 
 Mr. White's first parish was in Eastport, Maine, 
 where he preached for five months. Although he 
 went there in April, it was still winter, and his 
 description of the journey sounds as if he were 
 travelling in the Arctic regions. He thus writes 
 to his father and mother: — 
 
 April 17, '46. Friday Afternoon. 
 
 I arrived at Bangor soon after 9 a.m. Wednes- 
 day. It was snowing fast. The banks of the river 
 and the wharves at Bangor made one feel as if 
 he had struck upon the North Pole, so huge were 
 the fragments of ice, as large as shoemakers' shops 
 piled along together; and the snowstorm rather 
 strengthened the geographical illusion. 
 
 The journey from Bangor to Eastport was ac- 
 complished by stage, and he did not reach East- 
 port until the middle of the next night. The letter 
 goes on as follows: — 
 
 "The contrast between my comfort this morn- 
 I 66] 
 
EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 
 ing (I have unpacked and arranged everything) and 
 my lonely groping about the cold dark tavern last 
 night is very great. I feel that I shall be quiet 
 here, and if I am well, be likely to improve, under 
 the discipline and responsibility. . . . 
 
 "I have just looked in on Mr. K.'s family, only 
 one or two in the room at the time, and have seen 
 the church with him. It is so beautifully dressed 
 with evergreens that it would do you good to see 
 it. There has been no service there since a week 
 or two before Christmas, and therefore the trim- 
 mings remain. There are many appropriate mot- 
 toes of Scripture in evergreen, and festoons reach- 
 ing from one end of the building to the other, 
 meeting at the centre, etc., etc. And whole trees 
 stand in different parts. It is an oldish-fashioned 
 church. I like the looks of it." 
 
 The church is still standing, dominating the 
 view, for it is on a hilltop, and its slender spire can 
 be seen from the water as one approaches the 
 seaport town of Eastport. 
 
 His five months were varied by more than one 
 "exchange," for he counted the long journeys as 
 merely a pleasant variety. In Eastport his parish- 
 ioners were varied, including all social grades. He 
 had a hearty and genuine interest in human nature, 
 [67] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 and his sympathies went out to all, for he recog- 
 nized character wherever he found it, and espe- 
 cially enjoyed his intercourse with those in the 
 humbler walks of life. 
 
 His letters from Eastport give a pleasant chron- 
 icle of his life there; his sermon writing (he 
 preached twice every Sunday), and his parish 
 calls, were interspersed with walks and expeditions. 
 One of his excursions had a disastrous termination; 
 he writes as follows: — 
 
 Eastport, Maine, 
 Friday afternoon, June 12, '46. 
 
 Dear Father and Mother: — 
 
 Monday, Mr. Tinkham and I had devoted in 
 our minds to a wagon and fishing excursion of a 
 day to Boyden's Lake and Pembroke some twenty 
 miles or more off. We proceeded six and a half 
 very comfortably, and then met with an accident, 
 which I mention lest you may hear of it, as some- 
 thing fresh, a week or two hence. I found myself 
 all at once tossed out upon the ground (we had 
 been going at a medium rate and were in the midst 
 of talk) and saw the horse running on with the 
 fore wheels. I turned to inquire of Mr. T. what 
 it all meant, and found him stretched with his face 
 to the ground insensible. (As I found afterwards 
 [ 68 ] 
 
EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 
 the pin or bolt of the wagon had come out — the 
 nut falling first — and this occasioned the acci- 
 dent.) I raised him up, and after washing the 
 blood from his face, which was considerably 
 bruised, he was able to take my arm to a house 
 not far off. But of the accident and the walk he 
 remembered nothing until he found himself on a 
 bed in the house. As he was driving, he probably 
 pulled the rein as the horse started and thus came 
 to the ground with greater force. I got a man to 
 take Mr. T. back, but by that time he was so 
 much better as to be able to wait till a blacksmith 
 close by had mended our wagon. 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 June 12, 1846. 
 I preached on Sunday morning the sermon I 
 said I was writing the week before about "sor- 
 rowing not without hope" and in the afternoon, 
 "Drink water out of thine own cistern," etc., 
 which I wrote some months ago but never preached 
 before. As the Orthodox minister is absent for a 
 time, several of his people were at meeting, among 
 them the Misses Andrews, sisters of the Consul, 
 who live here. . . . Monday afternoon, having been 
 shut up with but little exercise for several days, 
 [69 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 I sailed with Mr. Tinkham to Deer Island. After 
 landing we walked three miles and back, and had 
 a delightful time. The island was better culti- 
 vated than we'd supposed, and we ascended two 
 hills, each of which gave us beautiful views of 
 the bay and islands. We found (7th September) 
 excellent raspberries. (N.B. I ate green peas that 
 day at dinner.) Our sail home was not so pleasant, 
 as we were caught in the fog, but we returned in 
 season to take tea at Miss Andrews's with the 
 Consul here, and Mr. Noyes's family. That 
 morning Mr. Hobbs took me in a boat to Campo- 
 bello, and introduced me to Captain Owen's wife, 
 and his daughter, Mrs. Robinson. The captain 
 was away. He owns Campobello, and is a remark- 
 able character in his way. The family live in con- 
 siderable style there. 
 
 On September 3, 1846, Mr. White received a 
 unanimous call to the pulpit in Eastport. The 
 committee said in part: — 
 
 "In the arduous and elevated position of their 
 religious teacher you have been alike distinguished 
 for the zeal, learning, and great ability with which 
 you have unfolded and illustrated religious truth 
 and for a beautiful and impressive exhibition of 
 ' [ 70 ] 
 
EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 
 the fruits of the Christian faith in your own charac- 
 ter and life. k!'": 
 
 "If, as they learn with great regret, your health 
 is such as to render it injudicious for you to hazard 
 an exposure to the rigors of our winter climate, 
 they earnestly desire you to remain with them 
 as long during the autumn as you may deem safe 
 and would be highly gratified to receive from you 
 an assurance that you would return to them in 
 the early spring of the coming year." 
 
 When his five months at Eastport came to an 
 end, he decided to take a little trip through the 
 Provinces before he went home. He thus describes 
 his leave-taking on September 9th in a letter writ- 
 ten from St. John two days later: — 
 
 "Tuesday I made, morning and afternoon, 
 several calls on people at the outskirts of the 
 town; and in the evening eighteen on people 
 nearer, to whom I merely said good-bye. I had 
 no cause to complain of meeting with a cold re- 
 ception. ... I left at eight. Several gentlemen 
 were at the wharf to bid me good-bye, among 
 them, Mr. Brooks, the young Baptist minister. 
 I put up the 'salmon and peas' in my carpetbag, 
 and sent home some dilapidated articles of cloth- 
 ing, by way of ballast." 
 
 [ 71 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Amherst, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, 
 Monday, September 21, 1846. 
 
 It was morning before we arrived at Digby, as 
 there was so much fog that the North America 
 was obliged to "lie to" during the night. Digby 
 Basin and the narrow passage called "Digby Gut" 
 are quite picturesque. We arrived at Annapolis 
 at about 9 a.m. . . . When I found that the mail 
 was carried in an open wagon, and was out all 
 night, I regretted the less not being able to obtain 
 a seat in it. I was unwilling, at the same time, 
 to wait for the "coach" on Tuesday. So I saw 
 my trunk "booked" to go by the coach, and 
 taking a few articles with me, I set out about half- 
 past 3 P.M. to walk to Bridgetown, fifteen miles, 
 which place I reached about 8 p.m., and was com- 
 fortably entertained at Mr. Quirk's inn. The 
 afternoon was delightful. The opposite side of 
 the river (Annapolis River), Granville, is very 
 fertile and is overhung by a long ridge of moun- 
 tainous land which shuts out the Bay of Fundy. 
 The town of Annapolis is very much like a pretty 
 English village. I was much pleased with it. As 
 I had read about its eventful early history, at the 
 time when it was the key to both provinces, and 
 [72I 
 
EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 
 changed hands so frequently, in Judge Halibur- 
 ton's history, I was interested in walking over 
 the old ramparts. Part of the country between 
 there and Bridgetown has an older look than any 
 I have yet seen. A place called "Round Hill" 
 reminded me a good deal of parts of Beverly and 
 Danvers. About three miles of the way I walked 
 with a shoemaking apprentice, who told me of 
 his manner of life. 
 
 ... At about sunset (the next day) I found 
 myself by a blazing wood fire, and in the interior 
 of a rude house, but where I had a better oppor- 
 tunity of seeing country life as it was there, than 
 in three times as many inns. 
 
 That same autumn Mr. White went to St. Louis 
 to supply Mr. William G. Eliot's pulpit, while he 
 was in Europe. It was at this time that he first 
 began to write to Margaret Eliot Harding, al- 
 though they had known each other ever since 
 they were children. She was the youngest daugh- 
 ter of Chester Harding, the artist, who was at 
 that time living in Springfield, then a country 
 town. Mr. White used often to go there to visit 
 his sister Eliza, Mrs. William Dwight. It was 
 there, too, that his beloved cousin Amelia, the 
 I 73 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 wife of the Reverend W. B. O. Peabody, was 
 living. 
 
 After his arrival In St. Louis Mr. White thus 
 gives an account of an adventure he had on his 
 journey: — 
 
 To M. E. H. 
 
 St. Louis, Friday, November 13, 1846. 
 
 ... I am tempted half to doubt, too, whether 
 you have not anticipated me in the article of being 
 snagged. . . . There was probably no danger in 
 our case, yet the apprehension hinted at by some 
 of the boat's ofhcers, that she might slide back 
 from the sandbar upon which she was — by the 
 action of the sand and swift current — into the 
 deeper water where she had struck the snag, 
 made us all glad and grateful to find ourselves 
 safe on shore. 
 
 There was something rather wild and pictur- 
 esque in the group that was gathering about twi- 
 light on the sand beach round a blazing pile of 
 faggots. There were hunters leaning on their ri- 
 fles; German emigrants; soldiers; travellers of the 
 more usual description, and little children push- 
 ing their cold hands In between the company. All 
 were looking right into the fire, as If they ex- 
 [ 74 ] ' 
 
EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 
 pected to hear it say or do something. There is a 
 singular attraction in fire. Its drawing people's 
 hearts and sympathies together was somewhat 
 illustrated in the present case, and perhaps it 
 had some share in that, when afterwards at a 
 neighboring farmhouse some thirty or forty of us 
 stretched ourselves on benches and the floor; and 
 a large wood fire spread its light and warmth all 
 night long over the circle. . . . There was another 
 man of some intelligence, who was relieved to 
 find that Unitarians had anything to do with the 
 New Testament, and on my assuring him that 
 they did not reject it, he replied, "Then you've 
 been very much traduced." 
 
 Although my father thus makes light of the 
 occurrence, I think it must have been this same 
 incident which he described to me. When the 
 boat first struck the snag the captain was abso- 
 lutely dazed and one of the passengers took com- 
 mand. He had a forceful character and promptly 
 decided that the women and children should be 
 saved first, sternly keeping back the selfish men 
 who pressed forward. To the young minister the 
 other world had never seemed so near. For a 
 moment he had the feeling that his life in this 
 [75 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 world was to end, and instead of having any fear, 
 he was filled with a glorified sense of exaltation; 
 he was sure that he was going to join the mother 
 whom he had longed to see. Suddenly, however, 
 he remembered his father and felt that he was 
 still needed here. He stepped forward into the 
 range of vision of the man who had taken com- 
 mand, and was soon called upon to take his place 
 in one of the boats. 
 
 He thus describes St. Louis : — 
 
 St. Louis, Monday, November 23, 1846 
 My dear Cousin Nancy: — 
 
 St. Louis differs from Cincinnati in having 
 forty instead of ninety thousand people. This 
 city has a sort of unformed look; buildings are 
 springing up in every direction and yet some parts 
 of it look pretty old. The population in 1830 was 
 between six and seven thousand. . . . Fourth and 
 Fifth Streets in St. Louis are wider than any Bos- 
 ton streets, and have many fine residences upon 
 them. . . . The church here has a Grecian front. 
 There are about two hundred and fifty to three 
 hundred people in the morning; in the afternoon, 
 it is always thin. They all seem devotedly at- 
 tached to Mr. Eliot. . . . 
 
 [76I 
 
EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 
 To M. E. H. 
 
 St. Louis, Monday, January ii, 1847. 
 
 ... I spoke of Mrs. K., which led her to speak of 
 you; and she said that "it was like the sun in a 
 spring morning to have your face look in on her, 
 after a long day's confinement at school." She is 
 living in a comfortable house, though in plain 
 style. These (that is, the halls, and parlors, etc.) 
 are not the "circumstances" of which you speak, 
 when you say it is easier to be independent of them 
 in theory than in practice. I sometimes fancy 
 that I have a sort of indifference to these things, 
 that I could not once have supposed I should, and 
 which, if it exist, is owing to having seen in differ- 
 ent countries so much real happiness where there 
 was no style; and to the influence of my profession 
 on my thoughts. It is harder to make one's self 
 equally happy among whatever people one may 
 be thrown. This, indeed, should it occur liter- 
 ally, would seem to leave no room for the develop- 
 ment of affection. But to a certain extent the 
 theory is worth carrying out. I sometimes think 
 that the hardest "circumstances" any one can be 
 called to contend with are those concerned more 
 or less directly with ill health. At times of perfect 
 health, how everything, everywhere, brightens! 
 [77] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 And yet religious effort and patience must do 
 more, in the long run, than anything. 
 
 To M. E. H. 
 
 QuiNCY, Illinois, 
 Wednesday, March lO, 1847. 
 
 As for my profession — I enjoy it, but not being 
 of a very enthusiastic nature, I do not strictly 
 "find it" (as you ask) "grow dearer to me every 
 day I live." I take this comfort, however, that 
 my ideal of it is always before my attainment; 
 and ever find a sort of satisfaction in thinking 
 that I do not love it so well as I ought to; as it will 
 give me something to be doing in time to come; 
 and I may grow warmer rather than colder. One's 
 interest must be very difi"erent in a settled parish — 
 or rather in a parish over which he is settled. . . . 
 
 In writing to M. E. Harding April 12, 1847, con- 
 trasting his life in St. Louis with that of Eastport 
 he says: — 
 
 "I used to walk — generally taking the same 
 road (for it was as much as ever that there was 
 more than one) — about noon, half across the is- 
 land, passing by the same too familiar houses, 
 but always in sight of the familiar sea and silver 
 firs and blue islands; I enjoyed the somewhat 
 [ 78 ] 
 
EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 
 coziness of the parishional intercourse I had at 
 Eastport; here, there are advantages which there 
 were not there. The "field" in preaching, at 
 least, seems larger. Men probably have more 
 temptations. Then there is more to excite the 
 mind; more to catch the eye abroad; I have seen 
 no place that would be exactly to my mind, to 
 pass my life in. But I feel more and more as if 
 it would not make, comparatively, a very great 
 difference. One place will have advantages that 
 are denied another; and there ought to be some 
 "crook in the lot," or everything would be so fine 
 as to become insipid. 
 
 The peach trees have been since 4th April com- 
 ing into full blossom, and now the plum trees are 
 coming along too. The grass is beautifully green 
 just outside the city. I think I never saw more 
 luxuriant verdure so widely spread. 
 
 To M. E. H. 
 
 St. Louis, April 25, 1847. 
 
 In taking a ride just outside the town yester- 
 day, the beautiful landscape showed such a con- 
 trast with the dry city that it seemed as if no 
 painting, were it ever so costly, could give one 
 greater pleasure. And yet this scene was hidden 
 [79I 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 to the great majority of the citizens. Why? Be- 
 cause they would not be at the pains (it was within 
 the compass of no weary walk) of putting them- 
 selves in the way of seeing it. And yet I aver that 
 in point of happiness, at that moment, there was 
 as decided a preponderance in my favor as could 
 very well be. So that when all social distinctions 
 are levelled, there may still be, in one way or 
 another, differences in individual comfort against 
 which we cannot provide. 
 
 In a postscript to a letter written to his father 
 on April 13, 1847, from St. Louis he says: — 
 
 "I take an additional page to speak about flour. 
 Mr. Crow was speculating (if you think I am 
 going to talk of a business transaction, you are 
 out) on the probable effect to this country of the 
 transfer of so many millions of dollars from 
 Europe here. He said that all the farmers here 
 would feel it. For instance, Indian corn (or corn- 
 meal, I am not sure which) often had sold at Fre- 
 mont for fifteen cents; It was at thirty-five or 
 forty there now; and at fifty-five a bushel at St. 
 Louis. I asked whether it would not make the 
 people more glad to support education, etc. He 
 thought it would, in the end. The first effect 
 [ 80 1 
 
EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 
 would be to make them think they must have 
 better houses. When their style of living was 
 somewhat changed, they would then see and feel 
 the advantage and necesssity of providing good 
 instruction, etc., for their children. He thinks 
 corn-meal must now be a staple; and that before 
 many years It may be Wall Street that controls 
 the London market rather than London that. Is 
 it not interesting also to view the probable effect 
 on England of transferring so large a portion of 
 her wealth to America .'' How will it fare with 
 the tithes — what will happen to the nobility 
 — must they not work — will they be able to hold 
 such large estates In their own hands .f* All this 
 is on the supposition that what has been thrown 
 out Is true, that at any rate, for some time, the 
 great demand for breadstuifs must continue. . . . 
 
 Mr. Crow thinks the influx of Germans and 
 others will Influence the decision of the Slavery 
 question here, as they will all have a vote; and be 
 desirous of abolishing the institution, In time." 
 
 To M. E. H. 
 
 St. Louis, May lo, 1847. 
 
 . . . Just think of our running away on our trip 
 with a Methodist preacher's horse, and a black boy 
 f 81 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 riding six miles to recover it! Luckily it was 
 Mr. C. that rode the animal, though I shared in 
 the plunder by averring that I thought it was his. 
 It was a dark morning, and the host brought out 
 the wrong beast. . . . 
 
 To M. E. H. 
 
 St. Louis, Monday, May 24, 1847. 
 
 I went on Friday afternoon to the "landing" 
 on the Illinois, to await a boat. I waited with 
 another passenger from 6 p.m. till 3 a.m. at the 
 landing in a small room occupied by eighteen per- 
 sons — workmen on a boat that was building. 
 Snatching some brands from a fisherman's fire 
 blazing on the shore, we swung them in the air, and 
 the steamboat herald knew our signal and sent a 
 boat for us. Our chance for sleeping was not much 
 better than before, as we now had only the cabin 
 floor and a mattress. Saturday turned out, how- 
 ever, to be a beautiful day and I enjoyed what I 
 saw of the Illinois River. . . . 
 
 Your speaking of E. P.'s consulting you brings 
 to my mind a clerk on board the boat that day, 
 with whom I was talking, and who fell to tell- 
 ing me about himself, what he said he had told 
 to none of them who were ordinarily with him on 
 [82] 
 
EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 
 board. I hope I was able to suggest some thought 
 which may help to make him more comfortable. 
 He was a cheery, kind-hearted fellow who would 
 pay when he could little afford it the fares of some 
 of the emigrants when they besought him. But 
 he seemed to make out that his life was somewhat 
 clouded withal. The incident served to make me 
 feel how much there is to live for, if, as we move 
 about in the world, we can so quickly find those 
 who are better for our sympathy or counsel. 
 
 M. E. H. TO W. O. W. 
 
 Your little incident on the steamboat was a 
 pleasant one. I can imagine how it must have 
 happified you to feel you had been able to cheer 
 any one by a word of sympathy. Like a true 
 daughter of Mother Eve, I wanted to know what 
 it was had overshadowed the young man's life. 
 As you say, we have much to live for. If we can 
 so easily cheer the sorrowing. My greatest dread 
 in growing old is in the fear that one's sympathies 
 may wear out with the body. They ought not to, 
 for they are immortal, but we so constantly see 
 that they do. ... 
 
 Mr. White was most painfully impressed when 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 he was in St. Louis by seeing some slaves sold. 
 He writes thus : — 
 
 "Upon the steps of the Court House in that 
 crowded city was that mother sold. The helpless 
 children were next brought forward by the brutal 
 auctioneer with a heartless jest. When they too 
 had been sold, the purchaser of the mother said 
 that for the sake of preventing her separation 
 from the children he would take them too at the 
 price which their purchaser had given. He was 
 refused, for he spoke to one in whom the love of 
 money was far stronger than the instincts of com- 
 mon humanity. 
 
 "Need we picture the future career of those 
 children, henceforth in supreme and undisturbed 
 possession of such a creature? It is enough to 
 know that in a Christian country the law permits 
 to parents and children such a living death. Is 
 there no mystery in the ways of man as well as 
 God.'' Are there no dark counsels but those of 
 Providence.'"' 
 
 On his way back from St. Louis he went through 
 Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia, visiting 
 the Mammoth Cave, the Natural Bridge, Char- 
 lottesville, Richmond, and other places of in- 
 terest. 
 
 [84I 
 
EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 
 Kentucky, Saturday, 12 June, 1847. 
 The Ohio boats were all very much crowded 
 about the time I left St. Louis, and therefore it 
 was peculiarly pleasant to be on our quiet little 
 Cumberland craft, the Josephine, with just 
 enough passengers sprinkled in separate state- 
 rooms, through the cabin, to make the scene 
 pleasant. ... I find a surprising relief, after be- 
 ing, for months together, engaged in duties like 
 those at Eastport and St. Louis, in throwing them 
 all up, and being like a child among the birds 
 and trees. I hope, wherever I may be settled, to 
 have a month or two in every summer to play 
 outdoors in, on stages or steamboats, or in the 
 mountains. . . . And now let me take up what re- 
 mains of time and paper in speaking of the Cave. 
 I have been amply repaid by my visit there. I 
 never felt the reality of a place more vividly. I 
 have often felt before, "I ought to feel so and so." 
 "Why don't I realize this more .J"' But I felt the 
 scene as much as I wanted to here. Mr. Heywood 
 says it ought not to be called a "cave." I was 
 reminded as much as anything of my wandering 
 through the mountain passes of Switzerland; and 
 1 seemed to be there again, only at midnight and 
 groping along by torchlight. Every now and then 
 I 8s 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 in the darkness, the lofty dome of the cave seemed 
 to be the outer firmament. In one instance, "the 
 star chamber," a room spangled with crystals 
 of spar, you seem to see the stars twinkling out- 
 doors. But being paddled across a river a quarter 
 of a mile long there, after having walked three 
 miles and a half, and having some five to walk 
 after you crossed it — is n't there something a 
 little grand in this? One might think of Charon, 
 "of the dark valley of the shadow of death," and 
 many things. The echoes of our singing guide's 
 voice swelled finely over the water; the crags on 
 either side the water, and the deep shadows that 
 hurried in the lamplight across them added to the 
 strange and mournful wlldness of the scene. I 
 do not know when I have seen any natural won- 
 der which has touched me at so many points as 
 this. It was wild and unearthly. To stand in the 
 temple where three thousand might be seated on 
 the broken rocks, and see the whole scene lighted 
 up by a Bengal light for a few moments; to think 
 how little one would imagine there was a bright 
 and beautiful world without, who had been liv- 
 ing only down there; and then to hear the black 
 slave raise his voice and sing, at my suggestion, a 
 "religious tune" beginning: — 
 [ 86 1 
 
EASTPORT AND ST. LOUIS 
 
 Why do we start and fear to die? 
 What timorous worms we mortals are: 
 Death is the gate to endless bliss 
 And yet we fear to enter there! 
 
 All this was solemn. The first day I was eight 
 hours in the cave, and the second eight and a half, 
 seeing different parts. 
 
 To M. E. H. 
 
 White Sulphur Springs, Va., 
 Sunday, June 20, 1847. 
 
 Friday the scenery was beautiful; like that in 
 New Hampshire; and I sometimes thought finer; 
 though the Franconia Notch would stay much 
 longer in one's memory, as I now find. But I 
 don't like these comparisons, else I might allow 
 having seen the Alps to spoil both; or not having 
 seen the Himalayas to spoil all three. It would 
 be — this Western Virginia — a fine country to 
 travel through on horseback. About 4 p.m. we 
 passed "the hawk's nest"; a famous view, which 
 Miss Martineau was so Impressed with, and which 
 you may have heard of. New River bends in 
 some beautiful curves and foams away, some say, 
 five hundred and fifty, some eight hundred or a 
 thousand feet below you, and hills and forests 
 [ 87 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 are stretching away above one another in the dis- 
 tance. There is nothing of the kind so fine in this 
 country. 
 
 Washington, June 27, 1847. 
 
 We reached the [Natural] Bridge just about sun- 
 down and had an hour and a half to enjoy it in. 
 I was far from being disappointed in it; and felt at 
 once that of itself it repaid me for having taken 
 my Virginia route. After viewing it from below, 
 and from above, I took with another young man 
 a place in "the car," which is safer than it seems, 
 and made the descent of two hundred and fifteen 
 feet. It seemed some time before we reached the 
 top of the arch; then it was very interesting to 
 watch it gradually expanding. About halfway 
 down it seemed in the most round and full pro- 
 portions. But it gradually and gracefully rose in 
 height, until we saw it again from the ground. 
 On the inside of the ceiling of the arch is the rep- 
 resentation of an eagle in the natural stone; 
 which seemed interesting in a national point of 
 view. They show a lion there too. The propor- 
 tions of the arch are graceful and beautiful; and 
 the whole thing stupendous. I was sorry I could 
 not be there a day. There are only tri-weekly 
 routes on many of these roads. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MARRIAGE AND WEST NEWTON 
 1 848-1 850 
 
 William Orne White and Margaret Eliot Hard- 
 ing were married September 25, 1848. In writing 
 of him to a friend before her marriage my mother 
 characterized him as "a friend whose motives are 
 the very highest, and whose whole life is subject 
 to spiritual laws." 
 
 Their first parish was at West Newton, where 
 he was ordained as minister on November 22, 
 1848, "at half-past twelve o'clock at noon." 
 Although West Newton was for all practical pur- 
 poses so much farther away from Boston than 
 it is now, the distance was easily bridged by the 
 many devoted friends and relations who came to 
 see them, and in one of his letters, besides speak- 
 ing of several such visitors, the young minister 
 records the fact that his wife had three invita- 
 tions in one afternoon to go on sleigh rides, which 
 fact "seemed truly ominous of the decay of the 
 sleighing." 
 
 Their interests were varied, for he speaks of a 
 [89I 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 lecture by Ralph Waldo Emerson on England, 
 and of the meeting of a geology class. That same 
 winter they had the great pleasure of hearing 
 Fanny Kemble read "The Merchant of Venice." 
 The hours were good old-fashioned ones, for they 
 "were dismissed just in season to walk to our 9.30 
 P.M. cars." 
 
 The moving into their own house was a great 
 delight to them. He writes to his father as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 West Newton, Monday, June 4, 1849. 
 We have enjoyed particularly coming into the 
 house just at this time, when all the doors and 
 windows can be opened and we can sit down in any 
 room we choose. I preached at home yesterday. 
 Next Sunday I exchange with Edward Hale. 
 
 To R. H. W. 
 
 West Newton, Tuesday, June 19, 1849. 
 
 The Parish party, which took place the week 
 after you left us, was very pleasant, and it quite 
 filled our rooms. Two or three evenings after, 
 we had a smaller circle of friends who met to talk 
 on more religious things. On Sunday previous, 
 I preached, from "And Paul dwelt two whole 
 years in his own hired house," upon the true con- 
 [ 90] 
 
MARRIAGE AND WEST NEWTON 
 
 secration of a new home. As several of our families 
 have but just come Into their new houses, it seemed 
 to interest them. . . . 
 
 Our hotel here is to be a Temperance one, cer- 
 tainly for the season; and we trust, when the ex- 
 periment is fairly made, will continue to be. So 
 all persons who want to board in the country may 
 be well off there. We are glad of the change, as 
 the matter has been cause of much discussion at 
 meetings down in the village for some time. 
 After circulating, ineffectually so far as the new 
 landlord was concerned, a paper in which we 
 promised to aid him so far as we could in getting 
 boarders, and in hiring horses, etc., if he would 
 keep a Temperance House, it was thought time 
 (it being in the mean time discovered that he was 
 selling liquor) to go upon another tack. So an- 
 other paper was started in which we said we would 
 hire no horses there unless it should be indispensa- 
 bly necessary; and that we would do what we could 
 to discountenance the place. A committee was 
 moreover appointed to act with the committee 
 appointed at Spring Town Meeting for prosecu- 
 ting infringements of the liquor-selling law. Be- 
 fore this paper had run a very long round, news 
 came that the new landlord had pledged himself 
 [91 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 to make the experiment of keeping a Temperance 
 House. He came here in fact with such an inten- 
 tion, but was misled by persons who told him that 
 he could not get along if he did so; and that peo- 
 ple would not be disturbed, if he merely kept a 
 private bar, etc., etc. 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 West Newton, 31 December, 1849. 
 
 I heard a few days since from Mr. A. P. Pea- 
 body, who proposes postponing our exchange — 
 on account of "the uncalculableness of January 
 weather, and the strong probability that with ice 
 on the ferry way, or some other obstruction, I 
 might fail of the evening Newton cars — to the 
 second Sunday in March. 
 
 If travelling was a little more arduous in those 
 days, this drawback was balanced by it being 
 decidedly cheaper. My father thus speaks of 
 a journey that he and my mother took to the 
 Delaware Water Gap : — 
 
 West Newton, 
 Saturday, September 28, 1 850. 
 
 The drive through the Gap by moonlight was 
 very fine. Although the Gap was forty-odd miles 
 farther off than I supposed when we left home, 
 [ 92 ] 
 
MARRIAGE AND WEST NEWTON 
 
 the journey was accomplished for the precise 
 sum I took with me. Considering we had so many 
 pleasant rides, besides the car jerking, thirty-five 
 dollars apiece does not seem very much out of the 
 way for a fortnight's absence on a journey of be- 
 tween three and four hundred miles. 
 
 M. E. W. TO D. A. W. AND R. H. W. 
 
 West Newton, Tuesday, October 15, 1850. 
 
 . . . Reading, as you must have, about the fuss 
 at the Concert on Saturday, I thought you would 
 desire to know whether we were there then. We 
 were not. We went on Friday evening, and en- 
 joyed it exceedingly, though, perhaps, on account 
 of extraneous influences, not quite as much as 
 we expected. Jenny Lind's voice is wonderful. I 
 would not but have heard her for anything, and 
 she is herself a charming, fascinating person, more 
 light and gay in her look and manner than I ex- 
 pected. We had quite a good seat, and were com- 
 fortably situated — but I am so thankful we were 
 not there on Saturday night. Those who were 
 there describe it as a fearful scene. It is a disgrace 
 to Boston — poor Jenny seemed very much agi- 
 tated, and sent out word to the mobbers, those 
 who could not get seats, that if they would only 
 [93 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 keep quiet and depart, she herself would be re- 
 sponsible for the money they had paid for their 
 tickets. This quieted them for a while. I don't 
 feel in the least satisfied with hearing Jenny once; 
 I want to go and live with her and hear her sing 
 every day for a month, and then I think I could 
 begin to understand and appreciate her extraor- 
 dinary powers. I hope some of you have heard 
 her. It is only once in a lifetime such a nightin- 
 gale visits our northern shores. 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Greenfield, May ii. 
 
