The two kept on to Plymouth, where they were nearly mobbed a second time. Years after, Whittier said that once when he was passing through Portland, a man, seeing him go by, stepped out of his shop and asked if his name were Whittier, and if he were not the man who was stoned, years before, by a mob at Concord. The answer being in the affirmative, he said he believed a devil possessed him that night; for he had no reason to wish evil either to Whittier or Thompson, yet he was filled with a desire to kill them, and he thought he should have done so if they had not escaped. He added that the mob was like a crowd of demons, and he knew one man who had mixed a black dye to dip them in, which would be almost impossible to get off. He could not explain to himself or to another the state of mind he was in.

The next morning we walked with Whittier again in his little garden, and saw his grapes, which were a source of pride and pleasure. One vine, he told us, came up from a tiny rootlet sent to him by Charles Sumner, in a letter from Washington.

Later we strolled forth into the village street as far as the Friends' meeting-house, and sat down upon the steps while he told us something of his neighbors. He himself, he said, had planted the trees about the church: they were then good-sized trees. He spoke very earnestly about the worship of the Friends. All the associations of his youth and all the canons of his education and development were grounded on the Friends' faith and doctrine, and he was anxious that they should show a growth commensurate with the age. He disliked many of the innovations, but his affectionate spirit clung to his people, and he longed to see them drawing to themselves a larger measure of spiritual life, day by day. He loved the old custom of sitting in silence, and hoped they would not stray away into habits of much speaking. The old habits of the meeting-house were very dear to him.

One cold, clear morning in January I heard his early ring at the door. He had been ill, but was so much better that he was absolutely gay. He insisted upon blowing the fire, which, as sometimes happens, will struggle to do its worst on the coldest days; and as the flames at last began to roar, his spirits rose with them. He was rejoicing over Garibaldi's victory. The sufferings of Italy had been so terrible that even one small victory in their behalf seemed a great gain. He said that he had been trying to arouse the interest of the Friends, but it usually took about two years to awaken them thoroughly on any great topic!

He remained several hours that morning talking over his hopes for the country,—of politics, of Charles Sumner, of whom he said, "Sumner is always fundamentally right;" and of John Bright, for whose great gifts he had sincere admiration. Soon afterwards, at the time of this great man's death, Whittier wrote to us: "Spring is here to-day, warm, birdfull.... It seems strange that I am alive to welcome her when so many have passed away with the winter, and among them that stalwartest of Englishmen, John Bright, sleeping now in the daisied grounds of Rochdale, never more to move the world with his surpassing eloquence. How I regret that I have never seen him! We had much in common in our religious faith, our hatred of war and oppression. His great genius seemed to me to be always held firmly in hand by a sense of duty, and by the practical common sense of a shrewd man of business. He fought through life like an old knight-errant, but without enthusiasm. He had no personal ideals. I remember once how he remonstrated with me for my admiration for General Gordon. He looked upon that wonderful personality as a wild fighter, a rash adventurer, doing evil that good might come. He could not see him as I saw him, giving his life for humanity, alone and unfriended, in that dreadful Soudan. He did not like the idea of fighting Satan with Satan's weapons. Lord Salisbury said truly that John Bright was the greatest orator England had produced, and his eloquence was only called out by what he regarded as the voice of God in his soul."

When at length Whittier rose to go that winter morning, with the feeling that he had already taken too large a piece out of the day, we pressed him to stay longer, since it was already late. "Why can't you stay?" urged his host. "Because, I tell you, I don't want to," which set us all laughing, and settled the question.

Our first knowledge of his arrival in town was usually that early and punctual ring at the door to which I have referred. He would come in looking pale and thin, but full of fire, and, as we would soon find, of a certain vigor. He became interested one morning in a plan proposed to him for making a collection of poems for young people, one which he finally completed with the aid of Miss Lucy Larcom. We got down from the shelf Longfellow's "Poets and Poetry of Europe," and looked it over together. "Annie of Tharaw" was a great favorite of his, and the poem by Dirk Smit, on "The Death of an Infant," found his ready appreciation. Whittier easily fell from these into talk of Burns, who was his master and ideal. "He lives, next to Shakespeare," he said, "in the heart of humanity."