 I cannot proceed further in this epistle without 
 entering a protest against my neighbor who is 
 reading his Bible. He read away last Sunday 
 afternoon for two hours, and now he seems to be 
 getting along under full sail again. Why does he 
 think it so much more edifying to read every word 
 so loud-f* So much publicity, as far as I am con- 
 cerned, is gained by his procedure that I do not 
 think he would fall any more under the condem- 
 nation of Scripture if he read it "at the corners of 
 the streets"; and such a change of arrangements 
 on his part would really be altogether more con- 
 venient and agreeable to me. 
 
 [94I 
 
MARRIAGE AND WEST NEWTON 
 
 While they were in West Newton Mrs. White 
 had a call from one of her old Springfield friends 
 who asked her if she did not "find it very dull out 
 here." She said: "It was a natural question, and 
 yet it shows how little he understands what makes 
 the real happiness of life. Dull, with my dear hus- 
 band close at my side, with my dear little house, 
 my friends all around me, all my parish duties, 
 my opportunities for helping the sick or the poor! 
 When I feel well and bright my life seems almost 
 a foretaste of a heavenly one." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 1851-1861 
 
 In the year 1851 Mr. White received a call from 
 the Unitarian Parish in Keene, New Hampshire. 
 He had already been captivated by the beauty of 
 the place and the cultivation of its inhabitants, 
 for he had made a delightful visit there some 
 years earlier at the house of his friend, George S. 
 Hale. 
 
 After their first visit to Keene Mr. White says 
 in a letter to his wife: "Many inquiries are 
 made about you by people within and without the 
 house. If it were you rather than I that had been 
 candidating, I should say that you had made a 
 decidedly successful trip." 
 
 He was settled in Keene, October i, 1851. A 
 little before this event Mrs. White thus writes: 
 "Every one greets us cordially, and my heart 
 bounds at the idea of having so beautiful a home." 
 "Oh, how lovely the valley looked as we entered 
 it!" she wrote a month later, when she went back 
 to make Keene her permanent home; and then 
 [96] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 follows an account of the neighborliness of their 
 new friends, nine of their parishioners coming to 
 help make and put down the carpets. She says: 
 "They did not leave me until every carpet was 
 made and down and every room in order. . . . Mrs. 
 Ingersoll came in the afternoon and brought me 
 baked apples and doughnuts, and in the evening 
 Mrs. George Twitchell sent me a basket of mag- 
 nificent nectarines, peaches, and grapes. William 
 came at four, and the ladies had his study all in 
 order for him, stove and all." 
 
 The following extracts from Mr. White's let- 
 ters give a vivid idea of his various interests : — 
 
 To D. A. W. AND R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, October 31, 1851. 
 
 ... I met Mr. Crosby for ten minutes at the 
 station in Keene on Monday, and he said he had 
 never seen a fuller house in Keene than on last 
 Sunday. Mr. Prentiss thought I must have been 
 visiting pretty faithfully through the week, which 
 was the case. I have now made upwards of a hun- 
 dred calls, and shall soon have seen almost every 
 adult in the parish. Some of the men I have to 
 seek at their stores and workshops. . . . The Sew- 
 ing Circle came out in pretty good force, near 
 [97] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 fifty ladies being there. In the evening the gentle- 
 men dropped in. 
 
 A little later in the year he writes: — 
 
 Keene, Thursday, December i8, 1851. 
 
 Did you know that we in Keene are nearer 
 Boston now than you in Salem are? It is so, for 
 we have the telegraph in full operation. For 
 twenty-five cents we can send a message to Bos- 
 ton. If you only had a telegraph from Boston to 
 Salem, we would try talking together, to see how 
 it would seem. . . . 
 
 I have taken to splitting wood and "bringing 
 of it in" lately, which I find very good exercise. 
 
 . . . We expect a service Christmas Eve accord- 
 ing to custom in our church. 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, March 23, 1852. 
 
 ... I have been appointed one of the "Super- 
 intending School Committee," the Orthodox and 
 the Baptist clergymen forming the remainder of 
 the Committee. We have the examining teachers 
 and schools to do. There are about fifteen schools, 
 giving about five apiece. I shall take it for this 
 year, it will enable me to get better acquainted with 
 I 98] 
 
Margaret E. White at the age of ttventy-six 
 
f* At^f.ti./€^a /-y. 
 
 ^Lte-u^ 
 
 7'" '■"■" 
 
 (^ /r^^cX^ 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 the children. We receive twenty dollars, which I 
 believe will pay expenses. 
 
 On one occasion when he was on the School 
 Committee, he went to call on a young woman 
 who was to begin to teach for the first time the 
 following Monday in one of the public schools. 
 She confided to him how she was dreading it and 
 that she feared that she should fail as a teacher. 
 "Stop right there," he said; "you never will suc- 
 ceed If you let yourself feel like that." And years 
 afterwards she told him what an incentive his 
 words had been to her. The fact that he had such 
 faith in the Inherent power of human nature was 
 what gave him so much Influence both as a preacher 
 and a pastor. 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Salem, April 2, 1852. 
 
 I had a pleasant trip to Boston and reached the 
 city at twenty-five minutes before seven. How 
 glad I was that my lot was not cast there! What 
 gangs of dirty little swearing children not nine 
 years old I had to pass through on my way to the 
 Eastern Railroad! I should think Boston people 
 would have enough to do one of these days to 
 [99] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 take care of them, if they do not find any time to 
 do so now. Having a half-hour to spare I took my 
 tea in Boston and reached Salem in good season 
 by the 7.20 p.m. train. Going over in the ferry 
 was really exhilarating in the mild spring evening 
 with the moon rolling about In the water and the 
 good old salt smell of the sea again. 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 The crocuses in our garden have been in fine 
 bloom for some eleven days, the grass all around 
 us is deepening its green, and spring has really 
 come. Monadnock, however, still keeps its snow, 
 which gives quite an Alpine tinge to our land- 
 scape, and makes our fields look all the greener. 
 
 In commenting on the business reverses of a 
 friend he says: — 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Keene, June 15. 
 
 . . . And now let me turn to what has been so 
 much in my mind, as I know that it must have been 
 in yours. It is what we cannot hear of without 
 pain, but I cannot regard such changes as "sad," 
 or "melancholy," or "dreadful," when there are so 
 many things that are much more so. G. W. says 
 f 100 1 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 that J. has the sympathy and regret of the com- 
 munity. Where no loss of honor or character is 
 involved, such reverses seem but transient, as in- 
 deed even in a worldly view, to a person so inde- 
 fatigable as J., they must be. I am glad to hear 
 that he bears up nobly, and goes on as if nothing 
 had happened, while at the same time he has 
 shown no wish to keep anything back, but is per- 
 fectly frank and open with all who have any right 
 to know about the matter. Of the full extent of 
 their loss, of course I have not the means of know- 
 ing, but even if it involve the breaking up of habi- 
 tations, etc., how much easier to bear than if it 
 were the death of a husband or wife! Where there 
 is true affection, wealth must seem for a time a 
 thing of no account, when, with it, one cannot 
 gratify the wants or the eye of the friend most 
 dear. But the privations and the toil which pe- 
 cuniary troubles may involve, so long as two 
 hearts bear them together, may only bind these 
 hearts the closer. Our own comparatively simple 
 mode of life may have led us to feel that it would 
 not be a dreadful thing to be poor; and perhaps 
 this is the reason why we are still blessed with 
 enough. It may be that our trials must come from 
 another direction. Possibly these changes may 
 [ loi 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 bring to some persons, and it would be strange if 
 not to everybody, a discipline in the way of char- 
 acter which is "more precious than gold, yea, than 
 much fine gold." 
 
 The following letter was written to his nephew, 
 Henry Wilder Foote, who was afterwards minis- 
 ter of King's Chapel, father of the present Rever- 
 end Henry Wilder Foote: — 
 
 Keene, June i, 1852. 
 Dear Henry — 
 
 Fourteen years old! 
 
 Why, how soon you must take your place among 
 the men! When the time comes for you to do so, I 
 hope you will show yourself a man, indeed. Till 
 then you have enough to do in being faithful to the 
 duties which each day brings with it, without look- 
 ing too anxiously forward to what may lie beyond. 
 In determining your arithmetical problems, it is a 
 poor way to proceed, to jump forward to the an- 
 swer, which may stand printed in the book, and 
 wonder how it was obtained. The only way to do, 
 you well know, is to move forward step by step, 
 and understand what you do, till by and by you 
 guide yourself along to the answer. Very much so 
 it is with the answer which one of these days you 
 [ 102 ] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 will be giving to the problem, "For what purpose 
 am I living here in this world?" 
 
 Your conduct, the spirit with which you enter 
 into your occupation, your whole character, — this 
 will be the answer which you will be giving to the 
 problem of life. Be careful, then, my dear boy, to 
 ponder well each little step which is leading you to 
 your answer. Be obliged to retrace no step. I 
 think that you have tried to understand the steps 
 which you have been taking, so far. And now on 
 this June second, another milestone is set up in 
 your journey. Many more will be set up for you, 
 year by year, I hope^ in this beautiful valley of 
 earth, but it matters not greatly whether there are 
 many more or not, so far as you are concerned, pro- 
 vided you are constantly preparing yourself to 
 give the true answer to the problem which God 
 calls upon us all to solve. It matters not greatly, I 
 say, for if each step in your work is carefully taken, 
 even though you be Interrupted In It, you can begin 
 elsewhere where you left off here, and arrive at the 
 complete answer in a better world than this. 
 
 With my love to your sister and to your father 
 
 and mother, I send you my best wishes for a happy 
 
 year, and with them this birthday present which 
 
 I hereby invest you with the power of causing to 
 
 [ 103 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 take whatever shape you or the shopkeepers may 
 please. 
 
 If Aunt Meggie were in town, she would send 
 her love. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 Uncle William. 
 
 In describing their first parish party given in 
 honor of the former minister, Mrs. White writes 
 to Miss Hale as follows: — 
 
 September 23, 1852. 
 
 One night we lighted up our house, and opened 
 four rooms on the lower floor, and invited the 
 whole society to spend the evening, and the house 
 was thronged. I wish you could have seen how 
 beautifully the house looked. We had quanti- 
 ties of flowers sent in, and they were put every- 
 where, where there was a place for them. It was 
 very pleasant and encouraging, too, to see how the 
 people love Mr. Livermore; there was a sort of 
 festival held all the time he was here. He preached 
 one Sunday to an overflowing house. 
 
 William has been very well since we got back, 
 and is enjoying riding on horseback very much, 
 this fall. He has the occasional use of the horses of 
 two of his parish. 
 
 [ 104 1 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 W. O. W. TO D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, October 29, 1852. 
 . . . The news of Mr. Webster's illness fell on us 
 as on everybody solemnly and suddenly. The peo- 
 ple here have taken it quietly, however. It seems as 
 if, even in death, the sort of difference that existed 
 between him and Clay could be traced. Everybody 
 must go down to Marshfield, an exceedingly out- 
 of-the-way place, who would see the dignified 
 statesman in the dignified repose of death. The 
 grave did not receive the body of Mr. Clay until 
 it had lingered at numerous towns and villages to 
 give the people a convenient opportunity of pay- 
 ing their tribute of respect. Had Mr. Webster 
 died in the way Mr. Clay did, had he taken near 
 a whole year for it, his departure could not have 
 created the sensation which it has. It is no evi- 
 dence that Mr. Webster was popular, the outburst 
 of regret which now arises. The people were more 
 proud of him than of any other man, though they 
 loved others of inferior gifts more. The account of 
 his last hours was profoundly touching. For his 
 fame, to die in office, and to die before men could be 
 wonted to the thought, and just when nothing but 
 a retirement of chagrin was before him — is just 
 the most desirable thing. But if he had died three 
 [ 105 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 years ago, how much better, we are tempted to feel. 
 In his death we look back and see the wonderful 
 flashing of his mind through the history of our last 
 fifty years; — we do not feel bereft, as in the case of 
 Taylor, however, by looking forward and feeling, 
 as we did then, that one was taken away in the 
 bitter time of need. 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, November 17, 1852. 
 
 You speak of the election. The two platforms 
 were certainly very similar this year, and the 
 Whig seemed to be approximating to the Demo- 
 cratic. A high tariif no longer contended for, no 
 denouncing of the Sub-Treasury, no silence even 
 upon the matter of slavery or its extension, whether 
 through possession of Cuba or in any other way. 
 Such a platform was hardly adapted to counteract 
 the progress of the Democratic Party, which had 
 been steadily coming forward since the election 
 four years ago, for even then the Whigs only par- 
 tially succeeded. I voted for Scott, but had he not 
 been attacked for the reason that he was the choice 
 of the majority of the New York delegates, who 
 voted against the gag resolution in the platform, 
 I should not have felt willing to, and could not 
 f 106 ] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 have voted for any one. I thought it too bad, how- 
 ever, that he should lose, both at the North and 
 South, from the position in which the Convention 
 unwarrantably placed him. It does not seem prob- 
 able, however, that any course or any candidate 
 could have prevented the Democrats succeeding 
 this time, by some majority. 
 
 To R. H. W, 
 
 Keene, January 6, 1853. 
 
 . . . We have admitted to our barn some new 
 inhabitants. I do not now refer to our two smart 
 kittens, for they are decidedly more addicted to 
 the house, but to six hens that soon will be and a 
 rooster who have had a corner set off for them by 
 Mr. B., our chore man and Jack-at-all-trades, who 
 hunted up the chickens and hammered together 
 their boarding-place. Mr. B. looks in on us once or 
 twice a week and we breathe freer for having no 
 boy to freeze by the doorstep, or run away. One 
 tgg we have only realized the past fortnight, but 
 the future — well, the future is sadly blotted by the 
 tumbling over of my pen and that may indicate 
 that the future will be eggless. I was about say- 
 ing, however, that to the future we look, as in life 
 and experience generally, for the realization of our 
 [ 107 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 dreams regarding the economics of hens. They 
 dispose of some of the crumbs which fall from our 
 table, not sufficiently inviting to tempt any modern 
 Lazarus. Meggie thought six an ample number, 
 and we shall not have a family quarrel on the sub- 
 ject, as the seventh has died, the owner I fear, how- 
 ever, of the golden egg. . . . 
 
 The following letter shows that there is nothing 
 new under the sun, whatever changes there may 
 be in the forms of our insect pests: — 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, June 21, 1853. 
 
 . . . Still, although our roses will be withered and 
 our leaves less green, we shall hope that your visit 
 in July may be pleasant to you, unless you witness 
 the fulfilment of the Scripture that "that which 
 the palmer- worm hath left, hath the locust eaten; 
 and that which the locust hath left, hath the canker- 
 worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath 
 left, hath the caterpillar eaten." 
 
 True as the book, only for "locust" read "cur- 
 culio," and for "palmer-worm," "currant worm," 
 and amend by saying that if the caterpillar is to 
 subsist on the leavings of the canker-worm, he will 
 have but slender pickings. 
 
 [ 108 1 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 Our "beautiful mild winter," so much compli- 
 mented in its day, seems to have kept alive numer- 
 ous eggs of divers uncouth and harmful insects 
 who are now let abroad upon the land, cursing 
 every green thing. 
 
 The canker-worm has been unknown till this 
 season, but now, he (and his name is legion) is 
 upon every apple tree, and is dividing the plum 
 trees with the little curculio, who, faithful to the 
 modern principle of division of labor, has always 
 confined his labors to one description of fruit. View 
 him now distanced, on his own ground, by this 
 omnivorous reptile! 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, Monday, December 5, 1853. 
 
 Meggie and I drove out two miles on that sunny 
 afternoon to take tea by appointment at one of our 
 parishioners', where we met three or four pleas- 
 ant people from other parishes, and the "school- 
 master." Our tea went beyond any former experi- 
 ence. A liberal pile of bread, little saucers of citron, 
 and also of jelly, by each plate, custards, apple 
 tarts, cheese, gingerbread, doughnuts, and a great 
 central Thanksgiving cake. Peter is the parrot who 
 knows my voice. When our pilgrimage through 
 [ 109 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 these various dainties was nearly completed, a 
 pause occurring in the conversation I called aloud 
 on Peter. Peter answered, "Morel" "What!" say 
 I to my good hostess, in jest, "Peter cannot mean 
 that there is more coming?" "Oh, no! he means 
 that he wants more." But Peter was a more cun- 
 ning prophet than I supposed. In a few moments 
 in came a large dish of walnuts and butternuts, 
 also of apples and of parched corn. 
 
 We had a bright moonlight drive home, and I am 
 happy to inform you that we are both alive this 
 morning. 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, March l6, 1854. 
 It seems to be rather a "transition period" in 
 temperance matters at present; but if the friends 
 of prohibitory measures are firm and judicious, I 
 cannot but think that within fifteen years the state 
 of public morals will be materially better and many 
 of our smaller towns relieved of some of the eye- 
 sores which disfigure them. If the law cannot reach 
 these grogshops and taverns, I fear that we have 
 seen the top wave of temperance and that it will 
 never rise higher except at rare intervals by spas- 
 modic efforts, or (to pursue the figure) except when 
 [ no] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 some heavy gale like that of '41 sweeps over the 
 country. . . . 
 
 As to the schools, if put on the Committee this 
 year, I shall feel, considering the High School, as if 
 it would be better for our old board to work to- 
 gether again. When I was first chosen, I thought I 
 would serve three years, if I were in Keene all the , 
 time, and then take a vacation. Two of the three 
 have quickly gone. Another year, I fear, some one 
 who has served longer will want exemption first, 
 but while I continue in my present health, I can 
 attend to the schools. There is nothing about them 
 that wears upon the heart like the duties I have 
 been called to lately. We received on Tuesday a 
 fine box of oranges which we have enjoyed, dis- 
 tributing, as they mellow, among sick folks, besides 
 eating them ourselves. 
 
 Keene, April 18, 1854. 
 Dear Father and Mother — 
 
 We are anxious to see Emily in our house and 
 hope that she will stow away, if needful, some one 
 of her children under the instep (did n't Mother 
 Goose's old woman feel at liberty to do this when 
 she went gadding?) and bring the rest with her, if 
 she can pacify her conscience as a visitor more 
 I III ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 easily thus, than by giving us the pleasure of seeing 
 them all. 
 
 I am rejoicing this week In a week without a 
 Fast. It seems as if the week would be fourteen 
 days long. We have, however, a Teachers' Insti- 
 tute in session, and the ministers, in their double 
 function of public characters and Committee of 
 education, must be often seen at its sessions, which 
 are, some of them, quite interesting. 
 
 I hear, for this month, as a special favor, the son 
 of Colonel Adams In his Georgics and Greek 
 Reader, for three times a week. He occupies the 
 hour after dinner, and as he is an uncommonly 
 pleasing and a good and intelligent lad. It does not 
 much disturb me. The boy could not get Into the 
 High School, from his father's having left the town. 
 It gives me a chance to renew my classics a little, 
 and to read the Georgics for the first time. 
 
 In the summer of 1854 Mr. and Mrs. White's 
 vacation was spent in taking a trip to Niagara 
 Falls. They did not reach the Clifton House until 
 nearly midnight owing to an accident to the train, 
 but In spite of the lateness of the hour they could 
 not resist "sallying forth in quest of a lunar rain- 
 bow." He says: — 
 
 [ 112] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 *'0n and on we walked until we came to Table 
 Rock and beyond it. We saw no rainbow, but 
 under the full moon, we had the most exquisitely 
 beautiful view of the falls which we have yet had. 
 The columns of spray rose in drooping veils of sil- 
 ver dust high into the air, and even flew across the 
 moon's distant face. . . . We are entirely satisfied 
 that the Canada side is the side on which to stay. 
 Our room opens out with its long windows upon a 
 piazza, which, as well as the room, gives us a view 
 of the falls as good as we could desire, and we hear 
 that deep bass which 'rests not day nor night,* 
 sometimes with almost painful distinctness. . . . 
 
 After dinner, which occurs at three o'clock, we 
 read Mrs. Stowe's beguiling book of ' Sunny Memo- 
 ries ' on our piazza, looking up every now and then 
 to gaze on the cataracts or down upon the 'New 
 Maid of the Mist' as she was winding around the 
 hem of the cataract's garment. After dinner, 
 Meggie and I walked to the edge of the Horse- 
 Shoe Fall on the Canada side, where there is a 
 thick log projecting into the stream. It is a little 
 above Table Rock. I had walked here the day 
 before. To me it gives the finest view of the falls 
 which I have seen. You seem to be almost within 
 the vortex of the cataract, and the exquisitely 
 
 [ 113 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 formed curve of the Horse-Shoe Fall nowhere so 
 beautifully appears as here, and on the pitiful little 
 fragment of Table Rock which remains. I far, 
 very, very far prefer the Horse-Shoe Fall with that 
 curve, and the evergreen water with its hoarser 
 depths, to the American Fall. . . . When I was 
 here in an October snowstorm on my way to St. 
 Louis, and ill with a very bad cold, I was far from 
 deriving as much enjoyment as now from the falls, 
 apart from my being compelled then to see them 
 alone. But my view then of the American Fall, as, 
 on looking up to it, it seemed (for the snow and the 
 fog) to touch the sky, gave me an idea of the height 
 of the falls which no subsequent view ever equalled. 
 The sight of the falls (which I have had twenty 
 times since beginning this letter) is a continual 
 joy — a perpetual feast to the eyes. They can drink 
 deep." 
 
 It is pleasant to read of the cordial welcome that 
 awaited them on their return from their summer 
 vacation. Three of their special friends were at the 
 house to greet them, one of whom took them home 
 to supper. And the next evening several more 
 parishioners called. 
 
 [ 114 1 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, September 4, 1854. 
 
 Meggie has had supplies of cake, seven kinds, 
 from five different sources, so that we may be in 
 danger of becoming too high Hvers. A loaf of bread 
 came shortly after our arrival which was more 
 acceptable than all the cake. Sundry pies have 
 found their way also hither, and Mr. Wheeler the 
 evening that he came brought us butter. But the 
 best of all is that, during our absence, there has 
 been no severe sickness and not a single death* in 
 the parish. In contrast with the months of January 
 and March, in one of which five, in another six, 
 funerals occurred, we have reason to be very grate- 
 ful for the health that has prevailed among us. . . . 
 
 The small-pox is creating some alarm here. They 
 have established a pest-house about two miles off, 
 but some of the patients prefer their own houses. 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, September 27, 1854. 
 
 I preached two new sermons last Sunday, in 
 spite of having given three half-days to schools 
 during the week, and my having two guests. I am 
 glad that I have been able to preach three years 
 without repeating a sermon, and by the time I am 
 [ 115 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 compelled to do so, shall trust that they will not 
 be too promptly recognized. 
 
 To D. A. W. AND R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, January 24, 1855. 
 
 ... At about 8.45 Mary and I were ready to set 
 forth on our way to the Methodist festival, which 
 was much like the Baptist ditto save the extrac- 
 tion of some of the more familiar stars. There were 
 more strange faces. I was put upon a very high 
 rostrum where I talked four or five minutes "as 
 one beating the air," or rather (with the sea of 
 faces beating to and fro in front) more like a strug- 
 gling sailor in the waves, calling for help and not 
 rousing any one to hear him. Those in front were 
 attentive, but a Post-Ofhce just opened at the side 
 of the hall was a formidable rival, and so great was 
 the chattering that I was soon glad to taste the 
 sweets of obscurity and ice-cream in the throng 
 below. 
 
 Brother Robbins next mounted, and though he 
 excelled me in brevity, I had the malignant satis- 
 faction of finding that even his more sonorous 
 voice spoke no peace to those tumultuous waves. 
 Neither did Mr. Beedle nor Mr. Prentiss enchain 
 that wild and wandering throng. . . . 
 [ 116] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 Keene, September 25, 1855. 
 In Meggle's letter to Mary, you will hear of our 
 very pleasant trip to Charlestown ten days since. 
 It was a drive on Saturday afternoon of about 
 twenty-five, and by the different road we took 
 Monday morning in returning, of twenty-seven 
 miles. We encountered some severe hills, but the 
 views were exquisite, showing us Ascutney on the 
 north and Monadnock on the south. We had plenty 
 of blackberries, and passed through some fine 
 woods. We were very hospitably received at our 
 hosts' house (Mr. and Mrs. Sylvester) and dined 
 with Mrs. Ayer (the new minister's wife) at the 
 hotel, and took tea at Dr. Crosby's. The Sylves- 
 ters' biscuit from flour from his own New Hampshire 
 wheat was exceedingly sweet and good. I gave out 
 in the afternoon three hymns which were married 
 some hundred years ago to good old tunes, and in 
 every instance Mr. Gushing, the organist, confirmed 
 the validity of that marriage, or rather denied the 
 validity of any divorce, so that our "meeting" was 
 particularly pleasant. . . . 
 
 [ 117] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Keene, January 22, 1856. 
 
 . . . Then I trudged up to Mrs. Houghton's and 
 talked with her and her husband while some nine- 
 teen doughnuts were fried under my nose. A most 
 singular coincidence. As I returned the whole air 
 was filled with the perfume of frying dough. Every 
 house in the village must have been engaged in the 
 operation. The clear winter air seemed poisoned. 
 Nay, you might have thought that meteoric dough- 
 nuts had fallen from upper planets. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Houghton said, a lady had guessed that I 
 was about thirty, and that old Mrs. Leonard used 
 to ask about your and my age, and Mrs. H. could 
 not enlighten her, and the centenarian had settled 
 down into the idea that you were a year or two the 
 elder. This I mention lest old Mr. Perry's com- 
 pliments should turn your head, and because it is 
 so rare for me to be taken for less old than I am. 
 
 Keene, February 3, 1857. 
 . . . Having been at home throughout January, I 
 was looking forward to an exchange on Sunday last 
 with Mr. Ayer, of Charlestown, who arrived here 
 about 2 P.M. But after four visits to the railroad, 
 (thanks to the telegraph), I gave up the expedition 
 f 118 1 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 at 7 P.M. and made the most of Mr. Ayer's com- 
 pany, the exchange with whom was converted into 
 a very agreeable labor of love on his part next day. 
 The morning train of Saturday for Charlestown 
 did not reach Keene till lo p.m. Sunday night, and 
 did not proceed to Charlestown till Monday morn- 
 ing. The detention was owing to heavy snows and 
 the subsequent rain which, when the weather grew 
 cold again, fastened the snow to the rails. . . . 
 
 Keene, February 19, 1857. 
 ... I had three funeral services to attend last 
 week. One of them occurred in church, the first 
 funeral there since I was settled. It was the hus- 
 band of a worthy woman, who has within a year 
 lost her only child, a young man of thirty-one who 
 died. The husband had been for a few years insane, 
 but the wife had been hoping for his recovery. 
 Previous to the loss of her faithful and enterprising 
 son and the insanity of her husband, the good 
 woman was stretched sick upon her bed for about 
 a year. She is now able to help herself and she 
 bears her troubles like a Christian. I preached 
 Sunday forenoon upon resignation from the text, 
 "O my Father, if the cup may not pass away from 
 me, except I drink it, thy will be done." I tried to 
 [ 119] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 state what was and what was not included In this 
 virtue, and was glad to hear Mrs. W. (the person 
 in question) say that it had helped her to make her 
 mind clearer on the subject. I suppose she had been 
 fearing that she lamented too much the loss of her 
 former joys. I said (and I most firmly believe it), 
 in the course of the sermon, that a person who so 
 severely felt an affliction as to lead all his friends 
 to say that he had "never been the same person 
 since," might have far more of true Christian resig- 
 nation than a person who seemed to "bear up" 
 much better. The fact is, some persons live infin- 
 itely more than others in the household affections. 
 Some have few deep* affections, perhaps none. 
 Others difi"use them over a larger surface and have 
 so many friends that they are less dependent upon 
 the one or two or three that are essential to the 
 identity of another person. 
 
 To R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, Friday, March 6, 1857. 
 Mr. Buchanan's inaugural does not give us much 
 to hope for, though we had no reason to expect that 
 it would. It is more melancholy to see a man and a 
 Northern man of age and experience (like him or 
 Mr. Cass) coolly maintaining that Slavery at this 
 [ 120 ] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 period of the world may be voted in or not into 
 any new Territories accordingly as those who first 
 rush to the spot may happen to choose, than to 
 see a man of Pierce's calibre contending for such 
 a diabolical proposition. Sooner than that new 
 States should be added to Slavery in this way, I 
 would see the Union torn to shreds; and yet I have 
 faith that this wicked, Satanic doctrine will, under 
 Providence, with proper exertions of those who 
 love Freedom, result in dealing a more effectual 
 blow at Slavery than any that has been dealt at 
 the monster. Shocking as it seems to give Slavery 
 and Freedom the race-course, and oifer the prize 
 to her who will first reach the goal, yet it must 
 seem strange, indeed, if in such a race Freedom 
 should not conquer. 
 
 After the christening of his eldest child, he writes : 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, June 7, 1857. 
 Sunday afternoon. 
 
 It would have always been a source of regret if 
 my father and my child had not been living at the 
 same time. It is a great comfort to think that you 
 and mother were here just when you were. It was 
 just the time to christen the child. The newness of 
 I 121 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 the relation which her mother and I bore to her 
 gave more excitement to the act of consecration 
 at that time, although we may fancy that we love 
 the child more as she grows older. I think I can 
 understand better now why young Benjamin 
 Franklin and all the babies of that generation were 
 baptized on or very near to the day of the birth. 
 To put off for two or three twelvemonths such a 
 service seems like one's remembering in the middle 
 of the afternoon that he has not thanked God yet 
 for the first light of the morning. 
 
 But how strange it seems to think that you can 
 be eighty-one! How contentedly would I "com- 
 promise," if spared (as I have not the least expec- 
 tation I shall be) to the age of sixty, to be permitted 
 at that age to have as much mental and physical 
 vigor as you now have. It is now (within three 
 months) nearly twenty-two years since your regular 
 correspondence with me commenced. 
 
 God make this, as much as his Providence will 
 permit, a year to you and mother of comfort and 
 peace! God guard and keep us all, and enable us 
 to say for ourselves and for our friends with 
 Milton: "Nor love thy life, nor hate, but what 
 thou liv'st, live well, how long, how short, permit 
 to Heaven!" 
 
 [ 122 ] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 ... I found Edward Hale and his wife here. . . . 
 E. E. Hale's preaching was much admired, with 
 one dissenting voice — that of a little four-year- 
 old lamb who thought he made more noise than 
 Mr. White, and felt that he beat the Bible too 
 familiarly. . . . 
 
 In speaking of a journey to North Conway he 
 writes : — 
 
 Kearsarge Village (North Conway), 
 
 Friday, July 24, 1857. 
 
 We had a beautiful day Tuesday. The air was 
 sweet and perfectly free from dust. . . . We lunched 
 at White River Junction on our March chicken 
 kindly spared by the cat (who ate his sister at an 
 early age) for our present adventure. Said chicken 
 was garnished with ice-cream which we found at the 
 "Junction." . . . Yesterday, Thursday, I walked 
 a mile and a half to the village and through it to 
 hire a baby wagon and get pail, basket, dipper, 
 etc., for the baby. But I had to enter three or four 
 houses and talk with their inmates before I found 
 a "home-made" wagon belonging to a boy of some 
 five or six summers. This I drew back with me, 
 loading it with some of my smaller purchases. This 
 morning I have drawn the baby in it for a half- 
 [ 123 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 hour and it goes very well. No carriage could be 
 bought, they thought, short of Portland. 
 
 North Conway, New Hampshire, 
 July 31, 1857. Friday, 3 p.m. 
 
 Dear Father and Mother: — 
 
 When I wrote last, I was under an engagement to 
 preach in Lancaster fifty-two miles off, on Sunday. 
 I had determined to go in an open wagon, having 
 found that it would on various accounts be more 
 convenient than the stage-coaches. When about 
 eight miles from here, without any apparent reason 
 for the movement, my horse fell full length. The 
 long journey through the Notch rose before me 
 and I felt as if I had not made a very auspicious 
 beginning. I could not, alone, get the horse to his 
 feet, but fortunately I was opposite to an old red 
 house in Bartlett at whose door sat a septuagena- 
 rian by the name of Joseph Weeks who came to the 
 rescue. As it began to sprinkle, I put the "team" 
 under the shelter of the shed and passed fifteen 
 minutes with my new acquaintance, who, upon my 
 asking what I could do for him, replied that he 
 would be glad to have me sometime send him a 
 newspaper. 
 
 I reached what used to be "Old Crawford's" 
 [ 124 ] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 at about 7.15 p.m. Dr. Bemis, a Boston dentist, is 
 now proprietor of most of the territory and is liv- 
 ing with his farm laborers at the hotel which is 
 closed. I asked for oats for my horse, and he won- 
 dered at my expecting to get farther that night. I 
 told him that if I met with any misadventure, it 
 would make another story for the Notch. He said 
 that he would rather have me live to write any 
 such story. On his asking me to stop I said, "But 
 the hotel is closed." He told me that if I would be 
 content with farmer's fare, I might be welcome to 
 stop. So I went in, and after my "tea and toast" 
 the doctor and I had two or three hours' chat about 
 the mountains and some of his pedestrian adven- 
 tures in exploring them. Next morning at eight 
 I began my second day's journey of thirty-four 
 miles. 
 
 . . . When twelve miles from Lancaster in the 
 town of Jefferson I had the finest view of Mount 
 Washington which I have yet seen. My plan was 
 to spend the night at the "Glen House." To avoid 
 seven additional miles by Gorham I concluded to 
 try an old, half-abandoned road through the forest. 
 The road was secluded enough: the silver firs on 
 each side as thick as if they grew in nurseries. I 
 had to ford two streams, the latter the " Peabody 
 I 125 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 River," which, though not deep, had uncomfort- 
 ably large stones in it. But when all this was sur- 
 mounted, there appeared a narrow, dry ravine up 
 which ran a path almost as straight as a fly's on a 
 wall (a bridge here being gone). I tried to lead my 
 horse up, but though he tried bravely to follow, 
 the earth slid from under him. I crept up the bank 
 and descried a house. I summoned help. The man 
 (Charles Davis) told me that they generally took 
 out their horses there; that one man did try to go 
 up, but that the top of his wagon would have fallen 
 off, if some one had not seen what was about to 
 happen in season. He had a horse, however, that 
 would "go up Bunker Hill Monument." So he 
 got his horse, and stationing him at the top of the 
 bank, hitched long iron chains to the buggy and 
 then whipping the horse the refractory vehicle was 
 drawn up. I soon had my horse reharnessed, and 
 being now on the travelled road (though terribly 
 black and muddy) to the "Glen House," reached it 
 after two miles' travel at between seven and eight. 
 Its situation is very picturesque and the house 
 exceedingly good. I found Lucretia, Susan, and 
 Edward Hale there. Twenty miles more next day 
 (Tuesday) brought me to North Conway in season 
 for dinner. 
 
 [ 126 1 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Keene, September 2, 1857. 
 After dinner I walked up Mount Wlllard, and in 
 about an hour, after going over a black and muddy 
 road, reached the top, taking care, as I approached 
 the summit, to bend my eyes to the ground, until I 
 came to the very top, and then — I was completely 
 carried away. It is the crown of my journey, alone 
 worth the whole journey. And it is unlike any view 
 that I can remember, my Swiss impressions being 
 providentially so obliterated by the lapse of fifteen 
 years that they do not rise up in judgment against 
 this view. The view is truly wonderful. It seems 
 like looking into the hold of a mighty ship, and the 
 jagged sides of the Notch seem here as symmetrical 
 as the rounding sides of a bowl. The curve is per- 
 fect. Three times I went back to look again after 
 I had turned away. I have nowhere in this coun- 
 try so felt the grandeur of mountains, for Mount 
 Willard being happily lower than Webster and 
 Willey, which rise in front at either hand, you se- 
 cure the privilege of looking up to what is elevat- 
 ing, as well as down on what is beautiful. I wanted 
 to pull you over from Conway. Whenever you see 
 it, let it be in the afternoon. I saw Mount Crawford 
 at the farther end of the view, and reminded my- 
 [ 127 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 self that it was more of a mountain for your having 
 been on It. . . . 
 
 Reaching Keene, as I before said, I am pleased 
 to find that West Mountain seems a good deal 
 nearer the size of Moat Mountain than it did yes- 
 terday. I think it is growing. And as for Beech 
 Hill, I can see nothing the other side of it. 
 
 The year 1857 Is marked by the first of the three 
 great sorrows which were to shadow the next few 
 years. The tie between my father and his sister 
 Mary had been peculiarly strong and her death 
 was a very heavy blow. 
 
 To Mrs. F. J. Higginson 
 
 Keene, January i, 1858. 
 
 My dear Friend: — 
 
 Your very kind note reached me here, and we 
 thank you for it. I say "we," for Margaret, before 
 Mary was taken ill, had said to me that she 
 thought she knew no difference between her love 
 for her and that she felt for her own sisters. We 
 find, as the days pass on, the circle widening of 
 those to whom Mary's love was invaluable. Mrs. 
 Perry (formerly Miss Endicott), whom I met at 
 Cousin Nancy's in Salem, told me that she never 
 had such a friend out of her own family. Mrs. 
 f 128 1 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 Upham called to see us all in Salem, and was so 
 overcome for a few moments that she could not 
 speak. She said that she felt it was well that they 
 had not been thrown so constantly together of 
 late years as they once had, for "if we had been," 
 she added, "this would have broken my heart." 
 
 Harriet Peirson is another friend whose grief is 
 so deep that she has longed to wear mourning for 
 her. Mary's new friends, Ellen Peirson and Martha 
 Lowe, with their husbands, feel that they have met 
 with a severe bereavement. Frank Peabody (son 
 of Rev. W. B. O. P.) wrote me that his wife told 
 him, after first seeing Mary, that there was no 
 friend, ' whom she had made since her childhood," 
 to whom her heart warmed so much as to her. Rev. 
 Dr. Smith of Newton, who married a cousin of ours 
 (who was an only child), told us that his wife said 
 that "Mary had seemed to her like a sister." ! 
 
 President Walker writes to father, "She was as 
 perfect an example of what a Christian daughter, 
 wife, and mother should be, as ever I knew." 
 
 Keene, Thursday, January 14, 1858. 
 
 My dear Father: — 
 
 I thank you for your letter which I received on 
 Monday. ... I was particularly interested in what 
 I 129 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 you said about Mary and was glad that you could 
 also recall her under so many cheering and soothing 
 aspects. But how heavy the thought is at times 
 that we cannot see her here again. How like a new 
 revelation the sense of the loss keeps coming up! 
 And how could we expect it to be otherwise? There 
 would be something unnatural in our state of mind, 
 could we be saved from such depressing thoughts. 
 Our conviction that the Love from which her own 
 love welled forth is deeper and purer and wiser than 
 all earthly love can be, cannot make everything 
 what it was, nor can God intend that it should be 
 the means of blotting out the past. But we must 
 all face the great, inevitable law of separation. It is 
 nothing new. It has always been going on. How 
 hard it is not to feel that such a trial is out of the 
 common course! But is it not better to feel that 
 each pang we feel, we bear for her, each moment of 
 desolation is so much that she is spared from? I 
 think her husband must find strength in the new 
 revelation of the extent of what Mary's sorrow 
 would have been had she been left without him 
 here. 
 
 I cordially respond to what you say about our 
 cause for gratitude that we have been blessed 
 with such a life so long. In my own case certainly 
 [ 130 ] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 (and I dare say you will feel In yours) this bereave- 
 ment comes as one result of my living In this world 
 so much longer than I once expected. We are gen- 
 erally willing to recover from our sicknesses, and 
 we ought to feel always that we have much to live 
 for, but when our own lives are spared again and 
 again, we must not expect to keep our most cher- 
 ished blessings by us too, through all life's changes. 
 If we pray for longer life here, we must take its 
 darkness and its light together. 
 
 Keene, February 19, 1858. 
 
 My dear Father: — 
 
 Your very welcome birthday letter arrived upon 
 the 1 2th. ... I was reminded of an Interesting 
 occurrence a year since. As you say, father, "occa- 
 sions are constantly arising to freshen our sense of 
 Mary's loss." Well, I remember that upon my last 
 birthday. In her letter, she said something like this! 
 "What a sweet birthday greeting for William to 
 feel the velvet touch of those little hands on his 
 cheek as he wakes In the morning!" It did so hap- 
 pen that that very morning, for the first time In her 
 life, the baby had put her hand on my cheeks as I 
 bent over her crib when she waked, and I had been 
 thinking in my mind that it was a "sweet birthday 
 [ 131 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 greeting" when, a few hours after, Mary's letter 
 arrived. Of course this anniversary brought her 
 back with renewed distinctness. She always re- 
 membered these periods so well. It was particu- 
 larly cheering to me to find that there were those 
 still left who could remember a day so marked in 
 my own experience. 
 
 Somewhat singularly, the first person in afflic- 
 tion whom I was called to see, on returning from 
 Salem, was a lady who was mourning the loss of a 
 sister who had died at a distance. I saw her again 
 afterward and she said she felt better and happier 
 since I had led her to reflect upon her sister's 
 *' being better off where she was," for before, in the 
 midst of her own grief, she had n't stopped to think 
 about that! I thought, on leaving her house, that 
 perhaps it was a lesson that one need not be on the 
 search for out-of-the-way topics of consolation. 
 
 Well, the second case that occurred was a funeral 
 where sisters were the chief mourners. But when 
 I began to speak about the early and tender recol- 
 lections of home as I did on a subsequent call, I 
 found that the family had been plunged into the 
 hardships of life very early — the old home broken 
 up when they were yet children, and each left to 
 plough her own furrow down the sands of time 
 [ 132 ] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 unto the threescore and tenth landmark which 
 they had all nearly reached. . . . 
 
 I preached at home on Sunday, but expect to go 
 to Winchester, twelve miles off, the ensuing Sunday. 
 I exchange with a Universalist preacher. That is 
 the village where Dartmouth College would have 
 been located, had not the chief proprietor of the 
 settlement (Willard, by name) recoiled from the 
 thought of the injury which the thriving township 
 might receive from the influx of a company of 
 dissolute youngsters. There is a beautiful belt of 
 ancient pines, some twenty-one in number, which 
 gird the Ashuelot River, right upon the main street 
 of the town, whose shadows, thrown upon the snow 
 in the moonlight, had a very picturesque effect. 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, May ii, 1858. 
 Meggie and I were busy yesterday digging about 
 some of our rosebushes, and to-day I have been 
 setting out a tree or two, and uprooting dead ones. 
 I have begun to trim my hedge which is quite an 
 affair, and I see enough to do, including the "work- 
 ing up" of a little wood, to keep me in the open air 
 a good week or more "steady," if I could take as 
 much consecutive time. Two young sparrows are 
 [ 133 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 refitting their nest in our honeysuckle about a 
 yard from our parlor window. I would give a six- 
 pence to know they were the same pair who first 
 built the edifice last year. Were Mother and you 
 to enter the kitchen, you would hear much loud 
 bleating which you would perceive to be instantly 
 quieted by some member of the family going to a 
 basket and covering it with her hands. It was 
 Maggie's care at intervals yesterday in this way to 
 provide for the members of a feathered family 
 much in the same plight with those who called her 
 who lived in a shoe, "Mother." My hen with her 
 nineteen eggs became so impatient of the delay of 
 her latter-day chickens (for there must be a last, 
 as well as a first among nineteen) that we had to 
 take the alphas away that she might concentrate 
 her brooding thoughts upon the omegas^ an opera- 
 tion not perfectly consistent with a constant desire 
 to lead out the early ones into the world. We trust 
 they will all form one family again in a day or two. 
 We were very pleasantly excited a few days since 
 by learning that the house which stares into our 
 kitchen windows (and was pushed into the corner 
 where it now is, some four years since) has been 
 bought by a neighbor (to whose house it is as near 
 as our sparrow's nest to our parlor window) and 
 I 134] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 will be moved off this fall. It thrills my heart with 
 more pleasurable emotions than the marriage of 
 the Princess Royal, or even the marriages of every 
 one of the Queen's family would. How beneficently 
 Providence distributes and proportions our sources 
 of pleasure! 
 
 Chester, Vermont, June 21, 1858. 
 Dear Father: — 
 
 We have heard of "the pursuit of knowledge 
 under difficulties," and were you to see me in this 
 long dining-room with my lamp between the castor 
 and piles of plates upon the side table (being driven 
 to these quarters by new paint in the parlor), you 
 might think I was practising chirography under 
 somewhat of difficulty. But I want to tell you and 
 mother a little about the first day of our little 
 journey. 
 
 After dinner we proceeded (to drive) towards 
 Chester, reaching C. at about seven on the longest 
 day of the year, with L. as happy as a little singing 
 bird at the close of her thirty-eight miles' drive. 
 She has been only a little comfort all day, some- 
 times coaxing us to let her throw a stone into the 
 "pretty water" that it may go "splash," or asking 
 for flowers, but not crying from morning to night. 
 [ 135 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 She enjoyed amazingly getting out and romping 
 through the covered bridge between Walpole and 
 Westminster with her mother. . . . But about 
 6 P.M., as we had made our journey four miles 
 longer by taking a wrong road (which gave us such 
 picturesque views as only wrong roads do), she 
 wanted "minnie milk." I stopped at rather an un- 
 promising little cottage (in front of which strode a 
 flock of twenty-five turkeys with hens and chickens 
 not far off), and passing through the open door 
 where a little girl of five or six was sitting, I told, 
 to quite an old gray-beard, the story of a little hun- 
 gry girl about two years old who had tasted no 
 milk the livelong day, producing L.'s silver cup 
 which was instantly filled, and which she drank 
 with perfect delight. . . . 
 
 The scenery we have enjoyed very much. The 
 grape blossoms scented the air this morning, and 
 the day was all that a fine day can be. It is the first 
 time we have ever taken just such a trip together, 
 and the first time we have taken any journey just 
 at this season, and it seems to be doing us all 
 good. We set off, we hope, at about seven to-mor- 
 row for our thirty miles' drive to Manchester, Ver- 
 mont, the Ultima Thule of our expedition as we 
 expect. 
 
 [ 136 1 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 Keene, July 6, 1858. 
 One evening of last week we had four young men 
 (being part of Margaret's Sunday-School Class) 
 at tea with us. I heard that one of them said after- 
 wards that "if anybody did n't have a good time 
 at Mr, White's, he'd better go off into the woods 
 by himself." 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, Wednesday, September 15, 1858. 
 
 I preached last Sunday afternoon about the 
 English translations of the Scriptures, that is, 
 Wyckliffe's, Tyndale's, Coverdale's, and the King 
 James one, including in the sermon historical inci- 
 dents connected with the painful and protracted, 
 birth of the Bible into English. The English 
 Hexapla which I got in London for you and which 
 you transferred to me was my authority. It took 
 me some time to compile the sermon, but I was 
 paid by the information which I thus fastened in 
 my own mind. It has set me to reading more about 
 Wyckliffe in the Vaughan's "Life of Wyckliffe" 
 which you once gave me and in a German Life of 
 him which I have. 
 
 Yesterday morning there came a big box to my 
 door (with notes which I may by and by enclose 
 [ 137 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 for you to see) containing fifteen volumes of the 
 edition now In publication of the Encyclopedia 
 Britannica (with promise of the remaining volumes, 
 when issued), from my parish. It is just what I 
 wanted, and the circumstances under which this 
 gift of a hundred dollars or more was made are 
 very pleasant. We were entirely taken by surprise 
 in its reception. 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, September 27, 1858. 
 O the comet! Is n't he an agreeable arrival.? I 
 fear you must go outdoors to see him, but perhaps 
 you may see from your study window the "blazing 
 star" as a neighbor of mine called it. On my telling 
 him said comet's tail was six million miles long, he 
 replied, "Well, that ar is a kind o' curus." Comet 
 from coma, hair, from its bearded appearance. See 
 Encyclopedia, Britannica (the parish, his gift). 
 
 To D. A. W. AND R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, February 15, 1859. 
 
 On Saturday evening, some wedding guests with 
 a bride and bridegroom appeared unexpectedly in 
 my parlor. Upon my remarking that I had found 
 February 12 a good day to be born on, and I did n't 
 
 I 138 ] 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 see why it might not be a good day to be married 
 on, the bride remarked that it was her birthday, 
 and that it was for that reason it had been selected 
 as the wedding day. If they had undertaken to 
 hunt up a minister in the State at large whose 
 birthday was thus coincident, it might have taken 
 them some time. . . . 
 
 To D. A. W. 
 
 Keene, Jpril 13, i860. 
 They [the parish] showed their good-will by 
 adding fifty dollars to my salary which evens off 
 the fractions and gives me four hundred dollars 
 twice a year besides my wood which is worth about 
 ninety more. It is amusing to see how many things 
 M. and I have been doing with that fifty to-day. 
 We have spent it in imagination almost fifty times 
 over. One gentleman remarking that it was but a 
 small addition, I told him that it was a good deal 
 pleasanter than to hear that fifty had been taken 
 oflF. 
 
 In the summer of i860 my father took a horse- 
 back journey with his young friend and opposite 
 neighbor, Charles A. Boies. The route they took 
 was one that is a favorite with motorists to-day, 
 [ 139 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 for their journey included part of the Connecticut 
 Valley, the Green Mountains, the Berkshlres, and 
 the Catskills. No tourists of the present day as 
 they flash through town after town can get greater 
 enjoyment out of their journey than did the two 
 horseback riders, whose unsatisfactory stable horses 
 shied at the stage-coaches as they passed, and re- 
 fused to accommodate themselves to the saddles, 
 which had evidently been borrowed for the occa- 
 sion. It was a leisurely progress, as in almost every 
 town, one or the other of the equestrians had 
 friends whom they both stopped to see, and as an 
 invitation to a dinner or supper usually followed, 
 their trip was a delightfully social affair. In Wal- 
 pole, for instance, they had their supper at the 
 Frederick Knapps', then made a call on Dr. Bel- 
 lows, and afterwards went to see another friend 
 who, to quote from a letter of my father's, "got an 
 antediluvian pair of saddle-bags from his barn 
 which proved so much more capacious than mine 
 that I carried them in front (or rather over the 
 others) to Bellows Falls and there sent back Orren 
 French's to Keene, and rejoiced in finding that I 
 could pack both my rubber coat and my waistcoat 
 in the K. bags." 
 The beginning of the year 1859 was marked by a 
 [ 140 1 
 
EARLY YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 great joy, only too soon to be followed by a lasting 
 sorrow. Mr. White's only son was born January 24, 
 and named for his grandfather, Daniel Appleton 
 White. A few weeks of intense happiness were 
 followed on March 5 by the baby's death of scarlet 
 fever taken from the older child. 
 
 It was only two years later that my father had to 
 face a grief of another kind, for his father died on 
 March 30, 1 86 1, after a brief illness, in perfect 
 possession of his faculties, at the age of eighty-four 
 years, nine months, and twenty-three days. 
 
 My father thus writes to my mother from Salem 
 on April 6, 1861: — 
 
 "Only one week ago this morning I was carrying 
 a note to Dr. Wheatland, of the Institute, with 
 Father's autograph and returning to find that he 
 had asked for me and was waiting to dictate two 
 business letters. So time recedes. The precious 
 memories of that morning, the hymns and prayers 
 and loving words will never be again even so near 
 in memory as the distance of a week. And yet how 
 much nearer the heart they will always be than 
 multitudes of impressions of the very day and hour 
 through which we may be passing. Each day is 
 bringing the signal for our own departure nearer. 
 How short the interval must seem, to those who 
 [ 141 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 are already "on the other side," that will elapse 
 before we join them! How short the separation 
 between Father and Mary! Let us only be ready 
 to say, 'May I die the death of the righteous, and 
 may my last end be like his!'" 
 
 In writing to his elder daughter, March 29, 1874, 
 he says: — 
 
 "To-morrow (30th) makes just thirteen years 
 since your Grandfather White's death. I shall be 
 happy indeed if I can know (as I hope he now does) 
 that I live on half as vividly in my children's minds 
 after I have left the world as he does in mine. The 
 reality of his constant influence over me is far 
 greater than that of many living friends." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CIVIL WAR 
 1861-1865 
 
 In 1 861 Mr. and Mrs. White's peaceful life in 
 Keene was shadowed by the Civil War, which 
 cloud for the next four years hung like a black pall 
 over the country. Their hearts were wrung by the 
 sorrows of their parishioners, and it was peculiarly 
 hard for them personally, as four of Mr. White's 
 nephews fought for their country, two of whom 
 gave their lives for her, while two of Mrs. White's 
 brothers were in the Northern army and two in the 
 Southern. Those years were full of the absorbing 
 interest of work connected with the war for both 
 of them. Mrs. White was very active in sewing for 
 the soldiers, and there were days when the parson- 
 age was full of parishioners, scraping lint or making 
 bandages, and the smallest children in the parish 
 caught the patriotic fire and made comfort bags 
 for the soldiers, sometimes putting In a note, and 
 having the great joy of getting an answer. The 
 views of their elders were intensified by these 
 [ 143 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 young things until a "rebel" was a synonym of all 
 that was most wicked and depraved. 
 
 Mr. White's voice had never given an uncertain 
 sound, nor was he one who, had he been living in 
 1914, could have remained "strictly neutral." He 
 had always been bitterly opposed to slavery, and 
 he espoused the cause of the North with his whole 
 heart. The fact that there were a few Southern 
 sympathizers in his congregation, one or two of 
 them of social prominence, made no difference in 
 his course. He felt it his duty to preach as con- 
 science bade him. On one occasion a parishioner of 
 distinction, for whom he had a high regard, got up 
 in the middle of a sermon and walked out of church, 
 never to return. Mr. White regretted the occur- 
 rence, but it made no difference in his preaching. 
 If he occasionally made an enemy by his emphatic 
 ways, he more often retained the respect and per- 
 sonal liking of those who differed from him. 
 
 The letters and extracts which follow show the 
 way in which the pattern of those years was woven, 
 and the occasional bright strands which stood out 
 against the sombre background. 
 
 [ 144 ] 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Salem, April 24, 1861. 
 
 I saw Mr. Quincy and Mr. Savage yesterday and 
 found them earnest and patriotic at the respective 
 ages of eighty-nine and seventy-five, and I found 
 a whole city full of flying flags, Washington Street 
 looking beautifully with tier upon tier of colors as 
 you looked down the street. Here in Salem the 
 City Hall mounts a handsome flag and the towers 
 at the railroad, each, one. At the little station of 
 Lincoln on the Fitchburg Road the cabman's horse 
 wore his little flag. 
 
 M. E. W. TO R. H. W. 
 
 Sunday, May 5, 1861. 
 
 My dear Mother: — 
 
 I am going to write to you about our interesting 
 service this morning, for I am afraid William will 
 not tell you about it. 
 
 Just before church, Mr. FIske (who is one of the 
 officers, under Government, in this State, and who 
 leaves his home to-morrow, with the troops from 
 here, for Portsmouth, and who is liable to be called 
 to the seat of war, at any moment) came to ask 
 William to christen his baby, before church. When 
 we got into the church, we found, to our surprise, 
 [ 145 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 that the recruits were assembled there, in the side 
 pews — those of them, at least, who are in town 
 to-day. 
 
 Presently Mr. Fiske and his beautiful wife 
 walked in with their lovely baby, and the touching 
 service was performed, directly in front of this 
 body of rough-looking men. There was something 
 very affecting in the sight of that helpless little 
 one, knowing, as we did the peculiar uncertainties 
 of the future which lay before it, and in the con- 
 trast of the sweet picture of home and happiness 
 and love which it called up, and the visions of 
 hardship and bloodshed which the sight of the 
 browned faces of the men brought to mind. 
 
 The hymn before the sermon fell on softened 
 hearts and many tears fell when we sang, — 
 
 "Oh! let us seek our heavenly home 
 Revealed in sacred lore; 
 The land whence pilgrims never roam, 
 Where soldiers war no more. 
 
 Where they who meet shall never part," etc. 
 
 Then came William's sermon, from 2 Timothy, 
 II, 4^ and which could not have been more appro- 
 priate to the occasion if he had known who his 
 
 ' " No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this 
 life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier." 
 
 [ 146] 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 audience were to be. After he concluded his ser- 
 mon, by an irresistible impulse he turned and ad- 
 dressed himself directly to these men in a few 
 forcible, touching words, which brought the tears 
 from the eyes of the men, and I think there were 
 few dry ones among the audience. 
 
 Then followed our communion service, at which 
 we had another baptism, and a young lady was 
 admitted to the communion. 
 
 We came home feeling that few days could offer 
 so many exciting interests. But what a season of 
 excitements we are living in! Our life is like a highly 
 wrought novel, all the time, nowadays, and how 
 full the papers are of noble and stirring incidents! 
 It is a grand thing to be living in the midst of such 
 realities. . . . 
 
 I have been working very hard as William will 
 tell you for our men. . . . 
 
 My father was also deeply stirred by the excite- 
 ment of the times. He writes to my mother from 
 East Cambridge, on June 30, as follows: — 
 
 "... Then I went and awaited in Haymarket 
 Square the departure of Colonel Clark's (nth) 
 regiment for the war, on its way from the Fitch- 
 burg to the Old Colony Depot. This column of 
 [ 147] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 one thousand men with their bayonets glancing 
 in the sun, and the crowds welcoming them as they 
 passed, afforded a grand sight, the like of which I 
 have not seen before." 
 
 M. E. W. TO R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, February 13, 1862. 
 
 . . . Dear William opened his eyes, on his birth- 
 day morning, saddened by the thought of the 
 precious greeting which, until now, never failed to 
 reach him upon that day, but deeply grateful for 
 the mercy which had spared his own little home 
 circle. There was to be a gathering of the parish 
 in the evening, according to a notice given on Sun- 
 day, and as I have not been well enough to go to 
 any of these gatherings this winter, and as William 
 seemed anxious to have me go with him, in honor 
 of the day, I rested and at seven o'clock started off 
 with him, thinking and meaning to get there among 
 the first; as I felt the usual shrinking from encoun- 
 tering a great many people at once, which one, long 
 excluded from large gatherings, always feels. We 
 were very much surprised to find upon arriving 
 every appearance, in the dressing-room, of there 
 being a great crowd already assembled. We found 
 some ladies waiting for us, to hurry us up, and Dr. 
 I 148 ] 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 Ingersoll, who gave me his arm and ushered me 
 into the hall, following William, whom Mr.Richards 
 took on his arm. Once across the threshold and we 
 were dazzled by a flood of light, and found our- 
 selves in a room beautifully trimmed, and letters 
 on one side, of evergreen, "Teacher, Pastor, 
 Friend"; on the other, "Welcome, Feb. 12." 
 Underneath this stood a long table brilliant with 
 candles and silver, and loaded with roast turkeys, 
 oysters, salads, ices, etc., — everything pertaining 
 to a splendid supper; and the whole crowned with 
 two vases of exquisite greenhouse flowers. We were 
 carried behind the table and seated, in front of 
 some two hundred pairs of eyes, and Mr. Richards, 
 after a few words of welcome, introduced Dr. 
 Ingersoll, who made a tasteful and appropriate 
 speech. Then Dr. Thayer presented the flowers to 
 William, reading some very beautiful and touching 
 verses. Then a blessing was asked by Dr. Ingersoll 
 and the supper was administered. Nothing could 
 have been prettier or more gratifying, or a more 
 complete surprise, than the whole thing. Our 
 beautiful flowers make our parlor to-day look as 
 if we were adorned for some great occasion, and a 
 huge frosted cake will for a long time keep us in 
 remembranceof the pleasant "surprise party." . . . 
 I 149 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 In spite of the fact that Mr. White was such an 
 ardent Republican, and notwithstanding the occa- 
 sional violence of his language in regard to those 
 on the other side, his never-failing interest in the 
 individual when brought into direct contact with 
 him is shown by the following extract from a letter 
 written on June 29, 1862, concerning a workman 
 whom he employed when he was making some 
 alterations on his house: — 
 
 "... The man, the other workmen say, is such 
 a Secessionist (an Englishman from Hartford) that 
 he ought to be turned out of the house. I reply 
 that he does not talk Secesh to me, and that if he 
 does to them, it must be their fault if they don't 
 convert him. Providence having sent him here, 
 perhaps, to that end." 
 
 In addition to altering his own house, my father 
 bought the next house to his as an investment. 
 The house had to be repaired and the fences moved. 
 He writes : — 
 
 "... I felt quite 'set up' by the remark of an 
 elderly gentleman, who has moved in here from 
 Charlestown, New Hampshire, within the year, 
 that he did not believe, 'so I've been telling them,' 
 he said, 'that there was another man in town who 
 could have got all those fences up in such little 
 [150] 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 time. It beats all. I'd no idea you'd so much per- 
 severance outdoors.'" 
 
 The letter goes on: — 
 
 "I attended two rather unusual funerals this 
 week. One was that of a New Brunswick Indian 
 woman, Mrs. Paul, on which occasion I overheard 
 more derogatory remarks than I ever before lis- 
 tened to as regards myself, so near the threshold of 
 * the house of mourning.' The Irish Catholic women 
 (for Paulina was Catholic) said: 'And why have n't 
 they a haerse instade o' this oogly ould cart.^* Better 
 have been without the minister than without the 
 haerse ; it's rale mane not to give us the haerse.'' 
 
 "The other was the funeral of one who had liter- 
 ally worked while it was day and even into the 
 twilight. It was an Englishman who was buried, 
 Thomas Musgrave by name, some said brother to 
 a Lord Bishop. He wrought faithfully and patiently 
 as a dyer in our woollen factory here until within 
 some seven or eight days of his death. He would 
 have been eighty-nine had he lived three days longer. 
 He came to this country when about seventy-five. 
 He had been crippled years ago in the wars of 
 Napoleon, as regarded his early manufacturing 
 enterprises. His son, sixty-three years old, from 
 Mystic, Connecticut, was here as chief mourner.'* 
 [ 151 ]. 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 September 4, 1862. 
 
 I found Margaret's new chamber full of young 
 ladles making bandages and scraping lint for Dr. 
 Twitchell to take with him to Washington. One 
 evening last week I heard Dr. T. and Dr. Thayer 
 announce at the Town Hall that they were going 
 (for three years) and then Mr. Carter, one of my 
 young married parishioners, a fine fellow, and then 
 James Elliot from College and Arthur Elliot his 
 brother came forward and signed their names 
 "offering their services for the country." 
 
 It was a moving sight. Since then Mr. Houston 
 and Mr. Lewis (like Carter), members of our choir, 
 have enlisted. 
 
 Sunday before last I preached a commemoration 
 sermon (and our services were all of a similar char- 
 acter in the afternoon) occasioned by the loss of 
 Major Dort's wife and child in the collision on the 
 Potomac. She was a lovely woman. They had just 
 returned from seeing the Major. That Sunday he 
 was here, having returned to see about his one 
 little surviving child; the remains had not then 
 been discovered. 
 
 William Chapin (sutler) is prisoner in Richmond. 
 Howard is soldier in McClellan's bodyguard. 
 Charles (the youngest), I saw drilling with others 
 [ 152 ] 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 in Brattleboro and expecting I believe to go to the 
 
 war. 
 
 Dwight Orne, you know, is in Colonel Barnes's 
 regiment. So all the male descendants of my Grand- 
 father Orne are substantially there but myself. 
 
 My father thus writes to his mother after the 
 death of his nephew, Wilder Dwight: — 
 
 Keene, October 2, 1862. 
 Just a week ago to-day, we met upon the occasion 
 of those solemn and affecting services. Such a day 
 is always more or less sad, but as I look back on 
 that Thursday, its track of light seems brighter 
 than I can remember associating with any similar 
 occasion. Here was not merely the termination of 
 life which may come to save the young sometimes 
 from the evil to come, or the aged from the burden 
 of infirmities, or the lonely from desolation, or the 
 sick from torturing pain. But some purpose was 
 accomplished by the very dying itself; it is ex- 
 pected that such as go into the service shall take 
 their life in their hand. Had none been willing to 
 die for their country we should have no country 
 worth the name. The very dying, then, becomes 
 connected with our earthly salvation. Wilder rises 
 [ 153 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 before me now, as our true benefactor. He has died 
 for us, his kindred. Whatever we Hve to enjoy, 
 when the strife is over, we may feel that he has, in 
 part, laid down his life for us. You have character- 
 ized exceedingly well, "the heart, the mind, the 
 eloquent voice that fitted him to serve his country." 
 He has indeed shown how "he could be a tender 
 nurse, as well as a devoted friend and a brave 
 soldier." 
 
 It was very gratifying as well as instructive to 
 find that the parents who so idolized him, could 
 bear their loss in a spirit at once so brave and so 
 Christian. They have certainly evinced that Wilder 
 was indeed their own child, "bone of their bone, 
 and flesh of their flesh." They have caught the 
 inspiration of his sublime death. No written words 
 I ever saw, so lifted up my heart, as that blood- 
 sealed record which showed that he who was writ- 
 ing, had already entered "into that which is within 
 the veil." 
 
 The sermon that Mr. White preached on a 
 Thanksgiving Day during this time reflects con- 
 ditions so similar to those of to-day, that it might 
 almost be preached word for word as it stands, in 
 reference to the European War. 
 [ 154] 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 Here is a part of it, — 
 
 ' Come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings into 
 the house of the Lord. 2 Chron. xxix, 31. 
 
 " Surely, to-day, for the nation's dead, we have a 
 thank offering to render. The very soil is made 
 sacred as their resting place. What have we to be so 
 thankful for? They have gone onward; we, in our 
 turn, must all follow. When wasting disease assails 
 us, then the memory of their heroic sacrifice will 
 rebuke us, if we be tempted to murmur; when 'the 
 last enemy,' that spectre of death, as he has so 
 often been regarded, stands before our very eyes, 
 and we feel trembling and afraid, then the bright 
 thought of those armies who stood up unflinchingly 
 beneath the frowning shadow of his iron scythe, 
 will fill our hearts with unutterable shame if we 
 cannot say with their calmness, 'Lord, I bow to 
 thee, the great Commander, I follow thy word, 
 lead thou me on, thou Lord of Hosts, through the 
 thickening shadows in the way thou shalt appoint.' 
 When we grow too much absorbed in buying and 
 selling and getting gain, then the memory of their 
 valor, their unselfish offering of their very lives for 
 truth, honor, justice and liberty, will fill us with 
 scorn and loathing of ourselves, if we do not wisely 
 [ 155 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 and generously devote the lives made worth the 
 living only through their sacrifice, to ends akin to 
 those great objects for which they poured out their 
 blood. That field of Gettysburg, over whose buried 
 patriots the chief magistrate of the nation implored 
 that we might be dedicated anew to the country 
 for which they died; that field over which he 
 walked, arm in arm with that old man of threescore 
 years and ten who rushed forth from his work shop 
 on the eve of the 4th of July to join our brave 
 forces, comes before our minds and testifies that 
 we ought to offer some thank offering for our price- 
 less dead. Who now grudges stitches taken that 
 those wayworn and weary feet might be clothed, 
 that those heads now safely shielded from earthly 
 suns, might be cooled? Who now laments that he 
 did so much for those whose lives were given for 
 him? Bring in then a thank offering into the house 
 of the Lord. For what would those ascended spirits, 
 who found their fiery car ready to bear them up 
 from many a hard-fought field, reply, were we to 
 ask them what thank offering we shall render to 
 their memory? Would not they all say, 'Give of 
 your abundance to them unto whom we have be- 
 queathed the cause we died for. Remember the 
 hospitals we languished in, the regiments out of 
 I 156 1 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 which the angel of death hath gathered us, while 
 we look on from above in anxious expectation, 
 praying that the work sealed by our blood may not 
 be dishonored by our countrymen.' " 
 
 And here is an extract from a Christmas sermon 
 he preached during the Civil War: — 
 
 "This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in 
 Israel. Luke ii, 34. 
 
 "Once more Bethlehem with its moonlit slopes 
 and thronging pilgrims; again the echoes of that 
 music which swept the midnight air long centuries 
 ago! New to us, indeed, the heart-piercing con- 
 trast between the promise of peace on earth, good- 
 will toward men, and the sullen tramp of hundreds 
 of thousands of armed men within our own borders. 
 New to us, but not new to the world; the same sad 
 drama has been rehearsed in other lands on many 
 a Christmas Eve, nor has the seemingly bitter 
 mockery of the angels' song availed to hide from 
 men's hearts the memory of the time when Jesus 
 was born in Bethlehem of Judaea. 
 
 May we not say that it almost needs our being 
 
 brought face to face with the miseries of war to 
 
 make us approach a true understanding of the 
 
 blessings which the world must experience, when 
 
 [ 157] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 He* shall' everywhere 'reign whose right it is to 
 reign.' Now^ at least, we know how to hail the 
 birth of the Prince of Peace. Now we perceive 
 what the return of this anniversary must have 
 meant to Christians who could only celebrate it 
 in gloomy caves where they must have been more 
 reminded of him who lay three days and three 
 nights in the heart of the earth, than of the 
 child lying in the manger. Now we understand 
 how its festive and exuberant mirth must have 
 mildly flashed upon the storm cloud in those 
 dreary years of contest between Puritan and Cav- 
 alier, like the electric lights which at night some- 
 times gild the crests of the heaving ocean. 'On 
 earth, peace!' Say, has the holy season yet 
 dawned upon a world at peace.'* Has it ever seen a 
 nation where there were no hearthstones at which 
 the absent warrior was remembered, or where the 
 cherished traditions of ancestral valor were not 
 recounted.'' God sanctify to us the coming of a 
 festival which restores to our minds the vision of 
 the innumerable privileges and joys of a true peace! 
 We may be too much in danger of becoming dazzled 
 by the glory of success, or at least of being too pas- 
 sionately athirst for it. We are learning to hear 
 coldly of the slaughter of hundreds of men, if they 
 [ 158] 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 did not happen to fall upon our side; when the 
 destruction of half as many upon a railroad would 
 awaken our profound compassion for the survivors. 
 Thus it is that War, the stern, hard featured nurse, 
 in whose arms alone the savage nations are fondled, 
 is fast imparting to us somewhat of the spirit which 
 she Imparts to them. O, let not these hallowed 
 hours fail to disabuse us somewhat of the baleful 
 spell which she weaves around us! Let us be saved 
 from the peril of adoring war as war. Let us deter- 
 mine. In our own minds, that although we can 
 trace beneficent compensations. in the midst of the 
 wretchedness which war creates, it is the cause 
 alone which at this age of the world can afford any 
 palliation for a resort to its bloody arbitrament on 
 the part of enlightened nations. Once in the year, 
 at least, we cannot help being reminded that to live 
 among 'wars and rumors of wars' Is to breathe a 
 pestiferous atmosphere, to live unnaturally. Rap- 
 idly we seem to be travelling backwards over the 
 pages of history; we have lost our mark; we have 
 opened at the wrong volume, when from these 
 sweet emblems of prophecy, these peace-breathing 
 buds of promise, we look out in imagination from 
 these windows and are startled by beholding the 
 manifold paraphernalia of battle. 
 [ 159] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 But peace — the peace of which the angels sang, 
 the peace on whose makers Christ commanded a 
 blessing, is not inaction or torpor. Else Christ 
 might as well have said, 'Blessed are they that 
 sleep.' How strangely indeed would it read among 
 those benedictions, 'Happy are they who sleep 
 over the miseries of their country.' 'Blessed are 
 all they who will let the wicked have their own way.' 
 "'Why stand ye here all the day idle.'" Is not 
 that in your Bible as well as precepts inculcating 
 forgiveness.'' 
 
 An idle Christian, even in peaceable times, is 
 a self-contradiction; but an idle Christian or an 
 idle patriot in the hour when the institutions 
 which have been his country's glory are treach- 
 erously assailed shall never win the fair fame of a 
 peace-maker. And we may remember that though 
 we be commanded to love our enemies; — 'Let 
 thine enemy alone; give him the field,' is nowhere 
 enjoined. 
 
 We must confess then that if peace is not the 
 reward of idleness, or the boon of subserviency, 
 there is often something for men and for nations to 
 do in order to obtain a peace worthy the name. 
 True, hearty, enlightened, enduring peace comes 
 through struggle." 
 
 [ i6o 1 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 In a letter of July 13, 1863, he says concerning a 
 trip from Yonkers to New York : — 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Seeing a pleasant-looking young officer coming 
 In among the crowd, I offered him a seat. He 
 proved to be Assistant Surgeon T. T. Minor, of the 
 First South Carolina Volunteers. Speaking warmly 
 of his Colonel (Thomas Wentworth HIgglnson), I 
 mentioned my early acquaintance with him. So 
 we soon got acquainted, very well acquainted. 
 Indeed, by the time he reached Worcester. I was 
 very much pleased with him, and with what he 
 had to say about the blacks. He spoke of their 
 funny language as exhibited at times; for instance, 
 when he would say to a sick man, "Tom, how are 
 you this morning?" 
 
 "O! Massa, pretty mis'able, t'ank God." . . . 
 
 I am very sorry to read about the New York 
 riot. I dare say in a week the city will be under 
 martial law. But on Saturday nothing could be 
 quieter than the drafting exhibition at No. 677 
 Third Avenue where I spent some ten or fifteen 
 minutes, being Interested in watching the turning 
 of the wheel, and the calling of the names. 
 
 [ 161 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Boston, 7.30 a.m. Wednesday, 
 July 15, 1863. 
 
 . . . You will read of bloody scenes here last 
 night. I saw nothing of them. All Is pretty quiet 
 in Dock Square this morning. They quelled the 
 riot here in the only effectual way. Alas, for Gov- 
 ernor Seymour, sending to Washington for a sus- 
 pension of the New York draft, and temporizing 
 with the riot. Martial law, which should shut up 
 every liquor den in that city till the draft is through 
 with, is the needed thing, it seems to me; but if 
 New York likes better a reign of wild beasts than 
 one of soldiers, so be it. 
 
 M. E. W. TO R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, September 24, 1863. 
 I have been peculiarly engaged in helping ar- 
 range a table of refreshments, on the Fair Grounds, 
 for the Soldiers' Aid Society. . . . Our enterprise 
 for the soldiers, was quite successful; we have 
 cleared one hundred dollars, which is a good deal 
 of money to make out of pies and doughnuts. 
 I was on the grounds yesterday eight hours, work- 
 ing hard all the time, without time to eat anything 
 but a biscuit, and did not get over-tired. This will 
 f 162 1 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 show you how well I am. I am grateful, I can assure 
 you, for so much health and strength. William, 
 too, Is working as only a well man can. 
 
 There is a homely record of this year which will 
 appeal to housekeepers. My father, during my 
 mother's absence, was confronted by a junk ped- 
 ler, and got rid of a number of articles, among 
 others an old copper teakettle, copper bringing 
 seventeen cents a pound, old lead, for which he 
 got seven and a half cents a pound, and cotton, 
 which brought from eighteen to twenty cents a 
 pound according to Its quality. 
 
 W. O. W. TO R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 February i6, 1864. 
 
 ... I was busy yesterday in making ready for the 
 reception of the parish at our house in the evening, 
 or you would have heard from me a day earlier. We 
 had one hundred and twenty-seven guests, or 
 (together with our own family) one hundred and 
 thirty-three people, all but three of whom were 
 connected with the parish; a pretty good represen- 
 tation. And when I remembered that the well- 
 thronged rooms included just the number of the 
 [ 163 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 last Sunday afternoon's audience, it occurred to 
 me that afternoon audiences would look less lean, 
 compared with the morning ones, were they com- 
 pacted into the rooms of a dwelling-house. We 
 have some forty-two new names connected with 
 the parish as heads of families or as single people 
 since January i, 1863: of these a goodly number 
 were present last evening. So were five of the eight 
 brides of the parish. . . . One "son of thunder," in 
 especial, whose arrival I had somewhat dreaded, 
 remained at home for the Christian discipline of a 
 Grandmother (who has seen better days, or eve- 
 nings) ; while his disencumbered parents took their 
 places cheerfully among our guests. . . . The moon 
 guided home our good Mr. Nourse and wife and 
 adopted child to their home on Beech Hill, and 
 Mr. C. K. Colony and wife, and our Mr. and Mrs. 
 Billings, to their homes on the outskirts of the 
 village. . . . 
 
 Old Mrs. Fitch made her visit before the evening 
 hour yesterday, spending about fifteen minutes 
 between four and five, as she lives a mile off, nearly. 
 She brought two little paper and cloth birds which 
 vibrate now among our flowers. She did not like 
 her Mrs. T. and had summarily dismissed her. 
 Mrs. T. would sit up late and get up late. Then 
 [ 164 1 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 she was a "spiritist" and would tell Mrs. Fitch 
 that she heard in the stove the spirit of an old 
 woman that she once took care of, that died of 
 dropsy; such divertisements did not chime in with 
 Mrs. F.'s mood, so she is now alone again. 
 
 We are rejoicing in our winter Sunday-School 
 which our lengthened intermission affords us. 
 Margaret has a full class of married women. . . . 
 We count some one hundred and three (teachers 
 and all) some Sundays, and have generally some 
 ninety-eight or one hundred: far better than lying 
 dormant as we once did with our hour's intermis- 
 sion, and which was the custom when I came. Still, 
 I sometimes miss my little gathering of children 
 which for three years past (in default of Sunday- 
 School) I had after the afternoon meeting (at 
 church). 
 
 To D. A. W. AND R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 April 17, 1864. 
 
 This is the eighth Sunday that I have been 
 
 at home (including Fast, as good as nine), but on 
 
 one of them I had a supply, and on another I 
 
 occupied ( !) the Orthodox pulpit, as you have heard, 
 
 in connection with Mr. Hamilton, during the fore- 
 
 [ 165 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 noon, on occasion of the funerals of two men in- 
 jured by the steam explosion. . . . 
 
 Well, we have made indeed an "overturn" in 
 our domestic affairs, and never in our history as a 
 little household has a transition been so comfort- 
 ably made from what was so satisfactory to some- 
 thing equally so, possibly more so in the end. The 
 new girls require guidance from the mistress; but 
 they are sweet-tempered, refined, intelligent; can 
 appreciate Margaret's thoughtful care for them, 
 and seem part of the family, to an extent, without 
 showing any pushing or forthputting proclivities. 
 They incline to go to church with us, at least, after 
 one or two Sundays' experience, though more 
 "strictly" brought up. With arms round one an- 
 other's shoulders (they are cousins) they are stand- 
 ing by the piano, singing (in the parlor, under me) 
 psalm tunes with Margaret and the children. . . . 
 
 God give you much to rejoice in, this coming 
 year, including brighter days for the country,which 
 I trust you will live to see with her sword sheathed, 
 and her clanking chain which began to grate before 
 you were born, broken to powder! . . . 
 
 The two cousins referred to in the above letter 
 were refined young women from small country 
 f i66 1 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 towns, who had never been In service. They did 
 the work of the house, having their meals together 
 in the kitchen and spending their evenings there, 
 but in the late afternoon joining the household 
 under the trees, while my mother read aloud from 
 "The Lady of the Lake." 
 
 All the social complications which arose from 
 such an unusual experiment were met with per- 
 fect simplicity on both sides. Susan the cook had 
 a brother who was a Congregational minister, and 
 on one occasion he came to see her. He was In- 
 vited by my mother to stay to dinner, and dined 
 with us, while his sister cooked the dinner and his 
 cousin waited on table. 
 
 In writing to the Reverend Edward Everett Hale, 
 on February 21, 1865, concerning a possible pulpit 
 for a fellow minister, Mr. White says: "He will be 
 very glad of a 'look' at an empty pulpit, or, from 
 such a desk at an 'inviting' congregation. ... I 
 hope he will not feel compelled to abdicate the pul- 
 pit, — as such, — and take up teaching altogether. 
 For I do not think that the new kind of homlllzers 
 that we raise will, all of them, come up to him In 
 serviceable qualities, even though among them (the 
 preachers) there be any who think that the last, 
 [ 167] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 best utterance from heaven is their own sweet voice. 
 
 "'What good would the swallowing a button do 
 the little boy,' you know. 
 
 Don't see as 't would do him any good/ said 
 *sis,' "cept he should swallow a buttonhole too.' 
 
 *'So I show you (in B.) a button, and if some- 
 body has already troubled you with the button- 
 hole (an empty pulpit), why, maybe, you can see 
 how the two would fit. Of course I should n't 
 trouble you with any match-making of this kind, 
 save that, like your Uncle Edward of blessed mem- 
 ory, you live for this sort of thing, that is, the 
 relieving the dilemmas of all sorts of people." 
 
 A year later he writes to Dr. Hale as follows : — 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 February 12, 1866. 
 
 Dear E. E. H.: — 
 
 The last "Register" was remarkably good; freer 
 also from typographical errors than usual. The 
 paper, of late years, has had an evil distinction in 
 this regard. So did our Keene paper for a series of 
 years, when they printed in an obituary "all my 
 prings are in thee," and gravely discussed the 
 matter thinking it some Bible phrase that scholars 
 would understand. It is now uncommonly free from 
 [ 168 1 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 them, simply because the present proof-reader, a 
 young mechanic, is accurate and has a quick eye. 
 Think of such errors in the "Advertiser" ! ! ! 
 
 Week before last, it seemed as if the Evil One 
 had been at work, mixing up the types, and no 
 wonder if he does such work that his name is 
 germane to newspaperial establishments. For in- 
 stance, look at February 3d's "Register," page 
 3d, over "Marriages," where Professor Blot is 
 talked about who surely would think that he had it 
 on his 'scutcheon. Just think, in my notice of 
 Bushnell's book, the "Register" made me speak of 
 his kindly words, instead of his kindling words. 
 
 My wife, with considerable esprit de corps, re- 
 joices in some error in this week's "Inquirer"; 
 nothing so racy as the above, however. 
 
 But supreme among all the errors was one which 
 my father used to quote with glee in after years, 
 though at the time it gave him considerable annoy- 
 ance. He had written to the "Christian Register" 
 of the beauty and dignity of Dr. William H. 
 Furness's supplications during some service, and 
 certainly the printer's devil must have been around 
 on that occasion, for the reader learned of Dr. 
 Furness's "supple actions." 
 [ 169] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 March 10, 1865. 
 
 My dear Mother: — 
 
 ... I felt as if you must have exceedingly re- 
 joiced in the inaugural 6f Mr. Lincoln. It seemed 
 as if the period of our atonement were coming round 
 to have such anti-slavery feeling welling out, at 
 last, pure and strong from the lips of the chief of 
 the nation. 
 
 You must value the privilege of still having the 
 good use of your eyes, were it only to read, as you 
 sit alone, some of the utterances, as well as much 
 of the history, to which this war has given rise. . . . 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Boston, 85 Pinckney St., 
 
 Saturday, March 18, 1865. 
 
 . . . My day yesterday was about lost. The 9.15 
 train from Keene reached us while we stood linger- 
 ing, shivering on the brink, — 
 
 "And feared to launch away" 
 
 from the angry, furious, overgrown current of 
 Scott's Brook, just below Fitzwilliam. Scott's 
 Brook was sweeping quite across the track. We 
 made two or three periodical excursions in the 
 [ 170 ] 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 cars to the brook and back to Fitzwilllam, only to 
 find the current rising. At last they propped up the 
 rails with wood and a handcar boldly went across, 
 and afterwards by repeated excursions, it took all 
 the passengers and then the baggage. Walking a 
 mile, I came to another ugly place, a caving-in, in 
 front of which the train from Boston had passed. 
 This was short, however, compared with the former 
 and was planked over. The first intimation that 
 we were likely to get on to Boston which I received, 
 was the meeting F. E. Allen walking from the east 
 on his way to the Keene cars. Perhaps he called to 
 see you. It was three o'clock before we were headed 
 once more for Boston, and my express train reached 
 said city at 6 p.m. 
 
 During our detention I set off" on a foraging expe- 
 dition, and knocked at the back door of a wee red 
 house. *'How do you do, Mr. White," was the 
 response. It proved to be the wife of a man whom 
 I had twice married, a Mrs. Hovey. She handed 
 me mince pie and doughnuts which I was glad to 
 grapple with, having had only apples and hard 
 crackers in the morning. But the car bell rang, 
 and with my slice of pie in my hand, I ran. . . . 
 
 [ 171 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Milton, Massachusetts, 
 Tuesday, March 21, 1865. 9.30 a.m. 
 
 I went from Chelsea to East Boston and spent 
 a long hour or more with my "Great" Uncle 
 Haynes. I was very much pleased with him. As he 
 opened the door, he had somewhat of the (com- 
 manding) air of father, only a little more so, but 
 he instantly became smiling and genial, and the 
 apparent "Whom have we here now.^" changed 
 into an apparent "Well, this is just the right thing 
 at the right time," as I named my name. He is 
 living in the first house built in East Boston, a 
 worn-out-looking wooden house, but with quite a 
 liberal garden in which with his garden clothes he, 
 in his eightieth year, had just been working. You 
 would have enjoyed seeing him point out his 
 blooming snowdrops and pansies there. He has 
 lived there ever since 1833, having built this house. 
 His wife died ten years since, and his only son died 
 when seventeen years old. He has a brother living 
 near Haverhill, Massachusetts. His wife's sister, 
 a Mrs. Kilbourn, who has just lost two sons in the 
 war, lives with him. 
 
 He speaks very fluently and correctly, and his 
 mind seems alert. He is quite a good-looking man. 
 [ 172 1 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 He showed me the cane which Thomas Haynes, his 
 grandfather, received In 1698 from the Indians for 
 his good behavior among them when In captivity. 
 His father, Jonathan, was killed by the Indians 
 that year 1698. The cane Is curiously carved. 
 
 Altogether, the visit was very pleasant, and I 
 felt as If I should like to have you see him some 
 time. His oldest brother (half brother) was fifty- 
 one years older than he. 
 
 After the death of President Lincoln, Mr. White 
 wrote to his mother as follows : — 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 
 April 17, 1865. Monday. 
 
 My dear Mother: — 
 
 . . . Since I wrote you how much we have lived 
 through! These glorious victories, succeeded by the 
 deep national sorrow, have kept our hearts In alter- 
 nate tumult of exultation and agony. Saturday 
 was one of the darkest days in my life, and I doubt 
 not you can say In yours. 
 
 "They've lost the best friend they had," says 
 one man, referring to the rebels. 
 
 "Lord love you," says a parishioner of mine 
 who has lost excellent children, "I've seen trouble, 
 but nothing ever came to me so cutting as this." 
 [ 173 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 And this he says forty-eight hours after hearing 
 the news, and with weeping eyes. 
 
 Our bells tolled. Then as I went (twenty miles) 
 to Warwick, the Winchester bells twelve miles off 
 were tolling. 
 
 "We're all mourners," I said to a man at work 
 in his yard. 
 
 "Yes, yes," he replied in a most pathetic 
 tone. 
 
 At Warwick I broke off from my sermon, and 
 spoke of the event, and had the comfort to hear 
 a lady tell me, "You have filled our hearts." 
 
 During the first hymn, — 
 
 "God is the refuge of his saints, 
 When storms of sharp distress invade," — 
 
 a "veteran" (soldier) broke into sobs and was in 
 tears, I was told, all through the service. ^ 
 
 More tears were shed that day, I believe, than 
 were ever shed on this planet, in any one day 
 before. But how like a rocket at the zenith of his 
 fame he has gone up! 
 
 As I was writing to Emily, he is my favorite of 
 all our American statesmen, not excepting Wash- 
 ington, for I think his humor and his plain talk are 
 elements in him which our more statuesque Wash- 
 [ 174 ] 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 ington was not the better for not possessing. His 
 style was inimitable. . . . 
 
 Our door is arched with black. The churches 
 were dressed in black yesterday. It was quite 
 affecting to me yesterday, on my return, when I 
 saw a wee bit of a house on the outskirts of Win- 
 chester in mourning, and then discerned another 
 in similar grief, an eighth of a mile off". 
 
 We shall have a funeral service at twelve 
 Wednesday in our church, the time of the Wash- 
 ington funeral. 
 
 Little Eliza said in sobs to her mother on Satur- 
 day, "O, mamma, mamma! What will the poor 
 slaves do.^ Who will take care of the poor slaves 
 
 now 
 
 ?" 
 
 My feeling was, "Who will pity the authors of 
 rebellion now.^"' 
 
 May 4, 1865. 
 My dear Mother: — 
 
 Your welcome letter came duly, but found me 
 busy once more with preparation for extra services 
 on occasion of our good President's funeral. 
 
 What an April it has been! How crowded with 
 events! . . . 
 
 Our five Protestant churches were all filled on 
 the funeral occasion. I spoke some fifteen or twenty 
 [ 175 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 minutes before offering prayer, preferring, for the 
 occasion, so doing to having any "cut-and-drled" 
 remarks. ; . 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, June 3, 1865. 
 My dear Mother: — 
 
 The day was very fine at Concord, and as an 
 Invited guest I could ride, and thus better enjoy 
 the long procession, bands of music, the taste- 
 fully draped houses, etc. The torn and blackened 
 battle-flags most Interested me, revealing the dan- 
 gers to which the country had been exposed more 
 than aught else that I had seen. I met several 
 returned soldiers, one cripple from Atkinson, New 
 Hampshire, to whom a comrade, as he met him, 
 said, "Why, we buried you!" And upon parting 
 from him added, "Well, I'm glad to see the dead, 
 brought to life." . . . 
 
 To R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, June 29, 1865. 
 I had last Sunday the refreshment of an ex- 
 change at FltzwIUIam. My drive was in great 
 contrast to that when I last exchanged there, on 
 January 15. Then the trees were glittering with 
 Ice and numbers of the slender birches crowded 
 [ 176 1 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 with icicles had been cut down, so entirely by their 
 icy prostration had they encumbered the road. 
 Now the air was genial, the streams sparkling and 
 the green leaves glancing in the sun. Yet the 
 beauty of the January ride with its forest of dia- 
 monds has left a more permanent impression. 
 
 At Troy I took tea with a sort of Nature's noble- 
 man, one Thomas Goodall, an Englishman by 
 birth with but forty-eight cents in his pocket at 
 twenty-one and ragged too; now proprietor of two 
 factories and very generous in his treatment of his 
 operatives, and a real blessing to the little town of 
 Troy. From ^1500 to $1800 a month goes into 
 families there who at home attend to part of his 
 horse-blanket manufacture. A Boston firm told 
 him he could save $1000 a year by letting the work 
 be done there in B. by sewing-machine. People like 
 the sewing-machine work better, Mr. G. says. Still 
 he told them that he preferred not to take the work 
 away from the poor families in Troy. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, July 23, 1865. 
 
 The telescope does well for things that are 
 
 earthy. I have not yet turned it towards the 
 
 heavens. I fear it will not show me women at their 
 
 kneading troughs in Venus, or men making a cavalry 
 
 [ 177 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 raid in Mars. In that case we have only to draw 
 upon the imagination (which ought to be as good as 
 anybody's, or which, if not, cannot, unhappily, be 
 
 swapped off for another, as the telescope can be) 
 
 Had the preliminary address been briefer, and 
 Mr. A. and others also been mindful that long 
 speeches will not really make life longer, but only 
 the more tedious, there would have been nothing 
 wanting to the complete success of "Commemora- 
 tion Day" save a despotic lowering of the ther- 
 mometer by about ten degrees. Yet, even with 
 these excesses on the part of the mercury and of 
 those who spoke for Mars, the day was an uncom- 
 monly gratifying one, and in the memory will soon 
 seem perfect. It was a sad pleasure, from the din- 
 ner seats, to look up to the roll of names from time 
 to time, and read — 
 
 i8S3 
 
 
 I8S7 
 
 Dwight 
 
 
 Dwight 
 
 
 and 
 
 Perkins 
 Whittemore 
 
 It seemed to be giving visible assurance that the 
 names of our two nephews would survive hundreds 
 of years longer than had they quietly died at home. 
 The living soldiers who were there might almost 
 have envied the fame of the dead. 
 I 178] 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 In the library their photographs were all to be 
 seen under a glass case, framed, over the table. 
 Mr. Sargent's son looked like an everyday acquaint- 
 ance among them. My old friend, Manning F. 
 Force, was in Cambridge on a furlough, now a 
 Major-General. He made a good speech at the 
 table. He bears a scar where a ball entered a 
 little below the eye. The most interesting point 
 of the dinner to me, even excepting the recep- 
 tion of General Meade, was the allusion of Mr. 
 Loring to Brigadier-General Bartlett and his re- 
 ception by the students and graduates and his 
 attempt to respond. He is a slender, thoughtful 
 stripling, only a three years' graduate, seeming 
 like the Sir J. Richardson, of the North Pole 
 Expedition, of whom the natives said that he would 
 never kill a mosquito (evidently more tolerant in 
 that regard than little Nellie Williamson). Mr. 
 Loring called him up by saying that in a picture 
 gallery in France (Bartlett's arm is shivered and 
 one leg is gone) there is the likeness of an officer 
 who holds the bridle of his horse by a hook, in the 
 absence of an arm, and who is laced against the 
 saddle, for want of a leg, but underneath is the 
 inscription, "But the heart is still there." He then 
 added (as a toast), "General Bartlett, — the heart 
 [ 179 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 is still there." The applause was overpowering. 
 As they insisted on his rising and moving towards 
 the platform, he began to do so, and looked much 
 as L. might had she been so caught. He had uttered 
 a few words of attempted acknowledgment, when 
 Colonel Lee, the marshal, relieved him, as there was 
 a slight pause, by saying, "As was said to General 
 Washington, 'Sit down,' General Bartlett, 'your 
 modesty is equal to your valor.'" So it was, alto- 
 gether, the most touching episode of the day. 
 
 The bells chimed in the forenoon. I thought I 
 recognized a strain in "Cephas." Dr. Putnam's 
 oration was all the better to me for not being far- 
 fetched and paradoxical as he is apt to be, and as 
 some people crave, just as they'd upset their 
 cayenne bottle on their beefsteak were it not for 
 the looks. To me the address was simple and ear- 
 nest and natural. It said the right thing. I did 
 not go there longing to be startled. 
 
 From M. E. W. to R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, December 23, 1865. 
 My dear Mother: — 
 
 . . . We certainly have everything life can give 
 to be grateful for, and chief of all our blessings is 
 our present good health. I am not strong, but I am 
 f 180 1 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 very well, and do enjoy, to the utmost, being able 
 to go about my house freely, and attending to my 
 family cares. I am able to do a little, too, outside 
 of my own family, and am quite interested in a 
 sewing-school we have started, for seven or eight 
 girls in our own parish, who are sadly neglected at 
 home, and whom we hope to benefit, by personal 
 intercourse and instruction. William has been 
 very much occupied with organizing a Freedmen's 
 Association here. He has succeeded in his object, 
 and they have raised ^500 for the support of a 
 teacher in the field. 
 
 W. O. W. TO R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, January 5, 1866. 
 . . . Our Christmas Eve service this year shone 
 so much better than ever in consequence of gas 
 that I had our last Sunday's afternoon service also 
 in the evening. There were more than twice our 
 usual hundred or so of afternoon hearers. Every- 
 body seems so favorably disposed towards the 
 experiment that we are going to have no afternoon 
 service, but an evening one at 6.30 Instead. We 
 think that In a village of our size some roving 
 youths will come in and be better employed than 
 they might be elsewhere. . . . 
 [ 181 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 The change was successful, for in April he writes: 
 "Preached all day yesterday. Was gratified to 
 find some one hundred and eighty at our evening 
 service, which seems thus far much more than to 
 replace our abandoned afternoon service. We don't 
 call it * names,' however, 'vespers,' or anything 
 else. The service is just like a common one." 
 
 The following letter, written by Mr. White after 
 the death of his father-in-law, shows the warm place 
 he held in his affections: — 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, jipril g, 1866. 
 My dear Mother: — 
 
 It seemed long to wait, from the Monday morn- 
 ing when news first came of our Father Harding's 
 death, till Thursday evening before I could see my 
 dear wife. At two, Thursday, after my "Fast" 
 service (I hope Dr. Ingersoll could look down and 
 see how much I missed him), I took the cars for 
 Springfield. . . . 
 
 That dear familiar church received a new and 
 precious association, as we took leave there of the 
 face that had always shone on us with so loving a 
 greeting. 
 
 The picture of General Sherman (taten this 
 [ 182 ] 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 winter at St. Louis) is truly a most spirited paint- 
 ing. His wife said that she was "glad that there 
 was so fine a likeness of her husband in existence.'* 
 Our little girl (as I believe I wrote you), saw her 
 grandfather, a few weeks since, put the finishing 
 touches to this portrait. 
 
 In his outdoor life, he was also himself to the 
 last. Passing up street (the 27th March, Tuesday 
 before the Sunday of his death) to the cars, he 
 shook his rod playfully, as he walked, at a friend 
 on the opposite side of the street, saying, "I never 
 felt more like it in my life." . . . 
 
 Pneumonia was regarded as his disease. He was 
 •conscious, seemingly, almost to the last. 
 
 The anniversary comes very close upon that of 
 my own father's death. It is a comfort to think 
 that both died in full mental strength. I have felt 
 bitterly grieved by this event, more so than I could 
 have believed, as we saw our Father H. so com- 
 paratively seldom, but he was a delightful com- 
 panion and we were so sure of his love. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 LETTERS TO A CHILD 
 
 I 860- I 866 
 
 No picture of my father would be complete with- 
 out giving some account of his sympathy with 
 children. His pleasures were their pleasures, and 
 they were never made to feel that they were 
 any interruption in his out-of-door work. One 
 of the qualities that endeared him most to his 
 children was his habit of closing his eyes to their 
 faults. 
 
 It seemed to be his greatest pleasure to take 
 them, and the other little girls who were their 
 companions, coasting on the big black sled. How 
 well I remember the crisp freshness of those winter 
 mornings ! — the swift flight of the sled down the 
 hill and across the icy pond at the bottom! We 
 younger ones enjoyed it with little thought of 
 the beauty of our surroundings, but in going over 
 his letters, I can see how there was for him a touch 
 of poetry in the scene. 
 
 One of his especial charms was his gift for story- 
 telling. His tales were simple and realistic, but 
 told with a vividness of detail and description 
 [ 1S4 1 
 
LETTERS TO A CHILD 
 
 which endeared them to the heart of a child. A 
 certain Polly Gray and her friend, Nancy Pike, 
 one of whom lived on a farm, had a series of mild 
 adventures which were made thrilling by the way 
 in which they were told. There was also an imagin- 
 ary visitor who sometimes came to our house by 
 the name of Patty Tompkins. She was an early 
 exponent of the theory of dual personality, for she 
 entered into us at times. She was a most unpleasant 
 person, being cross, irritable, and fault-finding or 
 very wilful and determined. My father, feeling 
 that we ourselves could do no wrong, knew that it 
 must be Patty Tompkins who had taken possession 
 of us, if things did not go in a satisfactory manner. 
 
 The animals on the place were another of our 
 great Interests. There were the pigeons, who were 
 so tame that they would fly in at the open window 
 and take corn out of my mother's hand; the num- 
 erous broods of young chickens, and always the 
 joy of a mother cat and her young families; but 
 never a dog. My father had a constitutional dis- 
 like to them. 
 
 These letters, which may seem to some a trivial 
 interruption in a serious sketch, will give to others, 
 as no words of mine can, a picture of what my 
 father was in daily life in those early years: — 
 [ i8S 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 To A Four-year-old 
 
 Salem, November 29, i860. 
 
 My dear little Eliza: — 
 
 Papa thanks you for your sweet little note. The 
 "little Bonds" are pretty big Bonds now. They 
 did n't get any story from me about Polly Gray. 
 It is n't every little child that coaxes a story out of 
 your papa, I can tell you. 
 
 O! such lots of turkeys as I saw in Boston yester- 
 day, and in the Salem market yesterday. Grandma 
 and Grandpa gave turkeys and raisins and flour 
 to poor folks who called yesterday. One little girl 
 came for something for her mamma. The mamma 
 was a hundred years old all but two years, so that 
 the little girl herself was just the age of your 
 Grandma (76). Don't you want to know if I have 
 bought Sally a new head, and if I have bought a 
 pair of kid arms.'' Catch me telling! Good-bye, 
 my darling little daughter; give a kiss to Mamma 
 for me, and one to Minnie, and believe me 
 Your loving father, 
 
 William O. White. 
 
 Here is a kiss for your own wee self. 
 
 O 
 
 I 186 
 
LETTERS TO A CHILD 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 
 Friday, November 20, 1863. 
 
 My dear little Daughter: — 
 
 We had a funny time, Mr. Hamilton and I, going 
 to Hanover. 
 
 I left my rubbers, when we changed cars at Bel- 
 lows Falls. That night (Tuesday night) we walked 
 a long ways over a railroad bridge from White 
 River Junction to West Lebanon. There we got 
 into a big wagon, drawn by two horses, to go to 
 Hanover, four miles off. O! how the mud did spat- 
 ter, spatter, spatter!! It looked just like snow fly- 
 ing, by the light of the lantern on the big wagon. 
 
 After dinner at the tavern the next day, I looked 
 for the new umbrella that I bought last week in 
 Boston, and some thief had stolen it from under 
 the table in the entry. It did not rain at the time. 
 A man told me that it had been "gobbled up." 
 "Pray, what is that?" said Papa. "Why, the stu- 
 dents go round and steal umbrellas, and call it gob- 
 bling them up; one student had thirteen of them 
 in his room last vacation that he had gobbled up." 
 The night before, at a party at Professor Noyes's, 
 some one went to the door, and gobbled up all the 
 umbrellas, he said. 
 
 After buying me another umbrella, I walked 
 [ 187 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 with Mr. Hamilton, to a big party (called a levee) 
 at the College Library building. My umbrella I 
 hid under my greatcoat, wearing it somewhat as a 
 soldier would carry his sword. I also kept my hat 
 in my hand. Not so with Jennie Hamilton's father. 
 He left his five-dollar hat downstairs in the room 
 they told him to. Alas, alas, alas! it was gobbled 
 up, all gobbled up!! Nothing was left of it but 
 a dirty old white hat which Mr. Hamilton flung 
 down, as if it had been an old dish-cloth. 
 
 However, he was at last persuaded to wear the 
 dirty old thing a little while, until he could buy 
 another, down street. 
 
 This put Mrs. Brown, where Dr. Barstow 
 boarded (and where he asked us to take tea) in 
 mind of how her husband once, after a great levee 
 at the President's in Washington, some years 
 ago, wanted his hat to go home with. The 
 black servant at the door brought him a very 
 shabby hat. He sent him for another. Then the 
 negro brought him a very, very shabby hat. *' Stop, 
 this is not the one," quoth he. Then the negro 
 brought him a very^ very, very shabby hat. "Why," 
 said Mr. Brown, "mine is a good hat." "Law, 
 Massa," said the negro, "all de good hats been 
 gone dis two hour!!" 
 
 f i88 1 
 
LETTERS TO A CHILD 
 
 Good-bye, darling. Kiss Mamma for me, give 
 my love to Cousin Henry and to Cousin Fanny and 
 believe me, always your loving Father, 
 
 William O. White. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, July 23, 1865. 
 . . . All that the dear daughter seems to need to 
 make her supremely happy there is a flesh and 
 blood little girl of about her age. But with older 
 people to be her companions, and with the kittens, 
 and swallows and chickens, and red-winged black- 
 birds and the sparrows' nests, and the ducks and 
 pigeons at the neighboring house, and the blue sea, 
 and her books and dolls, I think she will not need 
 a great many handkerchiefs with which to wipe 
 away her tears. If she does, let her send to me and 
 I will buy her an extra dozen. Ask her if the tears 
 will not be Salter for being formed down in that 
 salt air. 
 
 Keene, April 10, 1866. 
 
 Dear Eliza: — 
 
 Mr. Billings brought in one of the seven chick- 
 ens Sunday morning (a black one) which he had 
 rescued from a vile cur. 
 
 The little lame chicken got better. But, 0, that 
 [ 189 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 afternoon, Kitty beheld the vile cur making off 
 very rapidly with two more of the seven chick- 
 ens. They have never been seen or heard of, but 
 the vile cur has been seen, but never will be seen 
 again, 
 
 Mr. Billings went to the owner and bought him 
 for two dollars, Mr. Billings killed the vile cur; 
 Mr. Billings buried the vile cur, we all breathe 
 freer, especially the mother of the chickens; and I 
 am, in a great hurry, your afF. father. 
 
 Will. O. White. 
 
 Nellie B. got your last letter and was glad. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, April 14, 1866, 
 My dearest Daughter: — 
 
 I am very sorry to be obliged to tell you what 
 will make you feel a little sad. You must not 
 allow it, however, to trouble you more than a 
 minute or two. One of our little family here has 
 bitterly deceived us. It is not Kitty; it is not 
 Julia. Who then? Alas, it is, it is, it is, — can it 
 be, — yes, it is, it is, I lament to say it, but it is, 
 — too true, — too true — it is 
 
 Pussy ! 
 Ah! the lamentable discovery! 
 
 Fred Thompson the Discoverer. 
 [ 190 ] 
 
LETTERS TO A CHILD 
 
 Fred looked Into the kitten barrel yesterday. 
 Fred saw three fat kittens. Fred saw one fat cat. 
 But Fred saw what did not belong there. He saw 
 two wings, and they were wings of different colors, 
 and they did not look like birds' wings. Your 
 father was called in "on consultation." He pro- 
 nounced the wings to be chickens' wings. Was 
 Papa enraged.'' Did he order that Pussy should 
 share the fate of "the vile cur".-* No, Papa was 
 grieved. He was disappointed. He remembered, 
 also, that Pussy was your cat. Kitty turned pale 
 with surprise and vexation and sorrow, — Catha- 
 rine Elliot, I mean. 
 
 Pussy by this time had removed her family from 
 the barrel. She fled to the woods, — the cellar 
 woods, I mean. No sooner had Fred noticed the 
 barrel-wings than Pussy's conscience troubled her, 
 and her guilty feelings drove her into solitude. 
 I Learning this morning that in all probability 
 she and her voracious brats have devoured four of 
 the remaining five early chickens that were rescued 
 from "the vile cur," we have shut Pussy up in the 
 rockaway house in our barn. When her kittens are 
 hungry enough to creep out of their lurking-place, 
 they shall join her. As you and your mother had 
 not quite decided which kitten shall be killed, I 
 [ 191 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE ' 
 
 shall decide for you, and have the buff one killed. 
 It ought to have been done long ago. Then, either 
 I shall dispose of all my chickens, — every one, — 
 by selling them, or giving them away, or I shall try 
 and get the cat boarded for the next few months at 
 Miss Mary Nourse's. As she has been so good a 
 cat, I do not want to have her killed until we have 
 tried to get her boarded. Perhaps if we dispose of 
 all her kittens, we may raise the chickens, after 
 they are in the yard. The cat and kittens ought to 
 have been kept in the shed, while the hens were In 
 the cellar. We can all see that now. But who could 
 have suspected Pussy.'' The temptation was too 
 strong for her. She was more of a cat than she 
 was of a saint, after all. You and your mother 
 can be thinking over whether you had rather 
 have no chickens and keep the cat and two kit- 
 tens all the time at home, or have the cat at Miss 
 Nourse's a little while this summer; and keep the 
 chickens. 
 
 I thought how much worse I should have felt 
 had It been my child, rather than my child's cat 
 that had In any way deceived me. 
 
 Your affec. father, 
 
 W. O. White. 
 
 1 192 1 
 
LETTERS TO A CHILD 
 
 Keene, Sunday night, April 15, 1866. 
 
 Dear little Eliza: — 
 
 This is the next chapter in the drama of the kit- 
 ten and chicken families of 1866. 
 
 It proved, last evening, that Pussy had put into 
 the stomachs of herself "and children three," some 
 dozen chickens, in all. Just after this terrific an- 
 nouncement, falling like a thunderbolt upon our 
 quiet household (although we are still blessed with 
 twenty-five living chickens, and with the prospect 
 of a new brood next Friday, and still another 
 brood a fortnight from next Saturday; and with 
 two or three more hens that cluck so that they 
 seem to say, "Give me a chance, give me a chance, 
 I '11 risk the cats, I '11 risk the dogs, I '11 risk the rain, 
 I'll risk the sk — s; do give me a chance to hatch 
 my eggs";) just after the terrific announcement on 
 page first, Mr. George Nourse drove up with butter. 
 He agreed to board Pussy and her two surviving 
 brats, — the buff and white, and the grey. So, a 
 basket was found; pussy and the two kittens were 
 deposited therein and a cloth tied over the top of 
 the basket. 
 
 "Good-bye, Mr. Nourse: good-bye. Pussy." 
 
 The sound of the wagon-wheels dies away in 
 the distance. Morning comes. 
 [ 193 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 "Well, Kitty, how does the house seem without 
 a cat?" 
 
 "Indeed, Sir, but Pussy has come hack, and 
 came up from the cellar this morning!" 
 
 "With her kittens?" 
 
 "No, I put her in the rockaway house again. 
 I guess she did n't go all the way to Mr. Nourse's, 
 she came back so soon." 
 
 So mother and children are separated for a while. 
 I shall try to get Pussy carried to her brats at Mr. 
 Nourse's, if they are there, before many days. 
 
 Meantime you will agree with me that this adds 
 one more strange, exciting, peculiar, wonderful, 
 curious, odd, unexpected chapter to the romantic 
 history of the pets of the White family In Keene for 
 the year 1866. In the midst of these raids by the 
 four footed beasts upon our poultry, I am happy 
 to be able to say that our baby pigeon is in "fine 
 feather," safe in his lofty nook, from 
 
 Paw of cat or dog 
 
 Or rude and grunting hog. . . . 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, April 19, 1866. 
 Dear Eliza: — 
 
 Such a chase as Kitty and I have been having 
 for the chickens! With the thermometer at 70 de- 
 [ 194 ] 
 
LETTERS TO A CHILD 
 
 grees, we thought that they surely could endure 
 coming up from the damp cellar. But how the 
 black scamps and the brown scamps and the grey 
 scamps, and the scamp of all sorts of colors, jumped 
 behind pots, and kettles, and baskets, and boards, 
 and woodboxes, and woodpiles, and refrigerators, 
 and chimneys, and coal hods, and cellar-doors; — 
 it would require a livelier pen than mine to 
 describe. 'H 
 
 ' We have now put the remnants of the first three 
 broods under one hen. She has the lame black one, 
 sole survivor of the brood of seven, and she has ten 
 others. Imagine her in her coop under the china- 
 closet window, with her brood of eleven. The 
 potato-cellar hen you may see, in your mind's eye, 
 under the kitchen window with a brood of thirteen. 
 
 "Only twenty-four!" you will say. Suffer me to 
 correct you a little. Another black mother is 
 hatching her chickens to-day. She has five already 
 and I think may have three, four or five more by 
 to-morrow. 
 
 Perhaps we shall put her where your bantam 
 used to be, behind the cellar-door, close by your 
 play-room. 
 
 In a fortnight another hen will probably hatch 
 her chickens. 
 
 [ 195 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 Your pigeon is as white as snow, and by another 
 week will very likely be showing himself on his 
 front-door step, to the little girl to whom he 
 belongs. 
 
 The expedition to Mr. Nourse's was safely made 
 by Julia and Kitty on Monday afternoon. You 
 have heard of such a thing as "A cat in a bag." 
 Such was the situation of your own puss during 
 the journey performed by J. and K. to Mr. Nourse's. 
 
 One of her children crept up to Pussy with every 
 mark of filial aflfection. Yet I am informed that 
 *' at first" their mother " did not seem to care much 
 for them." But I should have been sorry to have 
 had her love them so well as she did the chickens. 
 It was better that she did not "love them enough 
 to eat them." 
 
 The cat has not been here since, so we conclude 
 that her home for the present, at Mrs. Nourse's, 
 suits her. 
 
 The old Dorking began to sit yesterday. She 
 has eighteen eggs. It's the same hen, which, two 
 years ago, sat on eighteen eggs, hatched nineteen, 
 and brought up twenty chickens! 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 I 866-1 876 
 
 These later years in Keene from the close of the 
 Civil War to 1876 were filled with many activities 
 for the minister and his wife. If there was no longer 
 the zest of novelty with which they began the long 
 pastorate in 1851, they had formed ties which time 
 had only strengthened, and middle-age had not 
 taken away any of their enthusiasm. Besides the 
 parish cares there were many outside interests 
 which are alluded to in the following letters. A 
 minor one, which gave my father great pleasure, 
 was his correspondence with Dr. James Martineau, 
 who consulted him in regard to the authorship of 
 some American hymns. 
 
 No sketch of my father's life in Keene would be 
 complete without some account of his relations 
 with his brother ministers. In those days, when 
 Unitarians were so often considered heretics, it is 
 pleasant to see how he won his way and made 
 warm friends with those of a different faith. Chief 
 among them was Dr. Barstow, the Orthodox min- 
 ister, old enough to be his father, a dignified figure, 
 [ 197] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 typical of the former times. Between these men of 
 different ages and widely different temperaments 
 there existed the most cordial and friendly rela- 
 tions. There was also Dr. Renouf, the Episcopal 
 clergyman, a contemporary of Mr. White's, and 
 Mr. Hamilton, Dr. Barstow's assistant, who was 
 for a time our next-door neighbor. He and my 
 father were associated in their lighter hours of 
 relaxation, once taking a horseback journey to- 
 gether. 
 
 My father gives a vivid account of the Methodist 
 Conference in the spring of the year 1866. In a let- 
 ter of April 10 to his wife, he says: "The Metho- 
 dist guests have not come, ours, I mean. I have 
 virtually provided for twenty-one of the brethren." 
 And he goes on to tell of the money he subscribed 
 himself, and raised from other people for their 
 accommodation. 
 
 April 13. "I will now tell you a little about the 
 Methodist Conference here. I was introduced by 
 name to them. Bishop Simpson stood up and took 
 me by the hand; they all bowed and what could I 
 do but bow too.^ The next second Mr. Clark, the 
 Baptist minister, was introduced in like manner. 
 Each minister was called by name yesterday morn- 
 ing, and the presiding elder in his district would 
 [ 198 ] 
 
LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 reply, 'Nothing against Brother Smith.' There 
 was one man, however, against whom they did 
 have something. The presiding elder thought his 
 failure — pecuniarily — arose from his being 'late' 
 in everything. He hoped he would n't be too late 
 in getting into the Kingdom. This was prefaced 
 by saying that it took him six weeks to travel 
 some fifty miles, and as many to return. But a 
 committee was appointed to investigate the case." 
 April 14. "I heard yesterday afternoon some of 
 the young ministers who are about to be admitted 
 to the Conference give their 'experience.' One 
 interested me more than the rest. He had never 
 had a 'praying father and mother.' When his un- 
 cle, however, came to see them, they had prayers 
 and he felt so strangely that he begged another 
 evening that he might go to bed before prayers. 
 But there on the bed the prayer smote him as he 
 overheard his uncle pray for the poor 'sick' boy. 
 ('Ah, I was not sick, only sin-sick.') That very 
 uncle, an aged man, was sitting in the pulpit yes- 
 terday, and must have enjoyed hearing the young 
 man, as he summed up his feelings, not by talk- 
 ing about reward and glory in heaven, as some 
 of them did, or a 'rainbow arch,' but by saying 
 with much emotion, ' I want to be full of Christ. 
 [ 199 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 I want to be a Jiving epistle, known and read of all 
 men!' 
 
 Almost every one of these young men had much 
 to say of the influence of their mothers as para- 
 mount to everything else they had enjoyed in the 
 way of help and strength." 
 
 To R. H. W. 
 
 Springfield, Massachusetts, 
 April 17, 1866. 
 
 ... I came down yesterday after an interesting 
 Methodist week. I had Professor Harrington, of 
 Wesleyan Seminary, MIddletown, Connecticut, 
 (Professor of Latin, but a clergyman), for my guest, 
 and a delightful Christian, genial gentleman I 
 found him. 
 
 The New Hampshire Methodist Conference met 
 in Keene, on occasion of its annual session. 
 
 Bishop Simpson presided. 
 
 I enjoyed becoming acquainted with a number 
 of the brethren, several of whom dined and took 
 tea with me. 
 
 Mr. Stubbs, of Nashua, preached for me in the 
 morning, and Mr. (or Dr.) Barrows, of Sanbornton, 
 in the evening. 
 
 I was urged to hear the Bishop at the Town Hall 
 [ 200 1 
 
LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 in the forenoon, and did so. I was delighted with 
 his simplicity, devoutness, and unction. It was a 
 sermon that could not fail to do good to the im- 
 mense audience. 
 
 Previous to that I attended their "Love Feast," 
 and deeply enjoyed the snatches of hymns which 
 were sung. Then hearing my friend Professor 
 Harrington in the afternoon, and Dr. Barrows at 
 my own church in the evening, and a half-hour's 
 talk after that in the Town Hall, I found I had had 
 — eight solid hours of meeting, in one day, more 
 than on any previous Sunday in my life; more, prob- 
 ably, than ever again; doubtless more than ever fell 
 to you in any one Sunday of your long life. And I 
 survived it bravely. 
 
 . . . One nice old Methodist minister said, "I 
 have heard of you from a Baptist family where 
 I stop, and from some of the Methodists, and I 
 rejoice that my Brother Wagner (our late Method- 
 ist minister in Keene) had the courtesy and 
 Christian charity to exchange with you. I would, 
 if I were not at the other end of the State." 
 
 Ever, dear mother, with thanks for your letter, 
 I am yours in a Springfield store. 
 
 Most afi"ectionately. 
 
 Will. O. W. 
 
 [ 201 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 There was the reverse of this picture, however, 
 for one minister in town, "the young Leach," re- 
 ferred to in the following letters, was violently 
 prejudiced against liberal Christians, remarking 
 that one Unitarian church did more harm in a town 
 than twenty liquor saloons. This led to Mr. White's 
 giving a series of sermons on Sunday evenings in 
 which he expounded the doctrines by which those 
 of his own faith lived and died. 
 
 May 9, 1866. 
 
 My last Sunday evening doctrinal sermon was 
 on Human Nature, in which I handled Total De- 
 pravity. The church was as full as I have yet 
 seen it (leaving out the morning Sunday-School 
 children), fuller (than in the morning) of grown 
 folks. Several people from the Societies come 
 statedly. Meantime, the young Orthodox " Leach " 
 advertises us, by saying he knows the "Unitarians 
 would be glad to get rid of half the Bible," etc. 
 
 Four persons were named Sunday for our July 
 communion; one young man and three ladies. This 
 will make nine men (in three and a half years) and 
 nine women, besides two men and women by letter. 
 Some of these are grand young men, who take hold 
 well of our charitable subscriptions. So that the 
 1 202 1 
 
LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 parish, as a working body (spite of our sad losses by 
 deatli and emigration), in fifteen years, seems much 
 more desirable than when I came. . . . There are 
 some ten men connected with the Sunday-School 
 Library and as teachers. . . . 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, May 4, 1866. 
 
 The spring finds our parish in as good a posi- 
 tion, seemingly, as I can remember it. I have been 
 here a year and a month longer than any min- 
 ister they have had. Let me name persons who 
 since Fast week have taken seats. . . .[He goes on 
 to name seven families who wanted seats, and says :] 
 It is very hard stowing them about, and we really 
 need a new church. 
 
 Our evening service on Sunday, begun at 
 Christmas, still works well. We had, Sunday be- 
 fore last, some two hundred and fifty out in the 
 evening; usually, a hundred less than that. I have 
 been asked to preach some doctrinal sermons in 
 the evening. The evening when our attendance 
 was larger than usual, I preached in regard to the 
 support which our faith gives people when dying; 
 with numerous illustrations, such as Dr. Channing 
 and others. 'T was in consequence of a young 
 "Leach," who, "supplying" now for six months, 
 [ 203 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 as Dr. Barstow's coadjutor, publicly said in a ser- 
 mon that "no Unitarian or Universalist — did he 
 believe — ever died believing in those views." 
 When they appeared to, 't was the result of nar- 
 cotics, or they recanted. 
 
 Where there are so many young and unthinking 
 persons 'round, it is well enough to take occasion 
 to refute such calumnies. On the whole, the young 
 "Leach" referred to has been a good pudding- 
 stick in the community. . . . 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Keene, April 19, 1866. 
 
 I made quite a long call on Mr. and Mrs. 
 Kilburn. Mr. Kilburn seemed almost intoxicated 
 with Keene; they both seemed perfectly de- 
 lighted, every house, however small, seemed so 
 neat and clean in its surroundings. He had trav- 
 elled a thousand miles to look for a home, but had 
 seen nothing that would at all answer, until he 
 came to Keene. Mr. Kilburn was delighted to hear 
 some old-fashioned Unitarian preaching again. 
 
 The parish had increased so much that it threat- 
 ened to outgrow its old accommodations and in 
 1868 my father was occupied in putting through the 
 project of building a new church. It was a great 
 I 204 1 
 
LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 happiness to him to see this wish fulfilled. He was 
 also much interested in raising money towards the 
 $100,000 fund for the American Unitarian Associ- 
 ation. 
 
 Apropos of raising money in Keene to build a 
 Methodist church, my father tells this story: 
 "Another brother (minister) commended the exam- 
 ple of a young man in another town, who, to secure 
 a new church, gave twice as much as he was worth : 
 giving a thousand dollars when he'd only five hun- 
 dred in the world: telling them that if he should 
 'backslide,' he wanted it fixed so the church 
 should n't lose. Query, whether the subscription 
 was not a bit of a backslide, five hundred dollars 
 less than nothing. But at forty-two the man died, 
 worth just forty- two thousand dollars. The Lord 
 had prospered him. Such happens to the man who 
 gives twice what he's worth, it seems, an early 
 heaven and an earthly fortune." 
 
 My mother's interests in Keene were almost as 
 varied as my father's. She took an active part in 
 the Sewing Circle, and during her later years there, 
 she had a Sunday-School class of boys to whom she 
 read once a week at her own house. She was one 
 of the founders of the Invalids' Home, and she 
 I 205 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 started the Social Union, a club for young men 
 who met in the evening to read and play games. 
 
 My father wrote to me apropos of the Social 
 Union [December i6, 1873], "Your mother has 
 been flying about 'like one possessed' (with a lively 
 idea) this last week, picking up money right and 
 left, filching it from Temperance men, diving down 
 into liquor saloons for it, — and all to open a room 
 where young men shall have a place that they can 
 call their own, to read or to chat in. She has prob- 
 ably told you that the different parishes (or mem- 
 bers in them) cooperate in this experiment." 
 
 To E. O. W. 
 
 January 4, 1874. 
 
 You said that you would like to know about the 
 Temperance matters here. The "Sentinel," which 
 I will send, will tell you in a measure. The " notice" 
 was given to the different sellers of the iniquity on 
 Monday and very little Immediate difficulty ensued. 
 The Committee were courteously received. Tues- 
 day evening, at nine, Harding's saloon in the 
 building where your Grammar School was, was as 
 dark as a pocket and so was Pike's. In fact, 
 Lettenmayer's saloon is "busted" under Cheshire 
 Bank, and sign gone, and Kelley (Apothecary) has 
 I 206 ] 
 
LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 failed. The streets have certainly been much 
 quieter. Meantime, I think, the Committee mean 
 to prosecute any violations of the law which shall 
 come to their knowledge. Although, doubtless, 
 there may be sales still, they must perforce be less 
 flagrant and open, which fact makes the streets 
 pleasanter to walk through, at least. 
 
 It was so very rainy last evening that inasmuch 
 as Bishop Hugh Latimer had waited more than 
 three hundred years before holding forth in Keene, 
 I persuaded him to wait a fortnight longer, as I 
 thought that 't was a pity to wait so many cen- 
 turies for such a sorry evening as last evening 
 was. 
 
 A fortnight later he writes: — 
 
 "I should like to read you sometime or other, the 
 sermon of Latimer which I read the other evening 
 at the church parlor. One sentence I will give you 
 now. 'Consider it well, I had rather ye should 
 come with a naughty mind to hear the word of God 
 for novelty, or for curiosity to hear some pastime, 
 than be away. I had rather you should come, as 
 the tale is of the gentlewoman of London; one of 
 her neighbors met her in the street, and said, — 
 'Mistress, whither go ye.^" 
 [ 207 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 ""'Marry,*' said she, "I am going now to St. 
 Thomas of Acres to the sermon; I could not sleep 
 all the last night, and I am going now thither; I 
 never failed of a good nap there." 
 
 And so I had rather ye would go a napping to 
 the sermons than not to go at all: for with what 
 mind soever ye come, though ye come for an evil 
 purpose, yet peradventure, ye may chance to be 
 caught ere you go; the preacher may chance to 
 catch you on his hook.' 
 
 "This particular sermon was preached before 
 King Edward Sixth, April 12, 1549. The good man 
 must then have been nearly eighty, for he was 
 about eighty-five when in 1555 he was burned at 
 Oxford." 
 
 My father begins one of his letters to me with 
 some spicy nonsense verses which he invents for 
 the occasion, and he adds: — 
 
 "Pardon the rhyming, my beloved daughter, 
 but I am fresh from handling the seven hundred 
 and ninety-seven hymns which came to me an 
 hour or two ago from Rev. James Martineau 'with 
 the Editor's grateful regards.' I am very much 
 pleased with the volume, although I miss hymns 
 which I should be glad to see there, and discover 
 familiar hymns that had disappeared from the 
 [ 208 ] 
 
LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 more recent books, and I see new hymns of whose 
 existence I was not aware, and which promise to 
 be valuable. Of course I have had no time to give 
 the book a thorough examination yet. 
 
 "I have been enjoying the life of Colonel Tim- 
 othy Pickering this week, and as there are two 
 more large volumes, I shall have it to enjoy, at 
 intervals, for some time. ... As I well remember 
 the valiant Colonel who sat two pews in front of us 
 at church, and who died when I was eight years 
 old, the life of this trusted companion of General 
 Washington in war, and his Secretary of State, 
 afterwards, in peace, has double interest for me. 
 You will sometime be interested in the life of 
 Schiller by Carlyle, which I have also been lately 
 reading. It gives some account of Schubert, whose 
 music, I see that 'Perabo' is advertised to play in 
 Boston. Poor Schubert led a wild and weary and 
 imprisoned life. If his music reflects his troubled 
 passions at all, there must be something restless 
 and exciting in it." 
 
 To E. 0. W. 
 Dear Soul: — 
 
 To thee I wrote last night, but specially am I 
 anxious to know when you get the letter. For twist 
 [ 209 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 and twirl It, had I to, in order to jam It into the 
 gills of the mail-bag at the depot. It contained a 
 hymn that I copied from Dr. Martlneau's new 
 book. . . . 
 
 We're glad the G. S. Hale matter is so snugly 
 arranged, and that you go also to Mrs. Parker. It is 
 a good part of your education (which often best 
 goes on insensibly) to meet these cultured people 
 and join in conversation with them. 
 
 I think my opportunity of seeing agreeable and 
 cultivated families in Cambridge was an essential 
 part of my own training, as I look back on it. 
 
 I could much better have spared " conic sections " 
 and "calculus," etc., and a lot of things which 
 were only valuable as "mental discipline," and 
 which did not give the mental discipline which 
 exercising my mind in conversation with sensible 
 and scholarly people, did. 
 
 But no more now from thy father 
 
 W. 0. W. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 January 24, 1874. 
 
 To E. O. W. 
 
 ... I often think how he (your grandfather) 
 would enjoy such a thing as this (which I quote 
 I 210 ] 
 
LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 from Mrs. Somerville's recollections) and many 
 other things which I see or hear, or read. There 
 was simply some rough water like that which we 
 had in our Cape Cottage sail. 
 
 "Mind how you steer, George; remember I 
 trust in you," quoth Mrs. Somerville's mother, 
 
 George laughed, and said, "Dinna trust in me, 
 leddy; trust in God Almighty." 
 
 Our mother (down below) called out in perfect 
 terror, "Dear me! has it come to that?" 
 
 We burst out laughing, skipper and all. 
 
 Brattleboro, Vermont, 
 Tuesday, June 2, 1874, 7 a.m. 
 
 My dear Daughter: — 
 
 I reached Keene in good time on Friday morn- 
 ing 
 
 I speedily took to the garden, watching the 
 growth of each batch of blossoms on the various 
 trees and hearkening to catbirds and golden 
 robins. 
 
 A catbird on Saturday morning sang for fifteen 
 minutes a variety of snatches worth a fifty-cent 
 ticket much more than concerts at the Town Hall 
 have been for which I have paid this sum. But I 
 suppose any piece of paper would have suited him 
 [211 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 equally well. I have discovered three new birds' 
 nests since my return; a chipping-bird's on the 
 Porter tree, and what I think must be a yellow- 
 bird's on an apple tree by the gooseberry bushes 
 (it is so white with wool that you can hardly tell 
 it from the blossoms), and a curious, deftly made 
 nest on the buckthorn hedge near the Astrachan 
 tree whose inmates I have not yet seen, but upon 
 whose privacy I fear that the cats will intrude 
 before I see it again. 
 
 To E. O. W. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 Tuesday evening, Apnl 13, 1875. 
 
 I trust that you are not having our snow-storm 
 which has been quietly proceeding since two 
 o'clock, and which I should like better, were I not 
 vexed to think of the robins and other birds who 
 have not considered themselves invited all the way 
 from the South to see this sort of a "crumb- 
 spread," and on so large a scale. It ought to call 
 out a crumb-spread of a different sort. Well, I sup- 
 pose we should borrow trouble about the way 
 things go on in the other planets, if we only knew 
 that they go on at all. He who makes birds and 
 snow-storms both, can adjust their mutual econ- 
 [ 212 ] 
 
LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 omy, I fancy, while we turn to those things for 
 which we know we are responsible. 
 
 To E. O. W. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, January 22, 1876. 
 Saturday, 10 min. before 3 p.m. 
 
 Miss B. dined here to-day. There is a rug 
 a-lining, and such like matters going on. Yester- 
 day a sort of waltz and country-dance superadded 
 went on among the pieces of furniture in the 
 dining-room, judging from their postures, and the 
 carpets were removed for their freer movements. 
 
 To R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 February 7, 1874. 
 
 My dear Mother: — 
 
 I have been at three very dry funerals lately; 
 one, — that of a "Poor-Farm" septuagenarian 
 whose last hours were beguiled by the assurance of 
 her spouse that he did n't believe that she meant to 
 die; the other that of a septuagenarian bachelor 
 here who was commonly in close league with spirits, 
 — but alas! not those of the just; the third the 
 septuagenarian husband of a lady (in a neighboring 
 town), whose first husband's funeral I had attended 
 there fifteen years ago. "A good provider" was 
 [ 213 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 about all I could hear regarding him, as he, too, 
 provided too lavishly for himself, things which 
 hindered rather than helped. One thing was pleas- 
 ant; the lonely fifteen-year-old orphan of the fun- 
 eral (fifteen years ago) was now transformed into a 
 prosperous manufacturer. 
 
 To R. H. W. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 March 2, 1874. 
 
 My dear Mother: — 
 
 We had a curious speech at our Temperance 
 meeting Thursday evening, at the Town Hall. I 
 had just finished talking, when a zealous Advent 
 preacher got up, and with great earnestness repre- 
 sented "coming to Jesus" to be the only basis in 
 this reform. Nothing availed him until this. After 
 stating in similar terms what in the way of spirit 
 he gave, he added, "and I gave Jesus my pipe 
 and my tobacco box." And this, with great so- 
 lemnity. I suppose this phraseology is canonized 
 in his mind, "giving everything to Jesus," good — 
 or bad. 
 
 This letter closes the correspondence between 
 my father and his stepmother, who died on Novem- 
 ber 28, 1874, at the advanced age of ninety years, 
 [ 214 ] 
 
LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 seven months and ten days, retaining her vigor of 
 mind up to the last. 
 
 To Dr. James Martineau 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 June 7, 1876. 
 
 In your reasoning with Tyndall, I am reminded 
 of one who tries to argue with a child, but 
 who all the time feels that it is more than half 
 hopeless. The child must grow: the basis is not 
 there, on which to build. So Tyndall must be 
 "born again" (that's the long and the short of it), 
 to sympathize with Cudworth and you. I am in- 
 formed that he was brought up in a rigid and un- 
 genial Presbyterianism. No wonder that certain 
 men of this fashion may feel more coolly than 
 spiritually-minded men can, about the question of 
 immortality. One lifetime might do as well as 
 twenty to peep into gases. For that other "a liquid 
 immensum infinitumque^^ eternity can be none too 
 long. It may be want of charity in me, but how- 
 ever grand their intellects or achievements, some 
 of these men remind me of "Undine" the water- 
 sprite, without a soul. . . . 
 
 But your task is eminently imperative, since so 
 many young people are carried away by the word 
 [ 215 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 "Science," and are ready to take every new theory 
 in that department for gospel. 
 
 In the summer of 1876 Mr. White in a character- 
 istic letter asked his parish for leave of absence for 
 a year as he wanted to take his family to Europe. 
 He says: — 
 
 On the first day of August it will be twenty-five 
 years since you asked me to become your minister, 
 and the first day of October twenty-five years will 
 have passed since I was installed as your pastor. 
 
 I desire to be relieved from the care of the pulpit 
 and the parish for a year from and after the first 
 Sunday, the first day of October next. 
 
 When you kindly consented to my having four 
 Sundays in each and every year to myself, nothing 
 was said about my having fifty-two Sundays at the 
 end of twenty-five years. I should have then been 
 appalled at the thought of these twenty-five length- 
 ening years, and you might have deemed it inap- 
 propriate, in dealing with this young man of thirty, 
 to offer any premium for his remaining a quarter of 
 a century among you. 
 
 So long as I had the health, and could gain a 
 respite, annually, from care by pulpit exchanges in 
 [ 216 ] 
 
LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 August, I was not careful, commonly, to ask the 
 Trustees to fill the pulpit by supply for more than 
 two Sundays. If an absence of fifty-two Sundays 
 should seem a long one to some people, I trust that 
 they will bear in mind that I have labored some 
 thirty-nine or forty Sundays during my stay, when, 
 by the terms of my settlement, I was not thus re- 
 quired; and that they will also remember that 
 while numerous ministers have been absent from 
 their posts during this period, for the space of a 
 year, more or less, there has been but one month 
 out of these nearly three hundred months upon 
 some day of which I have not been in Keene. 
 
 And having arrived at the age of fifty-five, I am 
 reminded that there is a risk in postponing a jour- 
 ney, which I am more anxious to take on behalf 
 of my family than on my own account. 
 
 And so, dear friends, I leave the case in your 
 hands, and remain, with deep regard. 
 
 Affectionately your friend and pastor, 
 
 Will: O. White. 
 
 My father and mother, as has already been 
 shown, were both of them extremely fond of out- 
 of-door life, and the last few years in Keene they 
 could indulge this taste with greater freedom than 
 I 217 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 ever, as my father had his own horse, a practical 
 family beast, able to turn from drawing wood from 
 our woodlot, or bringing back barrels of apples 
 from the orchard my father had now acquired at 
 the other end of the town, or potatoes from the 
 farm he had bought on the top of Beech Hill, to 
 taking my mother on her daily drive. He was a 
 somewhat plodding and stupid-looking animal, of 
 irreproachable white, and when we drove our- 
 selves, it was hard to get him to go beyond a dis- 
 creet and decorous pace, but the minute he felt 
 the touch of the hand of our man on the reins, he 
 became another animal and went in a fleet and 
 spirited manner. 
 
 It is hard to say during which season these drives 
 were the more beautiful. There were the expedi- 
 tions for mayflowers when the woods were full of 
 spicy odors, and the first hints of early spring; and 
 the first picnic, perhaps including the crowning of a 
 May Queen; and there were the summer drives 
 when the red lilies filled the fields, or the shy car- 
 dinal flowers could sometimes be found; there were 
 the summer picnics, when the family and their 
 guests took their supper by Beaver Brook Falls 
 or the Ashuelot River, or took their dinner by 
 Dublin Pond, whose shores in those halcyon days 
 [ 218 ] 
 
LATER YEARS IN KEENE 
 
 were free to all comers. Perhaps the most exhila- 
 rating of ail were the autumn drives to the orchard, 
 when the air was crisp and bracing, and the maples 
 along the way were flaming red and yellow, and 
 the road was edged with the deep-blue fringed gen- 
 tians. Winter, too, had its especial charm when 
 the sleigh sped swiftly over the snow, and the pines 
 and hemlocks were bent under their white burden. 
 Happy is the child who has grown up in the coun- 
 try and has been allowed to be the chosen com- 
 panion of his parents. One may lose the inheri- 
 tance of money, but this other inheritance remains 
 as long as memory lasts. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 EUROPE AND LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 I 876-1 878 
 
 On October 7, 1876, Mr. White sailed with his 
 family for England. The voyage was very different 
 from the one he took in 1841, although, compared 
 with the luxurious boats of to-day, the Batavia 
 was a primitive affair. The year spent in Europe 
 was filled to the brim with varied experiences, all 
 of them full of interest. My father had the great 
 pleasure of showing us the scenes which were 
 doubly interesting to him on account of the asso- 
 ciations of thirty-five years earlier; while to my 
 mother, who had not been abroad since she was 
 a child of two, Europe was a land of enchantment. 
 The journey the travellers took was the ordinary 
 one, but it was made memorable by the unusually 
 keen powers of enjoyment which both my father 
 and mother possessed. 
 
 The acquaintance with Dr. Martineau, which 
 had been so pleasantly begun over his hymn-book, 
 ripened into a friendship when he and my father 
 met face to face. Dr. Martineau was a man with 
 such remarkable spiritual and mental gifts that it 
 [ 220 ] 
 
EUROPE 
 
 would be hard to imagine any 6ne better suited to 
 stand as one's ideal of what the race might be. No 
 one who has ever seen him can forget a personality 
 so unusual and so full of grace and kindliness. At 
 this time he was a little past seventy with silvery 
 hair and features that were clear-cut and noble. 
 His delightful voice and courteous manner com- 
 pelled the attention of all his listeners, while the 
 force and charm of his language made any subject, 
 no matter how spiritual or ethical, seem vividly 
 interesting even to the youngest ears. 
 
 After a few weeks in London which were made 
 memorable not only by the sights of the city, but 
 by meeting various people of interest, the travellers 
 took a trip through some of the cathedral towns, 
 and crossed to France. My mother describes in 
 her journal the Paris of those days: — 
 
 "Some of the pleasantest things we do are the 
 little accidental things that we happen into, going 
 to and coming from our regular expeditions. We 
 drop in at a Catholic shop, for instance, filled with 
 lovely wax baby Jesuses asleep in the manger, with 
 his mother and Joseph and the wise men and the 
 cattle all kneeling around him and we find sweet 
 little Catholic pictures on cards, and it grows dark 
 and we come out to find It raining a flood. We 
 
 [ 221 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 wander about on the glistering pavements up and 
 down in front of the brilliantly lighted shops, 
 utterly ignorant as to which way we ought to go. 
 We hail an omnibus, but it is not going to the Arc 
 d'Etoile. We hail a fiacre, the cocher shakes his 
 head and says "Pris"; we try the tram-way, no, 
 that will carry us in the wrong direction. We 
 inquire our way to the river to take the Bateaux 
 omnibus, but that is a ten minutes' walk. We start, 
 however, to find our way there, but the streets are 
 so narrow, and so dark, and so full of vehicles that 
 we turn back once more to try for a. fiacre. We see, 
 by the lighted windows again, the strange-looking 
 crowd hurrying by: a woman under an umbrella, 
 with her cap border flying back, her dress held up 
 very high — a priest in his black, broad-brimmed 
 hat and his long black dress tied at the waist with 
 a black cord and tassel or a wide sash. He rushes 
 by holding up his petticoats as his female neighbor 
 does, . . . the father of a family with his loaf of 
 bread a yard and a half long — rowdy men who 
 smell of brandy, — the street-sweepers with their 
 brooms sending the mud flying all over you; at 
 last a. fiacre draws up."^ 
 
 From France we went to Italy, spending the 
 
 ' From After Noontide. 
 [ 222 ] 
 
EUROPE 
 
 rest of the winter and early spring chiefly in Rome, 
 Naples, Florence, and Venice, and going over the 
 Cornice Pass into Switzerland in May. My mother 
 thus describes the drive: — - 
 
 Before long we began to go up hill and 
 were in ecstasies of delight. . . . And now we 
 begin to see a little snow here and there, and 
 patches of white flowers springing up just on its 
 edge. What can they be? They look like crocuses, 
 say I, and so they were. And all that day we 
 kept seeing acres of them, with a few blue ones 
 scattered among them. . . . The snow grows deeper 
 and deeper, until at the top we drive through walls 
 of snow twenty-eight feet high, although our road 
 is quite open. The falling snow prevents our seeing 
 a thing, except here and there we get a glimpse 
 into an abyss of surging vapor, and we know that 
 we are on the edge of a fearful precipice. Occasion- 
 ally, too, a gust of wind blows aside the snow for a 
 moment, and we see a gray, dim mountain peak 
 close above us. . . . We go through galleries cut 
 out of the solid rock, and the clear blocks of ice 
 are piled up on either side, so that we really are in 
 a tunnel of ice. And over the window, instead of 
 rushing waters, we see frozen cascades, and feel as 
 if we had found out where the hoar frost is made 
 [ 223 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 and the birthplace of the winter storms. . . . Be- 
 fore long the sun is shining upon us, and we can 
 look back and up to the mountain summit we have 
 just crossed, and feel as if the winter we found 
 there must be a delusion, only that there is the 
 snow, white and cold against the sky. As we drew 
 near Brigue we got out to get a view, which was 
 one of the most exquisite I ever saw. We looked 
 down a vista between two hills, out on to a plain 
 far away, and winding through it was the Rhone, 
 looking like a thread of silver, and beyond the 
 plain was range after range of distant hills, each 
 one softer than the last, until you could not tell 
 where they ended and the clouds began. And the 
 whole scene was flooded with the most wonderful 
 sunset, yellow and red, streaming out through 
 heavy clouds. I thought of the hills of Beulah and 
 the heavenly country beyond."^ 
 
 In September Mr. White and his family spent a 
 few days on one of the estates of the brother of the 
 Scottish friend whom he met in travelling in 1841. 
 The customs of the household seemed to take one 
 back Into a land of romance, and It was as If one 
 were living for a time in a novel by Sir Walter 
 Scott. At dinner the host was dressed In a black 
 
 ^ From After Noontide. 
 [ 224 ] 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 velvet jacket adorned by various blazing orders, 
 while he wore a kilted skirt made of the plaid of his 
 clan, which showed his bare knees; and a retinue 
 of servants waited on table, some in kilts, some in 
 velvet short-clothes and gold-laced coats, and just 
 before dessert a piper in Scotch costume, something 
 like his master's, but less elaborate, marched around 
 the table playing old Highland tunes on the bag- 
 pipes. He had an air of such self-importance that 
 one felt that he envied no man, but was thoroughly 
 satisfied with the position in which it had pleased 
 Providence to place him. The ladies of the house 
 completed the picture by wearing low-necked 
 evening dresses of soft colors and shimmering tex- 
 ture, so that the child of the party remarked in an 
 awed whisper that they looked like Cinderella at 
 the ball. 
 
 The year of rest and refreshment came to an 
 end at last and Mr. White went back to his con- 
 genial work and duties as minister of the Keene 
 parish. He had hoped to round out his thirty years 
 of preaching in the town which he loved so well, 
 but in the autumn of 1878, only a year after his 
 return from Europe, he had reason to think that 
 there was a certain element in the parish who 
 wanted a younger man, so he sent in his resigna- 
 [ 225 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 tlon which was not accepted by an almost unani- 
 mous vote. But nevertheless he held to his de- 
 termination, and went to Boston with his family 
 for the winter of 1878 and 1879. 
 
 The following letter written to his friend, 
 Edward Everett Hale, shows the way in which, 
 while regretting that his term of service was over 
 in Keene, he looked forward with his usual cheer- 
 ful philosophy to the life that lay before him : — 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 
 December 21, 1878. 
 
 My dear Edward: — 
 
 In the hasty interview which I had with you, 
 that morning, in the horse-car, I failed to thank 
 you for your very kind and thoughtful note, at the 
 time of my resigning the pulpit here. " Laudari a 
 laudato,''^ is no less agreeable a sensation than it 
 was when the words in which the sentiment is 
 expressed, were more alive than "dead." 
 
 We have had everything to enjoy in being here; 
 and to be in this world still, and in so much better 
 health than when I was younger, to be In the world 
 yet at an age when so many wiser and better min- 
 isters have already left it. Is something to be thank- 
 ful for, on the part of one who has so many ties to 
 [ 226 1 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 life, even should he be henceforth appointed the 
 easier task of a listener instead of that of a speaker. 
 
 I am led to think that the sudden collapsing in 
 one's first harness, a boon so often desired, must 
 make many persons, in this world, quite insensible 
 to the sort of hold which they have had on some 
 hearts. 
 
 Going to Europe, or resigning, — the latter feat 
 especially, — brings out sundry testimonies, of 
 which too many worthy ministers may die without 
 the sight. 
 
 So, however much I might have been glad to do 
 in a better way, I have already had more than my 
 share of good-will and kindly appreciation among 
 those whom I have tried to help; and am very con- 
 tent to lay by my arrows in the quiver, before the 
 bow is broken. 
 
 Thankfully and affectionately yours, 
 
 Will: Orne White. 
 
 When it was found that Mr. White was really 
 going to leave the town where he had lived and 
 worked so faithfully for twenty-seven years, there 
 were many of his parishioners who could not be 
 reconciled to the idea, while the feeling of regret 
 in the other parishes was almost as strong, and for 
 [ 227 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 years after he had severed his official connection 
 with his parish, the spiritual tie between them 
 was still a close one. He was summoned over and 
 over again to Keene to attend a wedding or a 
 funeral. His parishioners' sorrows were always 
 very close to his heart, and if he was not called 
 upon to take part in the funeral service, he would 
 write a letter of consolation full of his own strong 
 faith in immortality and in the power of the human 
 soul to get sustenance from the griefs and trials 
 which seemed the hardest to bear. This is one of 
 the many letters of the kind that he wrote after 
 leaving Keene: — 
 
 Brookline, Massachusetts, 
 December 4, 1893. Monday afternoon. 
 
 Mrs. F. a. Faulkner 
 
 My dear Friend: — I am with you in spirit at 
 this moment, and the familiar dwelling, with the 
 sorrowing group who gather there, seems as pres- 
 ent to me as it did again and again, long years 
 ago. 
 
 It has been a pleasure to me, twice within a few 
 years, when travelling, to meet Charles, and to 
 note what a cheery, thoughtful, manly young 
 fellow he had become. 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 You were looking forward to seeing him once 
 more established near you, and the sudden rupture 
 of these happy expectations must indeed seem like 
 a dream. And at such moments, does not the whole 
 of life sometimes seem so, too; a faint foreshadow- 
 ing of something beyond of a nature that is endur- 
 ing? "A city that hath foundations" seems then 
 to rise before us: the better home seems to open its 
 portals to us in vision, and the dear one whose 
 footstep has scarce ceased to echo near the earthly 
 threshold, is rapturously welcomed by kindred and 
 companions whose look testifies how eagerly they 
 have been awaiting him! 
 
 From such a mount of vision we seem to behold 
 both worlds, and, for the moment, to realize how a 
 brave, loving, ingenuous spirit is exchanging the 
 "hope deferred," the restless competitions, the 
 baffling uncertainties of the earthly voyage for the 
 glad and restful anchorage beyond. 
 
 Yet, as we come back to the stern realities of a 
 darkened earthly home, we cry out, "Where, O! 
 where, more needed than here.''" At length, how- 
 ever, we feed lovingly upon the recollections bound 
 up in the past; how the face smiles for us again, 
 how the merry greeting rings on the air, how many 
 and many half forgotten scenes stamp themselves 
 [ 229 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 afresh upon the tablets of memory ! Then we realize 
 how much is really left to us of the friend whose 
 life was so interwoven with our own, and, as we 
 glance into the future. Death seems more and more 
 like the good Angel, who, as our turn comes, will 
 lead us onward to a more soul-satisfying union 
 with him than Earth ever afforded. 
 Your old friend, 
 
 William Orne White. 
 
 My lifelong friend, Ellen Day Hale, thus writes 
 of my father's sermons and prayers during those 
 years in Keene: — 
 
 "Your father's preaching was more of an influ- 
 ence upon me, as I look back on my youth, than 
 any one's except my own dear father's; and yet I 
 have heard many of the preachers who are called 
 great. His prayers, too, were a great deal to me as 
 time went on; it became a part of the happiness I 
 looked forward to, in a stay at your house, to join 
 in his beautiful morning prayer, or even the short 
 petition before each meal, adapted to any unusual 
 happy circumstance. As you remember I used to 
 make my yearly visit to Keene when the beauty 
 of Spring was at its height, and I can almost hear 
 him quoting, as he preached, from the hymn he 
 [ 230 ] 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 loved to hear sung to the old air we used to call 
 
 'Billings's Jordan': — ■ 
 
 Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood 
 Stand drest in living green. ' 
 
 The enthusiasm in his voice was full of his love for 
 the green fields by the Ashuelot. 
 
 "One of those sermons was about Jacob's sleep 
 at Bethel. Most preachers lay stress on the lovely 
 vision of the ladder of angels; but your father dwelt 
 on the thoughts to which Jacob woke. He made us 
 aware that in any of our dwelling-places — how- 
 ever commonplace, however unpretending — we 
 might be living, in truth, in the very house of God. 
 The effect of his words upon me was deep and last- 
 ing; and often, in beginning a new chapter of life 
 in some new home, I have prayed, as he taught me 
 that day, that the Lord might be in that place, 
 and that it might be to me none other than the 
 House of God, and the Gate of Heaven." 
 
 Before closing this chapter of my father's life as 
 a country minister, in order to give some idea of 
 the sermons which made such a profound impres- 
 sion, I will give some extracts from a few of 
 them. 
 
 Here follows part of a New Year's sermon: — 
 
 231 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 'My times are in thy hand." Ps. xxxi, 15. 
 
 The considerations to which I would call your 
 attention are simple and obvious. They relate to 
 our helplessness as regards the future, and to the 
 power which we have over the future. Helpless, 
 and yet mighty, such the new year finds us. 
 
 We are helpless, and yet we are full of power. 
 How is this ? God is ready to give us power to meet 
 the events of the future, whatever they may be. 
 Do we not have then at our control the twelve 
 months now beginning.'' Are they not completely 
 in our grasp.'' Certainly they are, if we use the 
 power with which God entrusts us. 
 
 If the wishes of our friends for a happy year can 
 be answered, is it not of small moment what are 
 the events that befall us? To be independent of 
 these events is the great blessing which we must 
 desire. It is a very low and a very superficial view 
 to take of the future, to concern ourselves chiefly 
 with the things which may happen to us, and forget 
 to be anxious about the way in which we shall bear 
 these things. How we are to feel, what we are to be, 
 this year, form the important questions, not what 
 [ 232 1 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 will happen to us. We know that the very enjoy- 
 ments to which persons have most anxiously looked 
 forward have often strangely disappointed them. 
 
 Whether this coming year be a brighter or a 
 sadder one than you yet have experienced is known 
 only to God. The state of feeling with which you 
 meet these various changes is far more within your 
 control, and must have much more to do with your 
 happiness. We cannot hope every year to be ex- 
 empt from changes. The tenure of our health is 
 insecure. The love of life will not keep our souls 
 always within these perishing bodies. Affection, 
 although it may keep its beloved objects ever near 
 the soul's eye, cannot always keep them within the 
 sphere of bodily vision. 
 
 How we are prepared to endure illness, want, 
 death or affliction, will be the reflection which will 
 most earnestly engage our attention, not whether 
 we shall be fortunate enough to escape one year 
 longer without being visited by any of these calam- 
 ities, as we may regard them. 
 
 It is a question too of vastly more moment if 
 whenever we are plunged in sudden affliction we 
 
 [ 233 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 have faith and strength to sustain us, than whether 
 we be called on to endure sorrow during this par- 
 ticular year or not. You understand me then, 
 that it is the formation and the growth of those 
 principles which in all life's changeful periods and 
 even in eternity will be full of solace and incite- 
 ment to us, which we ought most to be anxious 
 about, rather than whether our earthly enjoyments 
 be more or less protracted. The principles acquired 
 will keep by us, even though we may not yet need 
 their full force. The enjoyments protracted will be 
 at length interrupted, even though we may not 
 have secured those devout affections and that 
 religious principle which will enable us to hush 
 our murmurs and patiently acquiesce in the will of 
 God. We do not ask then, if we approach the sub- 
 ject with a wise and manly courage, how far we are 
 to be exempted from pecuniary losses, or neglect, 
 or illness, or bereavement, or death, this year, but 
 we ask rather, how well we are fortified against 
 these various troubles, should God see best that 
 this be the year of our fiery trial. 
 
 So also in reference to the enterprises which we 
 hope to accomplish. It should be of less conse- 
 quence to us whether our various labors succeed, 
 than whether we succeed in retaining our energy 
 [ 234 ] 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 and our hopefulness. Some year, if we live long, 
 will doubtless doom some of our vigorous enter- 
 prises to disappointment. Let us not be too anxious 
 to ask whether this year will defeat them or not. 
 We must be more eager to know how well we can 
 bear being disappointed in them ; to inquire whether 
 we can persevere in our industry and ardor, even 
 though our favorite plans be checked. For by 
 doing, as well as by enduring, we can make the 
 future our own. It is not gaining just what we 
 wish which gives us strength; it is putting forth 
 the power which we have. The more strength we 
 put forth, the more we receive. He who uses the 
 five talents, to him are sent other five. Would 
 you ask who at the close of this new year we ought 
 to deem the most successful man? I would not 
 point you to the one on whom fortune may never 
 cease to smile, nor to the one whose dwelling Is 
 invariably crowned with health and joy. But if 
 when the December snows once more whiten the 
 earth, you can show me one who has struggled 
 bravely against the rebuffs of fortune, who has 
 kept a cheerful heart under the pressure of physi- 
 cal infirmity, who, although less strong In body, 
 less blessed with worldly goods, less abounding in 
 friends than when the year began, has wrought out 
 [ 235 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 for himself from all these discouragements a degree 
 of patience, of trust and of celestial faith which 
 were not his before — if you can show me such an 
 one, you will point to the successful man of the 
 year. 
 
 The man of the year is he who carries with him 
 from month to month, in joy or grief, in wealth 
 or want, in life or in death, a holy ardor, an un- 
 dlmmed faith, a heart full of generous impulses, a 
 mind always turning to God for strength, and 
 always finding It. Such an one is emphatically the 
 man of the year; for while the year is pouring her 
 quiver of arrows upon him he bows his head only 
 in token of submission to a paternal providence. 
 To him these separate years of time become com- 
 paratively unimportant as the divisions of his life. 
 There is one great year through whose cycles he is 
 forever passing — the year, the Christian year of 
 life. 
 
 With devout fortitude he is ready to number the 
 mercies of the past. Of the future, he dares only 
 to say, "My times are in thy hand." 
 
 236 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 Here is part of a sermon preached in the spring- 
 time : — 
 
 "Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name." 
 
 Ps. CXLII, 7. 
 
 The soul of Nature, seemingly held captive dur- 
 ing the wintry months, now that her icy fetters are 
 removed, and the long "hope deferred" of the 
 Spring bursts into promise, seems with one accord 
 out of every opening bud and fragrant blossom 
 and from the glad throat of every bird, to praise 
 God. 
 
 Can we ourselves resist altogether the contagion 
 of such joyous influences? Brought out from the 
 dwellings wherein we have been so often immured 
 against our will, into this larger liberty on days 
 when we feel that we can hardly take our eyes from 
 the marvellous transformation which is going on 
 around us, without losing part of its swift history, 
 surely we must feel that in sympathy with the 
 chorus which Is everywhere ascending from the 
 world of nature, It is no hard thing for us to say, 
 "Bless the Lord, my soul, and all that is within 
 me, bless his holy name!" 
 
 And yet there are persons who in months when 
 great Nature's soul seems still imprisoned find it 
 I 237 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 easier far to be thankful and cheerful than others 
 do even when all nature seems to be uttering her 
 anthem of restored liberty. So we must consider 
 to what mental imprisonment we often subject 
 ourselves, a captivity which represses the outburst 
 of praise which we ought to offer to God. 
 
 First, there is that utter absorption in care 
 which in some persons seems like a prison. The 
 captivity of the mind which is idling away its 
 time, the mind which has not energy enough to 
 take hold of anything may be even worse, but there 
 is also a pressure of worldly cares which is so un- 
 resistingly yielded to by other minds, as almost to 
 suggest the idea of an invisible dungeon whose 
 walls gather around the person wherever he goes. 
 
 This prison-house of care far oftener gathers 
 around the steps of those who have little need to be 
 anxious about the morrow. They have accustomed 
 themselves to the whirl of recurring cares which 
 leave them little time for that calm, undisturbed 
 frame of mind in which they can praise God. 
 
 A distinguished speaker recently alluded to the 
 intensities of business competition and mercan- 
 tile absorption in the metropolis where his lot was 
 cast, as affording instances which reminded him of 
 [ 238 ] 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 some beautiful ship bound on a distant voyage 
 with sails all set, moving over the seas swiftly and 
 gracefully, but whose owners were appalled, as she 
 reached her point of destination, to discover that 
 there was one thing which they had forgotten in 
 their haste, and that was her cargo! So, he argued, 
 character, the building up of this immortal fabric, 
 the true growth of all the holier powers of our 
 nature is lost sight of by too many persons as they 
 hurry onward from one scene to another of earthly 
 competition. 
 
 And what is just such a condition as this speaker 
 alluded to but one of imprisonment? The man 
 may build his own cell; he may put it as it were on 
 wheels, it may not rest long together on one spot, 
 but it becomes a scene of captivity which confines 
 his sympathies, which chains down his loftier 
 aspirations, which makes him the servant of this 
 inexorable tyrant of care, instead of its master. 
 Are there none of us who have ever felt this thral- 
 dom for a space of time long enough to make us 
 ready to say with the psalmist, "Bring my soul 
 out of prison, that I may praise thy name"? 
 
 Let us strive so to adjust our cares as to allow 
 them to help us, even to inspire us to praise God 
 as we pursue them from hour to hour, from our 
 [ 239 I 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 silent hearts, to praise him for the very healthful- 
 ness and joy of the cares themselves, rather than 
 to be burdened by them with an excess of perplex- 
 ity, and a mental confusion which leaves no space 
 for constant, hearty gratitude, and little time for 
 cheerful active sympathy with the social life of our 
 fellow beings. 
 
 What avails it for us that we have solved for 
 ourselves the speculative doubts of the skeptic, 
 only to be visited with the practical doubts of the 
 fastidious and the indolent, only to be wondering 
 where our place is anywhere in this scene of human 
 activities, only to be forever vexed with the ques- 
 tions, "what is there for me to do for anybody, and 
 who is there that would miss me, were I to leave 
 the world ? " 
 
 There can be no worthy, no genuine gratitude 
 to God for all the privileges of existence, where one 
 does not see them to be privileges; where one is in 
 this sluggish, this inert frame of mind he cannot 
 call upon all that is within him to bless God. One 
 must awake to all the glorious uses and to the im- 
 mense opportunities of life, would he praise God 
 for its bestowal, and he that has little faith in his 
 own power to serve God or his brethren, is in 
 [ 240 ] 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 spiritual bondage, and his prayer may well be, 
 "Bring my soul out of prison that I may praise 
 thy name." 
 
 Fourthly, there are others who, perhaps are not 
 self-distrustful enough, yet who bring to pass as 
 little as those who are too self-distrustful, and why? 
 Because of envy. The envious behold the position 
 which some other persons occupy, and ask, "Why 
 am I not there? Why could not I be sustaining 
 those duties or receiving those honors as well as he 
 who is there?" How little adapted is such a frame 
 of mind for a spirit of hearty gratitude! 
 
 However high one may rise in this life, if his one 
 reflection be, "Why am I not thought more of or 
 made more of by my fellow beings," he will never 
 attain to that calm, self-poised, earnest frame of 
 spirit in which he so magnifies the opportunities 
 which God has given him, and so looks at every- 
 thing from the divine point of view rather than the 
 human, as to be full of gratitude for the blessings 
 that he has received. 
 
 When we are not at ease in our own minds, when 
 we wish that something in our outward circum- 
 stances might be changed, in the hope that then we 
 I 241 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 should be truly contented, perfectly happy, we are 
 seeking for true contentment In the wrong direction. 
 
 O, let any person who secretly chafes because he 
 or she does not have more done for them, or be- 
 cause he or she is not more noticed, reflect upon the 
 dungeon which is building in the mind where such 
 thoughts are going on! Let them be eager for a 
 wider liberty than such narrow, such grudging 
 thoughts can afford! Let them rather pray, 
 "Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise 
 thy name." 
 
 There is no date to mark the following sermon, 
 but as Mr. White left Keene in 1878 it was prob- 
 ably written some years earlier. It was evidently 
 preached to a graduating class of girls. In spite of 
 the fact that it was delivered more than forty 
 years ago, its tone is almost modern enough to sat- 
 isfy the young suffragists of to-day. Although Mr. 
 White never took any active part in the suffrage 
 movement, he believed In the inherent right of 
 women to vote, and on one occasion he begged a 
 backslider in his own family not to put herself on 
 record as an anti-suffragist. 
 [ 242 ] 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 "Please don't do anything to oppose suffrage," 
 he said. "You belong to the protected class, and 
 you have no way of judging what Is best for work- 
 ing-women." 
 
 This was so undeniable a fact that the backslider 
 yielded to the parental wish, although she thought 
 his position illogical, for surely one of the chief 
 rights of woman is to do as her conscience bids, and 
 not merely echo the views of a husband or father. 
 
 "Covet earnestly the best gifts." i Cor. xii, 31. 
 
 First, let me charge you, in coveting earnestly 
 the best gifts, to covet the gift of modesty. You 
 will understand that I mean by this word simplicity 
 of thought and manner and dress. True modesty 
 comprehends all this. It does not mean mere shy- 
 ness or diffidence. True modesty or simplicity sets 
 its rule over the thoughts and aspirations. One who 
 possesses this gift cannot be envious or uncharit- 
 able, whereas the person who Is merely distrustful 
 or diffident may be so, precisely because she is all 
 the time coveting the attention of other people. 
 She who has true humility of mind, as well as sim- 
 plicity of manner, escapes a thousand temptations. 
 She secures countless happy moments by means of 
 the spirit of contentment which she thus acquires. 
 [ H3 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 Such an inborn modesty shrinks from that love of 
 show, that desire for creating a sensation which 
 characterizes persons of a different spirit. It acts 
 in harmony with those words in which the Apostle 
 Peter describes the very garb as shaped and colored 
 by the inherent simplicity of the heart, when he 
 says, "whose adorning let it not be that outward 
 adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of 
 gold, or of putting on of apparel, but let it be the 
 hidden man of the heart, in that which is not cor- 
 ruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet 
 spirit which is, in the sight of God, of great price." 
 
 Covet this gift of modesty, inward and outward, 
 not only for its nobler uses as connected with 
 thought and life, but were it only for the habits of 
 frugality it will encourage in you, in leading you to 
 avoid useless expenditure for mere show. 
 
 Covet, I entreat you, covet earnestly, the best 
 gifts, and among them that gift of modesty which 
 speaks of innate refinement of character, and which 
 is eloquent of true self-forgetfulness, even in the 
 manner and the dress. 
 
 Secondly, covet earnestly the gift of industry. 
 The time is approaching when it will be as poor a 
 [ 244 1 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 designation of the true lady that she has nothing 
 to do, as it is of the true gentleman. The channels 
 of employment which are open to women are con- 
 stantly multiplying. They need only to do the 
 work well, which they undertake, to prove their 
 fitness for it, and their right to be allowed to under- 
 take it. Yet how stubborn is the force of prejudice! 
 A young woman may nurse rough men in distant 
 hospitals, who are sick with pestilential diseases, 
 as that angel of mercy from the shores of England 
 who earned the blessing of the sick at Scutari, but 
 to use the instruments of surgery or administer 
 medicines is thought to be quite another thing; she 
 may quell the turbulence of rude boys by her firm- 
 ness and wisdom in the schoolroom, but to lift up 
 her voice in the pulpit and seek to melt the hard- 
 ened hearts which are so often proof against the 
 words of us ministers, is thought a perilous innova- 
 tion upon old customs. But without searching out 
 what are still unusual spheres of duty, enough re- 
 mains, at least in most of our New England towns, 
 for young women to do, who are unwilling to eat 
 the bread of indolence. 
 
 Be you what the world calls more favored, or less 
 favored, — mistaken words oftentimes, for penury 
 [ 245 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 may give a sweet stimulus to exertion which wealth 
 cannot bestow, — be this as it may with you, find 
 something to do. The richest young woman in the 
 land may live to become the most miserably 
 unhappy, from the mere want of anything to which 
 she can give her mind. Doubtless there are hun- 
 dreds of such who would be actually happier, could 
 they exchange conditions with the ploughman's 
 daughter. 
 
 Thirdly, Covet earnestly the gift of courage. 
 "Courage," you reply, "does he expect us to be 
 soldiers.'"' Yes, that is just what I expect and 
 desire of you, to be soldiers in the army of life; 
 Christian soldiers in the great moral battle-field of 
 humanity. Covet this sublime gift of moral cour- 
 age. Humanly speaking, many of our young men 
 might be saved, if you had more of this gift. How 
 my heart has ached when I have seen young women 
 offering the wine cup to young men or even receiv- 
 ing it from their hands! I am not in the way of 
 seeing much of these things now, but they go on, 
 in how many towns and cities of our land! These 
 glasses ought to have appropriate emblems upon 
 them, from which fair hands and fair lips might in- 
 stantly recoil. The hissing, coiling serpent should 
 [ 246] 
 
LAST YEAR IN KEENE 
 
 form the pedestal for such a glass, "At the last it 
 biteth like a serpent." 
 
 Covet this moral courage which shall make you 
 true to the purer instincts of your nature; it is 
 amply consistent with modesty. Realize how great 
 an influence you can have over the tempted and 
 sinning, as you recoil from the faintest look or 
 word which savors of impurity, and yet while, as 
 sisters or earthly friends, you try to infuse higher 
 principles and better hopes into the minds of the 
 unwary. 
 
 "Covet earnestly the best gifts!" Covet mod- 
 esty, covet Industry, covet courage, covet sym- 
 pathy, covet reverence, — and then God grant that 
 your way may be soothed to the last by the bene- 
 dictions of all who know you, that It may be that 
 "path of the just which Is as the morning light 
 which shineth brighter and brighter unto the 
 perfect day!" 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 1881-I9II 
 
 It is hard to give in a few words an adequate im- 
 pression of the last third of my father's life which 
 was so uneventful in the stirring facts that make 
 a picturesque chronicle, but so rich in the small 
 happenings that make the charm of everyday life. 
 As the larger cares and duties dropped away from 
 him and he was free to rest among his books and 
 trees, his character mellowed and he gained with 
 years a peculiar charm which was especially felt 
 by young people who perhaps understood him more 
 completely than those nearer his own age. 
 
 On one of his visits to Boston, while he was liv- 
 ing in Keene, my father characteristically writes: 
 "The weather has been delightfully cool; a good 
 room has been given me here at the Parker House, 
 and hence I can sally forth on my friendly raids 
 upon adjoining towns, much as a spider, from his 
 octagonal web's centre, speeds after any stray fly 
 upon the circumference." And he also says, "To 
 work Newton Centre, Boston, Salem, and Keene 
 [ 248 ] 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 into one day, is more than I could have known how 
 to compass ten years ago. If I live to be sixty, I 
 shall expect to learn how to pack away Brookline 
 too in the same day, but am not quite alert enough 
 for it yet." 
 
 These words were curiously prophetic, for In 
 October of the year 1881, when he was sixty 
 years old, my father bought a house in Brookline, 
 Massachusetts, and settled there with his family. 
 In spite of the fact that he was sixty he had lost 
 none of his varied interests, and while he felt that 
 he had earned the right to a few years of leisure, 
 he was always ready to preach for an occasional 
 Sunday when he was asked to do so, and for two 
 years, 1882 and 1883, he preached in the Unitarian 
 pulpit in Sharon, Massachusetts, going over there 
 from Brookline each week on Saturday. 
 
 His new home was one that was especially con- 
 genial to him, for it combined the advantages of 
 the country with nearness to the city. He had more 
 than two acres of land, much of which was covered 
 with oaks, chestnuts, and evergreen trees, while 
 there was ample room for a vegetable garden and 
 fruit trees. It seemed at the time as if he could 
 hardly live to see the apple and pear and peach 
 trees, which he planted. In their full perfection, 
 I 249 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 but he was destined to live three years longer than 
 the twenty-seven years which he spent in Keene. 
 Here, in his new surroundings, he lived in his study 
 among the books which he loved so well, often as 
 he used to say, resting himself by changing the 
 language, and turning from German to Latin or 
 Greek. 
 
 He was as deeply interested in out-of-door life as 
 when he was in Keene, and delighted in the various 
 birds that built their nests in his trees, and in the 
 gray squirrels that made their home there; while he 
 would often chop wood for exercise, or work in his 
 garden. 
 
 He makes this comment on the "Birds" of 
 Aristophanes: "I find that the bird notes are given 
 as 
 
 Titititititititi and 
 Tiotiotiotiotio and 
 Trioto, trio to, etc. 
 
 (making you seem to hear them singing after over 
 two thousand years, again)." 
 
 After a slight indisposition which kept him in 
 the house for a few days, he thus writes to my 
 mother: — 
 
 [ 250 ] 
 
William Orne White at the age of eighty-eight 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 BrOOKLINE, August 22, I882. 
 
 When you left I lay In my ship-chair in the 
 study, being glad at last of a warm room. I raised 
 my head and stretched my hand, and the first 
 dozen books I encountered were crowded with 
 associations; the Cowper I used to read when four- 
 teen at Exeter, father's gift; Coleridge (once Allan 
 P. IngersoU's); Milton, Gray, etc., father's gift in 
 my boyhood; the Bible he gave me forty-two years 
 ago; Stanley's "Westminster Abbey," a glance at 
 which took me under those historic arches; "The 
 Ascent of Mont Blanc," which opened Switzerland 
 at a glance, etc. 
 
 So I felt that among those silent friends I was 
 " never less alone than when alone," etc., and might 
 say, "My Library (is) Dukedom large enough.'* 
 But I shall be glad to see the Duchess again, for all 
 that. 
 
 Later he wrote, "I especially enjoy, to speak of 
 another book, the merciless and righteous dissec- 
 tion which that furious butcher Bonaparte gets at 
 the hands of Professor Seely." 
 
 He writes thus to Dr. Hale concerning Carlyle 
 and Emerson: — 
 
 [251 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 To Edward Everett Hale 
 
 Milton, Massachusetts, 
 April 1 8, 1 88 1. 
 
 My dear Edward: — 
 
 I thank you for your piquant and stirring notice 
 of Carlyle. 
 
 On the whole, he has been more tenderly and 
 gently dealt with by those who sum up his career, 
 than it would appear that he was wont to deal with 
 others. 
 
 I have sometimes thought of the "contraband's" 
 prayer; (in connection with T. C): 
 
 "O Lord, let me so lib, dat when I die, I may- 
 have manners." 
 
 But I doubt T. C.'s having uttered a similar 
 prayer, much as some of those with whom he came 
 in contact might have wished him to. 
 
 Don't suspect me now of having ever knocked 
 at his door! (though I should have enjoyed trying 
 the experiment). 
 
 But contrast him with R. W. E., and will you 
 put a premium on a man who has been "brought 
 up" as T. C. was, and say, "Would that R. W. E. 
 had been stolen from his cradle and become T. C.'s 
 foster-brother?" 
 
 Or take the reverse. What should we have had, 
 I 252 1 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 if T. C. had been smuggled into Reverend W. 
 Emerson's nursery and left to grow up with R. W. 
 E.? He'd have given Ralph a bloody nose, I'll be 
 bound, on occasion; but it cannot be that all Car- 
 lyle's point and prophecy would have been blunted 
 on the New England family grindstone. 
 
 It was better, doubtless, that he should have 
 been nurtured just as he was — all things consid- 
 ered. But remembering "the first true gentleman 
 that ever lived," let us be glad that our New Eng- 
 land philosopher has a sweeter approach to him. 
 
 It is when the swagger and defiance of a real 
 genius like Carlyle are copied by lesser minds that 
 one feels that he should not be too unqualifiedly 
 praised, and is glad to read with you in your ad- 
 dress, "He repelled all those who came to him." 
 Ever most truly yours, 
 
 W. O. White. 
 
 In writing to my mother on July 9, 1885, con- 
 cerning the making of new friends, my father says: 
 "I wonder what fishing of this sort we shall find 
 at Kennebunkport. Will you catch anything in the 
 fresh water region of Stockbridge .'' . . . ' Keep your 
 friendships in repair' is a good motto for a sexage- 
 narian lady — not by way of adding any dried 
 I 253 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 specimens to her cabinet, but by catching live ones 
 to hover in and out of her doors." 
 
 Brookline, 
 Wednesday April 7, 1886. 
 
 I received the following note : — 
 
 " I have asked two or three of our classmates 
 to come and lunch with me on Wednesday 
 (the 7th) at one o'clock to meet Henry Bond 
 who sets out on Friday for his mission among 
 the Indians. 
 
 "Yours very truly, 
 
 "J. H. Allen." 
 I had half a mind to reply, "Well, I have no 
 objection to your doing so. I hope you'll have a 
 good time." 
 
 Then I thought I would say, "I infer that you 
 may expect me." 
 
 But on the whole, I concluded to defer any joke 
 until I should meet him. So I said, that I should 
 be glad to go and "help strengthen the bond that 
 unites us." 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 July 12, 1889. 
 
 I have returned from the sad funeral of Mrs. 
 [Winthrop] Scudder. The church was well filled. 
 [254] 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 The casket was covered with white. "Jerusalem 
 the Golden" was sung as the mourners left the 
 church. Thirty-eight verses of I Cor. xv. were the 
 only Scripture. 
 
 The occasion brought before me one, over sixty- 
 eight years ago, that I never saw; and I seemed to 
 see father and his two ten- and twelve-year-old 
 daughters as they left the Court Street house to 
 follow my mother's body to the grave, on return- 
 ing whence, Dr. Prince christened me in the cham- 
 ber where, forty years later, father died. 
 
 I hope the Scudder infant will have friends raised 
 up for it also, and many to bear testimony in later 
 years to the worth and loveliness of his mother. She 
 will thus retain a powerful influence over his life. 
 
 To Dr. James Martineau 
 
 Brookline, Massachusetts, 
 May 28, 1890. 
 
 . . . Eliza, in connection with the "Associated 
 Charities" in Boston, has been brought into rela- 
 tion with sundry households who have looked to 
 her for guidance. 
 
 Twin boys about nine years old from one of these 
 families, dined with us one day before taking their 
 run about our two acres of woodland and garden. 
 I 255 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 But lo and behold! it was we who were to get a leaf 
 from the book of manners. "Thank you," said a 
 twin, when something was handed him. This was 
 civil and we allowed him "the last word." Where- 
 upon, up speaks the other twin, "Where I live, if 
 anybody says 'Thank you,' we always say, ' Y're 
 welcome.' "... 
 
 I have just been reading with delight and admi- 
 ration, the opening chapter (Nature) in your vol- 
 ume upon "The Seat of Authority in Religion." I 
 am anticipating the being carried still more heaven- 
 ward, as I proceed. With the ever-widening, ever- 
 deepening glances which we get into the mysteries 
 of the Universe, it would, in one sense, seem a 
 greater boon than ever to have a seat in this grand 
 Temple, even were its doors the hour after, to close 
 upon us, forever. From that point of view, how- 
 ever, we must believe in a doctrine of "Election" 
 which gives us in our brief stay, vastly grander 
 privileges than other centuries enjoyed, and will 
 give our successors far greater opportunities than 
 we have. 
 
 How refreshing to view things from your heights 
 of contemplation, and to feel that all such inequal- 
 ities and disproportions will be reconciled in the 
 great Hereafter! , , . 
 
 [256] 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 September 6, 1890. 
 
 Much of the time I have been closeted alter- 
 nately with Victor Hugo and James Martineau. 
 I took leave of the former yesterday on the Greve 
 and at the threshold of Notre Dame. So the seven 
 hundred pages are concluded. ... A wonderful 
 mind — but I would have given his brain a little 
 different twist, and George Eliot's too, if I could 
 have gotten hold of them; leaving all the genius 
 there, but letting it play more agreeably to my 
 fashion, if not to that of the public. . . . 
 
 From Dr. J. Martineau, I shall part to-morrow, 
 when his six hundred and fifty-two pages will have 
 been finished. 
 
 "Fishes as Fathers" is a curious article that may 
 interest you in the last "Living Age." It does not 
 refer to Hamilton Fish, of New York, or his tribe. 
 
 To M. W. T. 
 
 Brookline, Massachusetts, 
 February 14, 189 1. 
 
 My dear Mary: — 
 
 I have hardly time in which to say how glad I 
 shall be to read the "Life and Letters of John 
 Henry Newman." It is very kind in you to re- 
 l 257 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 member the Septuagenarian so lavishly, and you 
 and J. B. T. will please accept his warm thanks 
 therefor. 
 
 With such examples as Aunt Smith and your 
 father before us, some of us younger ones may be 
 too ready to plead with Father Time for more of 
 his spare days, disbelieving the possible depriva- 
 tions that might fall to our portion, were the plea 
 listened to. 
 
 It is funny, notwithstanding, to be forced to 
 admit, that were I to be impossibly continued to 
 Aunt Smith's age (of ninety-two) and with wits 
 enough to distinguish a kitten from a squirrel — it 
 could not be without seeing in you a septuagena- 
 rian niece! This presents such a topsy-turvy boule- 
 versement of my associations with the hop, skip, 
 and jump four year old that I love to recall, that 
 I'll e'en let Father Time lead me along blind-fold, 
 as hitherto, and let slip his grasp when a higher 
 Power bids him, even at the cost of never knowing 
 how gracefully you will poise on your shoulders 
 the weight of seventy years. 
 
 Your affectionate uncle, 
 
 William Orne White. 
 
 I 258] 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 Brookline, Massachusett 
 February i6, 1892. 
 
 Rev. James Martineau, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 My dear Dr. Martineau, — I thank you 
 warmly for the sight of your handwriting, and the 
 testimony of your remembrance, in the volume of 
 "Home Prayers" which you have been so kind as 
 to send me. 
 
 It is very natural that you should speak of your- 
 self as "standing on the last verge of this scene of 
 things," although many a young and vigorous life 
 will be closed before your own, and although you 
 may be spared to us for another decade. Yet, read- 
 ing the above words in the light of the thought 
 which prompted them, what more touching and 
 tender gift can one bestow, than to take his friend 
 within his innermost shrine, and there, as "the 
 clouds receive" the giver "out of" his "sight," 
 leave him alone with the Great Presence whom the 
 departing one adores afresh as the Eternal indwell- 
 ing Light and Love.'' 
 
 Such a gift kindles the transcendent vision of 
 one's not being all overlooked by the risen prophet, 
 when the twain shall have "mingled with a more 
 joyful communion where sin and death shall be no 
 more." 
 
 [ 259 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 It is much to say of this little book that its des- 
 tiny is to shame many a misgiving spirit (that shall 
 become saturated with its atmosphere), out of any 
 transient hesitations regarding the reality of the 
 "Unseen World." We do see it in a measure in 
 such breathings of the Spirit as your volume en- 
 shrines. We see it in some of the utterances of Dr. 
 Channing, and in how many of the aspirations of 
 the great and good of all times. I must maintain 
 that this tone of positive assertion from the very 
 depths of the soul, evokes a thrilling echo from 
 within us. I wonder, whether from the lips of any, 
 within a few hours or days of their known inevi- 
 table death, you have happened to hear an excla- 
 mation like this, "Formerly, I could say I believe 
 in Immortality, now I know it!" 
 
 Such were the words of Rev. George Moore, at the 
 age of thirty-five, to whose death-bed, as his linger- 
 ing consumption was ending, I was summoned 
 forty-five years ago, in Quincy, Illinois (from St. 
 Louis, where I was temporarily taking Dr. Eliot's 
 place). The tone of that assertion went to a deeper 
 region of my heart, than any utterance that I ever 
 heard from any other death-bed. The words were 
 in response to my inquiry, "How do you feel about 
 immortality now that you find death so near.-*" 
 [ 260 1 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 Such an intensity of conviction one might well 
 wish to have in the approach of an hour so solemn. 
 Mr. Moore was one of our own household of faith. 
 A man, from whom I should not have expected 
 the statement, expressed his amazement at the in- 
 credulity as to another existence cherished by a 
 relative of his, and then said, "It was enough for 
 me when I saw the new world created by the micro- 
 scope." 
 
 What the microscope was to him, may this 
 blessed little book of yours be to many a soul! May 
 it help to pierce unsounded depths of their own 
 spirits, bringing up to the light a shred of what lay 
 concealed, but which shall make them feel that 
 there is that within them worthy of being kept 
 alive, when the fleshly heart has done throbbing! 
 
 With warm regards from us all to you and yours, 
 I remain, as ever. 
 
 Respectfully and affectionately yours, 
 
 William Orne White. 
 
 To E. 0. W. 
 
 Brookline, Massachusetts, 
 November il, 1892. 
 
 The election contradicts my decided wish. I 
 have always concluded that I should not care to 
 f 261 1 
 
WILLIAiM ORNE WHITE 
 
 "live my life over again." Now this "result" com- 
 pels me to live over one of the most unpleasant 
 parts of my life as I am set right back to the Demo- 
 cratic shadows that overcast my sky at the Acad- 
 emy and in College and during my earlier years in 
 Keene. But with ten out of thirteen Republican 
 Congressmen in Massachusetts, instead of only 
 five out of twelve (as at the election two years ago), 
 there is a ray of light hereabouts in the dreary 
 landscape. . . . 
 
 In spite of my father's intense partisan feeling in 
 regard to politics, he was sufficiently fair-minded 
 to admire many of Cleveland's acts during his ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 To E. O. W. 
 
 Brookline, Massachusetts, 
 November 24, 1892. 
 
 I was at Trinity Church in Boston at eleven, to 
 hear a thirty-eight minutes' extempore sermon 
 from Bishop Brooks — from Genesis i, 25: "And 
 God saw that it was good." Optimism was his sub- 
 ject, and I have seldom or never heard him when he 
 was more eloquent. The huge church was crowded, 
 and with many intent young listeners. And this 
 f 262 1 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 on a Thanksgiving Day, when lean churches are 
 proverbial. . . . 
 
 You will enjoy your Chicago visit, but you must 
 not expect too much thoughtfulness from the 
 Doctor.^ I am confident that he exhausted himself 
 in his care of me, and, however well-intentioned can 
 never have so much thought and care to bestow 
 on any future guest. . . . 
 
 To Dr. James Martineau 
 
 Brookline, Massachusetts, 
 January 2, 1893. 
 
 ... I lately received a bright letter from your 
 friend Dr. Furness, who, I trust, will enjoy being 
 congratulated on becoming ninety-one in April 
 (being then, however, four months younger than 
 T.T.Stone). 
 
 "At the 'great day' it may not only be asked 
 how you lived; — but how long you lived," said 
 our Dr. Noyes over fifty years ago in bidding from 
 the pulpit young graduates look to the well-being 
 of both physical and moral natures. . . . 
 
 [There is] a Centenarian — aye — one among us 
 on our very street — who numbers one hundred 
 and two years and not arrayed in borrowed plum- 
 
 » Dr. E. C. Dudley. 
 [ 263 ] , 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 age, though gayly dressed. This lady Is a Parrot, 
 brought up by the grandmother of the matron 
 where her home now is. Her vocabulary, though 
 restricted, age has not abbreviated. . . . 
 
 To M. E. W. 
 
 Brookline, August II, 1893. 
 
 Yesterday the thermometer was at 89° in the 
 shade, 91° in Boston (Signal Service thermometer). 
 I read In Sir J. Mandeville, and dipped Into Cicero, 
 but as the heat increased I was glad to take refuge 
 with the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," with 
 whom I am still jogging along. 
 
 After the sun went down, /, too, went down in 
 humble Imitation, but only to the Square. The 
 great heat of yesterday seems to have sent a Lynn 
 man walking too far out into the ocean, but I think 
 you cannot have got yesterday on your route con- 
 veniently near enough to ocean or river to have 
 followed suit. 
 
 The mosquitoes have not yet come back from 
 their camp-meeting at Littleton or Andover, or 
 wherever they are holding It. I'm afraid we shall 
 find when we get there that they have n't "broken 
 camp" at Littleton, but I trust that they have at 
 Andover. 
 
 [ 264 1 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 A white morning-glory looks up at your dressing- 
 room window with her blue sisters. Mary H. and 
 Bessie D. are both well and the cat and the cat- 
 lets. 
 
 One of the most encouraging features in the life 
 of my father and mother was the brave and cheerful 
 spirit in which they took the limitations and infir- 
 mities which came with advancing years. The fol- 
 lowing letters written when my father and mother 
 were seventy-two and seventy years old to their 
 brother-in-law, Mr. Caleb Foote, when he was 
 ninety, give the keynote to their outlook on life 
 and foreshadow the way in which they spent their 
 own later years. 
 
 My mother writes : — 
 
 (February) 1893. 
 
 . . . Nothing has made the possibility of a pro- 
 longed life seem more alluring to me, than your 
 own declaration that at ninety, you are still in love 
 with this beautiful world of ours. In fact, I believe, 
 that if we are happily situated, the longer we live 
 in it, the better we like it. The chief charm of it is 
 the love that goes with us to the end. Of this, you 
 and I have both had a large share. I cannot ask 
 [ 265 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 for anything better than to be as worthy of it, as 
 you are. ... 
 
 And my father says : — 
 
 Brookline, February 27, 1893. 
 My dear Brother: — 
 
 I am glad to have lived to see you rounding out 
 your ninetieth February! The snows of ninety 
 winters! Wrestling, as we have all had to with the 
 snows of this one solitary winter, what an idea it 
 gives one of his pluck, and persistency and energy, 
 who has come off victor in a contest with ninety 
 of 'em! 
 
 If your strength were a little "weakened in the 
 way," just as this latter winter was about to fling 
 down his glove in defiance, Old Hiems had to stoop 
 down and pick it up again, and confess that C. F. 
 was too many for him, as he had always been for 
 his numerous predecessors. 
 
 And out of the transient weakening which for a 
 while befel you, you have wrung a blessing, inas- 
 much as by your own chimneyside you have sum- 
 moned for companionship, your favorite authors 
 around you, instead of following with horse-like 
 tread. Mercury's Machine on Essex St. 
 
 So, as you while away the blustering March days 
 [ 266 1 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 that are coming, will you not receive "Fanny 
 Burney"' as a guest who is commissioned, not 
 only to travel back with you to the dawn of the 
 Century, but to convey to you my warmest wishes 
 for you In its twilight; she will echo, with me, the 
 charge of Milton, to which all your past years have 
 borne faithful witness: 
 
 "Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st 
 Live well: how long or short permit to Heaven." 
 
 With love from us all, 
 
 I am your affectionate brother, 
 
 W. O. White. 
 
 To Dr. James Martineau 
 
 Brookline, Massachusetts, 
 December 23, 1897. 
 
 ... I have entirely agreed with you In what you 
 have said of the inadequacy (and may I add, pov- 
 erty) of the word "Unitarian," at least as a desig- 
 nation of such as are every moment breathing such 
 a spiritual atmosphere as you are. Nor do I think 
 the word Trinitarian a just or fortunate appella- 
 tion for those believers who differ from us. My 
 father (one hundred and twenty-one years old 
 were he In the flesh), an earnest Unitarian, always 
 
 ^ With good luck, she hopeth to reach you on the 28th of February. 
 [ 267 ] 
 
WILLIAxM ORNE WHITE 
 
 thought that "Christian" would have been better; 
 he doubtless felt the want of inclusiveness in the 
 word "Unitarian." 
 
 To Dr. James Martineau 
 
 February 12, 1898. 
 
 Well, we found the Jowett volumes very inter- 
 esting reading, as we since have the "Life and Let- 
 ters of Tennyson." (How I wish T. had shared 
 your sentiments regarding tobacco! Pipe, pipe, 
 pipe, on almost every page, and all the pipers can- 
 not expect to live as long as he and Carlyle did.) 
 
 Here is one sentence which, to me, more than 
 almost aught else, marks the inherent greatness of 
 the man, vast in humility (vol. i, p. 3 1 1) : " I should 
 infinitely rather feel myself the most miserable 
 wretch on the face of the earth, with a God above, 
 than the highest type of man, standing alone." 
 
 I somehow can hardly help fancying that there 
 are people who do not enjoy looking up to what is 
 higher than they are; and possibly there are those 
 of such conceit as hardly to imagine anything 
 higher than themselves. And yet, in this grand 
 burst of prose Tennyson does but echo the old re- 
 frain, "Lead me to the Rock that is higher than L" 
 
 This thirst for what is higher and purer, and for 
 [ 268 ] 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 unattained opportunities of pursuing it, as evi- 
 denced in the lives of spiritual experts; witness 
 Henry More, Jeremy Taylor, Channing, and saints 
 of a still elder day, seems, in itself, an assurance 
 that the thirst shall be satisfied. 
 
 In the year 1898, when Mr. White was seventy- 
 seven years old, he was walking home after dark 
 in the late winter afternoon, when he was attacked, 
 not far from his own house, by a man who gave 
 him a heavy blow on the head. My father stag- 
 gered back, but called out in such a powerful voice 
 that he saw his antagonist's shadowy form van- 
 ishing into the distance. My father came back and 
 quietly told us what had happened as we were 
 sitting around the supper-table. He was confined 
 to the house for a few days, but as soon as he was 
 able to go out again, he once more began to take 
 his daily walk after dark. The family all remon- 
 strated with him, but to no avail. 
 
 "I cannot accept life at the price of fear," he 
 said. 
 
 It was evident that he did not feel his age, for 
 on his eightieth birthday he said at intervals, 
 "Eighty years old," as if it were a great joke; and 
 he added, "I never was so happy in my life." 
 [ 269 1 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 In the year 1900, the marriage of his younger 
 daughter ^ took much of the brightness and life out 
 of the household, and on June 2, 1903, came the 
 great sorrow of the death of his wife. But even 
 then, his faith never wavered, and those who came 
 to him full of sorrow over their own loss in her 
 death, and expecting to find him overwhelmed 
 with grief, went away feeling that it was he who 
 had cheered and comforted them. 
 
 "People are commiserating me on account of the 
 death of my wife," he once said, "and I tell them 
 it is a wonderful thing that I have had her com- 
 panionship for over fifty years." 
 
 To be privileged to share the life of a spirit so 
 courageous and so full of faith and absolute belief 
 that "all things work together for good to those 
 who love God," was a constant incentive to cour- 
 age, while the play of his own individual humor, 
 which was a never-ending surprise, gave his com- 
 panionship a piquancy and freshness which is more 
 apt to be the accompaniment of youth than of ex- 
 treme old age. Indeed, he always kept the vivid 
 interest in all that was going on in the world that 
 makes its possessor continue to be a welcome 
 companion to the young. The young people who 
 
 * Rose White, married to Dr. D. W. Nead, January 29, 1900. 
 [ 270 ] 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 came to stay at the house were always fascinated 
 with him. I do not quite know what constituted 
 the freemasonry that existed between him and 
 those who were young enough to be his grand- 
 children, but they all were drawn to him. I think 
 the secret lay in his perennial youth, and an entire 
 unconsciousness and failure to conform to a set 
 rule. His point of view was always spontaneous 
 and therefore frequently surprising. Once when he 
 was urged by an acquaintance to do something 
 that he did not care to do he gravely asserted to 
 the family that it was a good rule sometimes to 
 do things to please one's self. On another occasion 
 I came through the hall just behind him and heard 
 him talking to himself. He had his watch in his 
 hand and was comparing it with the always-to- 
 be-depended-upon hall clock. "You are a lying 
 devil," he remarked to his watch, and then looked 
 guilty like a naughty schoolboy when he realized 
 that this remark had been overheard. 
 
 He delighted in reading aloud, and every eve- 
 ning, he read aloud for two or three hours on the 
 stretch. This was another thing that always aston- 
 ished the young guests, for he read without glasses, 
 as this was easier for his near-sighted eyes. He had 
 a vigorous voice, and a dramatic way of reading the 
 [ 271 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 things he liked, but nothing could have been more 
 listless and uninteresting than the way in which he 
 read an article or story that did not appeal to him. 
 
 He made friends in the neighborhood with the 
 conductors and motormen and often found occa- 
 sion to advise them against drinking or the use of 
 tobacco. His dislikes were unconquerable, and one 
 of the aversions of his later life was a detestation of 
 automobiles. Once when invited by a young rela- 
 tive to go on a trip which he would very much 
 have liked to take, he shook his head. 
 
 "No," he said, "I have said too many things 
 against automobiles. I would n't dare to go in one 
 for fear it would take its revenge." 
 
 He continued to read the newspapers to himself 
 almost from end to end, and was keenly interested 
 in politics up to the very last. He was as vehement 
 in his denunciations of those with whom he did not 
 agree as at any time of his life. When I hear my 
 friends say they are glad the old people belonging 
 to them died before the beginning of this fright- 
 ful European War, I sometimes wish my father's 
 ninety years might have covered this period. I 
 know how intensely he would have felt, and yet 
 with what acute interest he would have watched 
 every move in the struggle. I can almost hear the 
 [ 272 ] 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 exclamations that would have fallen from his lips. 
 As in the period of the Civil War his voice would 
 have given no uncertain sound: but in spite of the 
 shock to his faith in human nature he would have 
 had a sturdy belief that the right would prevail at 
 last, that would have been very bracing to his 
 friends. It was happier for him, however, that his 
 later years should have been unshadowed by so 
 black a cloud. 
 
 It is a comfort to remember how much pleasure 
 he had in the enjoyment of Nature during those 
 later years. The wish expressed in a letter of June, 
 1847, was realized: "I hope to have a month or two 
 in every summer to play outdoors in, on stages, or 
 steamboats, or in the mountains." 
 
 In the spring of 1900 he went with friends by 
 steamer from Washington to Norfolk, Virginia, to 
 see an eclipse of the sun, and in the autumn of 1902, 
 when he was eighty-one years old, he accepted an 
 invitation to visit a niece in Canada. It was my 
 good fortune to be his companion on the journey, a 
 part of which he had taken with his father sixty-five 
 years earlier. I remember how, as we were flying 
 through the dark night on our way to Montreal, he 
 talked about immortality in words so inspiring and 
 vivid that I would give much if I had the verbal 
 [ 273 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 memory to recall them. His Interest in Montreal 
 could hardly have been greater when he first went 
 there as a boy of sixteen, and the days he spent at 
 Brockville with his niece, Mrs. George T. Fulford, 
 and her husband, gave him the keenest pleasure, 
 one of the attractions being an afternoon's cruise 
 in their yacht among the beautifully wooded 
 islands on the St. Lawrence. 
 
 He spent several summers at the mountains and 
 others at the seashore, and wherever he went, 
 whether to Whitefield, Lunenburg, Bartlett, or 
 Nahant, he carried his enthusiastic love of walking 
 and driving and his enjoyment of the birds and 
 flowers. 
 
 He continued his walks until he had reached an 
 advanced age, and even in the last summer before 
 his fatal illness he still took his favorite walk to 
 Jamaica Pond, although he was too lame to go 
 there alone, and the ten minutes that it had 
 once taken him was then stretched to nearly an 
 hour. 
 
 . On January 20, 1910, he came down with pneu- 
 monia and he was not able to walk again, although 
 he lived until February 17, 191 1. He was never 
 again his vigorous self, but he recovered sufficiently 
 to be able to read, and in the summer he was 
 [ 274 ] 
 
FROM SIXTY TO NINETY 
 
 wheeled out a few times as far as Jamaica Pond. 
 His last trip was taken there in September, 1910, 
 when it seemed as if the swans, which had inter- 
 ested him so much, knew that it was his last visit 
 and had assembled to bid him farewell, for more 
 than twenty of them were drawn up at the edge 
 of the pond. 
 
 As has been seen more than once, my father had 
 always taken a great interest in old people and all 
 through the last hard year of his life he had a long- 
 ing to reach his ninetieth birthday. It seemed as if 
 it was just unusual strength of will that enabled 
 him to see that day, for on February 12, his birth- 
 day, he had a second attack of pneumonia, and 
 only lived five days. 
 
 The afternoon of his funeral there was a snow- 
 storm which fell gently on his last resting-place 
 and made the final service in that spot, in the 
 Walnut Hills Cemetery, a scene of peace and 
 inspiration. 
 
 The keynote of his life was dauntless courage 
 and faith, and he expected those about him to have 
 the same courageous outlook on life. He once said 
 to a member of his family, "I never have any fear 
 about your future, for whatever trials may come 
 to you, you will have the courage to meet them." 
 [275 ] 
 
WILLIAM ORNE WHITE 
 
 To have shared for so many years the compan- 
 ionship of one who held this gallant philosophy of 
 life, is so great a privilege that it has seemed to 
 necessitate the sharing it with others. 
 
 THE END 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, Jr., eulogy 
 
 on Madison, 32. 
 Ajter Noontide, quoted, 221-24. 
 Allan, J. H., 57, 58- 
 Allen, F. E., 171. 
 Allen, Joseph Henry, 63, 254. 
 Annapolis, Nova Scotia, 72, 73. 
 
 Baillie, Joanna, 58. 
 
 Barstow, Dr., Orthodox minister 
 
 at Keene, 197, 198. 
 Bartlett, Gen. W. F., 179, 180. 
 Bartol, Rev. George M., 63. 
 Bell, Dr., of Edinburgh, 56. 
 Bellows, Dr. Henry W., 140. 
 Bemis, Dr., Boston dentist, 125. 
 Bigelow, Dr. Henry J., 55, 56. 
 Boies, Charles A., 139. 
 Bond, Henry F., 51,52,53, 63, 254. 
 Brooks, Phillips, 262. 
 Buchanan, Pres. James, 120. 
 
 Canker-worm, the, 108, 109. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 252, 253. 
 Catbird, song of, 211. 
 Channing, Edward T., 36, 49. 
 Chapin, William, 152. 
 Christian Register, 168, 169. 
 Civil War, the, 143-83. 
 Clay, Henry, 105. 
 Commemoration Day at Harvard 
 
 (1865), 178-80. 
 Craigie, Mrs., 45. 
 Crow, Mr., of St. Louis, 80, 81. 
 
 Dartmouth College, 133, 188. 
 Delaware Water Gap, 92, 93. 
 Draft riots, in New York, 161, 
 
 162; in Boston, 162. 
 Drummond, Mr., Scotch acquaint 
 
 ance of Mr. White's in Sicily, 
 
 57, S8. 
 Dudley, Dr. E. C, 263. 
 Dwight, Wilder, 153, 154. 
 Dwight, Mrs. William. See White, 
 
 Elizabeth Amelia. 
 
 Eastport, Maine, 66-71, 78. 
 
 Education, some essentials of, 210. 
 
 Eliot, William G., 73. 
 
 Elliot, Arthur, 152. 
 
 Elliot, James, 152. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 37, 90, 
 
 252, 253. 
 Emery, Mary, 34. 
 Everett, Edward, 46-48. 
 Exeter Academy, 15, 18. 
 
 Faulkner, Mrs. F. A., letter to, 
 
 228. 
 Felton, Cornelius C, 49. 
 Fire, attraction of, 75. 
 Fiske, F. S., 145, 146. 
 Foote, Caleb, 265-67. 
 Foote, Mrs. Caleb. See White, 
 
 Mary Wilder. 
 Foote, Henry Wilder, 102. 
 Force, Gen. Manning F., 179. 
 Forrest, Edwin, 37. 
 
 279 
 
INDEX • 
 
 French, Orren, 140. 
 Frothingham, Octavius Brooks, 
 
 63. 
 Fulford, Mrs. George T., 274. 
 
 Goodall, Thomas, 177. 
 
 Hale, Edward Everett, 90; as a 
 preacher, 123; letters to, 167, 
 168, 226, 252. 
 
 Hale, Ellen Day, 230. 
 
 Hale, George S., 96. 
 
 Hale, Lucretia P., 104. 
 
 Harding, Chester, 73; death, 182, 
 183. 
 
 Harding, Margaret Eliot, 48, 73, 
 83, 89; letters to, 74, 77-80, 81, 
 82, 87. See also White, Mrs. 
 Willian^ Orne. 
 
 Harrington, Professor, of Wes- 
 leyan University, 200, 201. 
 
 Harvard College, 28; disturb- 
 ances at, 30, 31; Freshman 
 courses, 31; examinations, 35, 
 36; Commemoration I>ay, 178- 
 80. 
 
 Haynes, "Great" Uncle, 172. 
 
 Haynes, Thomas, 173. 
 
 Higginson, Mrs. F. J., 128. 
 
 Higginson, Hetty, 11. 
 
 Higginson, Col. T. W., 63, 161. 
 
 Hill, Pres. Thomas, 63. 
 
 Home, John, 2. 
 
 Hurd, Frank, 15, 16. 
 
 Hurd, Rev. Isaac, 15. 
 
 Incendiarism in Cambridge, 45, 
 
 46. 
 Ingersoll, Dr., 149. 
 Insect pests, 108, 109. 
 
 Keene, New Hampshire, 96-142, 
 
 197-219, 227, 228. 
 Kemble, Fanny, 90. 
 Kilbum, Mr., 204. 
 Knapp, Frederick N., 140. 
 
 Latimer, Bishop Hugh, sermon 
 by, 207, 208. 
 
 Leach, Rev. Mr., of Keene, 202- 
 04. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, second in- 
 augural, 170; death, 173-76; es- 
 timate of, 174, 175. 
 
 Lind, Jenny, 93, 94. 
 
 Longfellow, Henry W., 46, 49. 
 
 Lowe, Martha Perry, 129. 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, 45. 
 
 Mammoth Cave, 85-87. 
 Martineau, James, 62, 192; sends 
 
 Mr. White a hymn-book, 208; 
 
 friendship with, 220, 221 ; 
 
 Home Pitayers, 259-61; letters 
 
 to, 215, 255, 259, 263, 267, 
 
 268. 
 Methodist Conference, 198-200. 
 Minor, T. T., assistant surgeon, 
 
 161. I 
 
 Money, raising, for a church, 
 
 205. 
 Moore, Rev. George, 260, 261. 
 Moors, Rev. John F., 63. 
 Mount Willard, view from, 127. 
 Musgrave, Thomas, 151. 
 
 Natural Bridge, 88. 
 Nead, Dr. D. W., 270. 
 Niagara Falls, 1 12-14. 
 North Conway, New Hampshire, 
 123-26. 
 
 [ 280 
 
INDEX 
 
 Orne, Dwight, 153. 
 
 Orne, Eliza, mother of Mr. White, 
 
 i> 3) S; twice married, 4, 
 Orne, William, 2. 
 
 Palfrey, Dr. John G., sermon by, 
 29. 
 
 Paul, Mrs., New Brunswick In- 
 dian, 151. 
 
 Peabody, Andrew Preston, 92. 
 
 Peabody, Francis H., 129. 
 
 Peabody, Rev. William B. O., 6.' 
 
 Peabody, Mrs. W. B. O. See 
 White, Amelia. 
 
 Peace, of which the angels sang, 
 160. 
 
 Peirson, Edward B., 28. 
 
 Peirson, Ellen, 129. 
 
 Peirson, Harriet, 129. 
 
 Phillips, Rev. George, 61. 
 
 Pickering, Col. Timothy, 8, 9, 209. 
 
 Putnam, Dr. George, 180. 
 
 Renouf, Dr. Edward A., Episcopal 
 
 rector at Keene, 198. 
 Resignation, Christian, 1 19, 120. 
 Reynolds, Rev. Grindall, 63. 
 Rogers, Emily (Mrs. John H. 
 
 Morison), 6, iii. 
 Rogers, Ruth Hurd (Mrs. Daniel 
 
 A. White), 6, 7. 
 Ropes, Abigail (Mrs. William 
 
 Orne), 2, 3. 
 Ropes, Judge, of Salem, 2. 
 Ropes Memorial, 2, 3. 
 
 St. Helena, 53, 54. 
 St. Louis, Mo., 76, 78, 79. 
 Scudder, Mrs. Winthrop S., 254. 
 Sewall, Rev. Henry, 61. 
 
 { 28 
 
 Seymour, Horatio, 162. 
 Shepherd, Perkins, 56. 
 Simpson, Bishop Matthew, 198, 
 
 200. 
 Slavery, 121, 144. 
 Slaves, sale of, 84. 
 Sparks, Jared, 49. 
 Stage-coach, traveling by, 16, 29. 
 Switzerland, 54, 223. 
 
 Taylor, Edward ("Father Tay- 
 lor"), 64. 
 
 Telegraph, the, 98. 
 
 Temperance, Mr. White's inter- 
 est in, 91, 92, no, 206, 214. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 268. 
 
 Thayer, Dr., 149, 152. 
 
 Tinkham, Mr., of Eastport, 68, 
 69, 70. 
 
 Twitchell, Dr. George B., 152. 
 
 Tyndall, John, 215. 
 
 Typographical errors, 168, 169. 
 
 Umbrellas, "gobbling," 187, 188. 
 
 Unitarian, inadequacy of the 
 word, 267, 268. 
 
 Unitarians, and the New Testa- 
 ment, 75; considered heretics, 
 197. 
 
 Van Schalkwyck, Mary Wilder, 
 
 first wife of Judge White, j. 
 Very, Jones, 49. 
 
 War, a hard-featured nurse, 159. 
 Ward, G. A., 61. 
 Ware, Rev. Henry, 37, 61. 
 Watertown, old burying ground 
 
 in, 42. 
 Webster, Daniel, death of, 105. 
 
 I ] 
 
INDEX 
 
 West Newton, Mass., 89-95. 
 Wetmore, Mrs. William (after- 
 ward Mrs. Daniel A. White), 
 
 ' 3,4. 
 
 White, Amelia (Mrs. W. B. O. 
 Peabody), 5, 6, 73. 
 
 White, Judge Daniel Appleton, 
 I, 7, 9; married, 4, 5, 6; death, 
 141; letters to, 13, 21, 25, 35, 36, 
 43, 44, 46, 51, 63, 66, 68, 69, 72, 
 80, 90, 92, 97, 98, 105, 106, 108- 
 12, 115, Ii6, 121-26, 129-39, 
 16s. 
 
 White, Daniel Appleton, son of 
 W. O. W., 141. 
 
 White, Eliza Orne, 175; letters to, 
 186-96, 206-13, 261, 262. 
 
 White, Elizabeth Amelia (Mrs. 
 William Dwight), 4, 5, 73. 
 
 White, Henry Orne, 6. 
 
 White, Mrs. John (Elizabeth 
 Haynes), grandmother of W. 
 O. W., 10, II. 
 
 White, Mary Wilder (Mrs. Caleb 
 Foote), 5, 60; death of, 128-30, 
 
 ^ 131, 132. 
 
 White, Rose (Mrs. D. W. Nead), 
 270. 
 
 White, Ruth Hurd, wife of Daniel 
 A. White, 6; death of, 214; let- 
 ters to, 7, 34, 38, 66, 68, 90, 93, 
 97, 107, III, 116, 120, 124, 138, 
 145, 148, 153, 162, 163-66, 170, 
 173-80, 181, 182, 200, 213, 214. 
 
 White, William (1635), 2. 
 
 White, William Orne, born, i; 
 ancestry, 2-5; childhood, 6-14; 
 sensitive and helpful, 8, 9; mis- 
 chievous, 10; humorous, ii; 
 sent to Dame School, 11; at 
 
 [ 282 ] 
 
 boarding-school, 12, 13; home- 
 sick, 13; at Phillips Exeter 
 Academy, 15-27; his reading, 
 18, 22; fond of walking, 20, 22, 
 42, 78, 127, 274; Sunday occu- 
 pations, 22, 25; goes on fishing 
 cruise, 24; writes essay compar- 
 ing Homer and Virgil, 24, 26, 
 27; enters Harvard, 28; Fresh- 
 man courses, 31; examinations, 
 35, 36; trip to Quebec and 
 Montreal, 38-40; Sophomore 
 studies, 40, 41; Junior exhibi- 
 tion, 43 ; visits in Springfield, 44; 
 class orator, 48; his Class Day 
 spread, 48 n.; foreign trip, 51- 
 60; in St. Helena, 53, 54; in 
 Switzerland, 54; in Italy, 55; 
 ill at Alexandria, 55, 56; trip 
 through Sicily, 57, 58; in Cam- 
 bridge, England, 60; enters 
 Harvard Divinity School, 61; 
 his first pastorate, Eastport, 
 Maine, 66-71, 78; trip through 
 the provinces, 71-73; goes to 
 St. Louis, 73; in a steamboat 
 accident, 74, 75; describes St. 
 Louis, 76; enjoys his profession, 
 78; on seeing slaves sold, 83, 
 84; returns East, 84-88; visits 
 Mammoth Cave, 85, 86; at 
 Natural Bridge, 88; married, 
 89; in West Newton, Mass., 89- 
 95; interested in temperance, 
 91, 92, no, 206, 214; visits 
 Delaware Water Gap, 92. 
 
 Called to Keene, New Hamp- 
 shire, 96; becomes a member of 
 the School Committee, 98, in, 
 112; on the business reverses of 
 
INDEX 
 
 a friend, ICX), lOi; his political 
 attitude, 105; at Niagara Falls. 
 1 12-14; preaches on Christian 
 resignation, 119, 120; his eldest 
 child christened, 121; journey- 
 to North Conway, 123; a stren- 
 uous drive, 124-26; influence of 
 his sister Mary's death, 128- 
 32; receives Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica from his parish, 137, 
 138; and an increase of salary, 
 139; takes an interesting horse- 
 back journey, 139, 140; death 
 of his father, 141, 142; atti- 
 tude in the Civil War, 143, 144, 
 150; birthday surprise party 
 given by his parish, 148, 149; 
 moved by enlistments among 
 his parishioners, 152; a Thanks- 
 giving Day sermon in war- 
 time, 154-57; a Christmas 
 sermon, 157-60; a parish recep- 
 tion, 163, 164; social "compli- 
 cations," 166, 167; a railroad 
 delay, 170, 171; on Abraham 
 Lincoln, 173-76; Commemora- 
 tion Day, 178-80; organizes a 
 Freedmen's Association, 181; 
 his sympathy with children, 
 184; a good story-teller, 184; 
 disliked dogs, 185; letters to his 
 little daughter, 186-96; rela- 
 tions with brother ministers, 
 197-202; account of a Metho- 
 dist Conference, 198-201; 
 preaches a series of doctrinal 
 sermons, 202, 203; building a 
 new church, 204, 205; death of 
 his stepmother, 214. 
 
 Asks church for a year's leave 
 
 of absence, 216; goes to Europe 
 for a year, 220; friendship with 
 James Martineau, 220, 221; in 
 Paris, 221, 222; in Switzerland, 
 223; in Scotland, 224, 225; re- 
 turns to Keene and resigns, 225, 
 226; strong attachment to the 
 people there, 227-30; his ser- 
 mons and prayers, 230-47; be- 
 lieved in equal suffrage, 242; 
 settles in Brookline, 249; among 
 his books, 251; an intense Re- 
 publican, 262; brutally at- 
 tacked, 269; marriage of his 
 younger daughter, 270; death 
 of his wife, 270; some character- 
 istics of his last years, 269-74; 
 his death, 274. 
 
 Letters from : to his father, 13, 
 21.25,35,36,43,44,46,51,63, 
 66-70, 72, 80, 90, 92, 97, 98, 105, 
 106, 108-12, 115, 116, 121-26, 
 129-39, 165; to his stepmother, 
 7, 34, 38, 66, 68, 90, 97, 107, 1 1 1, 
 116, 120, 124, 138, 153, 163-66, 
 170. 173-80, 181, 182, 200, 213, 
 214; to Miss Harding, 74, 77- 
 80, 81, 82, 87; to his wife, 94, 
 99, 100, 118, 127, 141, 145, 161, 
 162, 170, 172, 198, 204, 251, 
 254, 257, 264; to Eliza Orne 
 White, 186-96, 206-13, 261, 
 262; to Mrs. F. A. Faulkner, 
 228; to Caleb Foote, 266; to 
 Henry Wilder Foote, 102; to 
 Edward Everett Hale, 167, 
 168, 226, 252; to Mrs. F. J. 
 Higginson, 128; to James Mar- 
 tineau, 215, 255, 259, 263, 267, 
 268. 
 
 [ 283 
 
INDEX 
 
 White, Mrs. William Orne, letter 
 about Jenny Lind, 93, 94; first 
 impressions of Keene, 96, 97; 
 describes their first parish 
 party in Keene, 104; her inter- 
 ests and activities, 205, 206; 
 
 After Noontide quoted, 221-24; Wordsworth, William, 59, 60. 
 
 death, 270; letters to, 74, 77- 
 79, 81, 82, 87, 94, 99, 100, 118, 
 127, 141, 14s, 161, 170, 173, 198, 
 204, 251, 254, 257, 264; letters 
 from, to her mother-in-law, 145, 
 148, 162, 180. 
 
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