In speaking of Rossetti and of his ballad of "Sister Helen," he confessed to being strangely attracted to this poem because he could remember seeing his mother, "who was as good a woman as ever lived," and his aunt performing the same strange act of melting a waxen figure of a clergyman of their time.

The solemnity of the affair made a deep impression on his mind, as a child, for the death of the clergyman in question was confidently expected. His "heresies" had led him to experience this cabalistic treatment.

There was some talk, also, that morning of the advantages, in these restless days, accruing to those who "stay put" in this world, instead of to those who are forever beating about, searching for greater opportunities from position or circumstance. He laughed heartily over the tale, which had just then reached us, of Carlyle going to hunt up a new residence in London with a map of the world in his pocket.

We asked Whittier if he never felt tempted to go to Quebec from his well-beloved haunts in the White Mountains. "Oh no," he replied. "I know it all by books and pictures just as well as if I had seen it."

This talk of traveling reminded him of a circus which came one season to Amesbury. "I was in my garden," he said, "when I saw an Arab wander down the street, and by and by stop and lean against my gate. He held a small book in his hand, which he was reading from time to time when he was not occupied with gazing about him. Presently I went to talk with him, and found he had lived all his life on the edge of the Desert until he had started for America. He was very homesick, and longed for the time of his return. He had hired himself for a term of years to the master of the circus. He held the Koran in his hand, and was delighted to find a friend who had also read his sacred book. He opened his heart still further then, and said how he longed for his old, wild life in the Desert, for a sight of the palms and the sands, but, above all, for its freedom." This interview made a deep impression, naturally, upon Whittier's mind, he, who was no traveler himself, having thus sung:—

"He who wanders widest, lifts No more of beauty's jealous veil Than he who from his doorway sees The miracle of flowers and trees."

The memory of a visit to Amesbury, made once in September, vividly remains with me. It was early in the month, when the lingering heat of summer seems sometimes to gather fresh intensity from the fact that we are so soon to hear the winds of autumn. Amesbury had greatly altered of late years; large enough to be a city," our friend declared; "but I am not fat enough to be an alderman." To us it was still a small village, though somewhat dustier and less attractive than when we first knew it.

As we approached the house, we saw him from a distance characteristically gazing down the road for us, from his front yard, and then at the first glimpse suddenly disappearing, to come forth again to meet us, quite fresh and quiet, from his front door. It had been a very hot, dry summer, and everything about that place, as about every other, was parched and covered with dust. There had been no rain for weeks, and the village street was then quite innocent of watering carts. The fruit hung heavily from the nearly leafless trees, and the soft thud of the pears and apples as they fell to the ground could be heard on every side in the quiet house-yards. The sun struggled feebly through the mists during the noontide hours, when a still heat pervaded rather than struck the earth; and then in the early afternoon, and late into the next morning, a stirless cloud seemed to cover the face of the world. These mists were much increased by the burning of peat and brush, and, alas! of the very woods themselves in every direction. Altogether, as Whittier said, quaintly, "it was very encouraging weather for the Millerites."

His niece, who bears the name of his beloved sister, was then the mistress of his house, and we were soon made heartily welcome. Everything was plain and neat as became a Friend's household; but as the village had grown to be a stirring place, and the house stood close upon the dusty road, such charming neatness must sometimes have been a difficult achievement. The noonday meal was soon served and soon ended, and then we sat down behind the half-closed blinds, looking out upon the garden, the faded vines, and almost leafless trees. It was a cosy room, with its Franklin stove, at this season surmounted by a bouquet, and a table between the windows, where was a larger bouquet, which Whittier himself had gathered that morning in anticipation of our arrival. He seemed brighter and better than we had dared to hope, and was in excellent mood for talking. Referring again to the Millerites, who had been so reanimated by the forest fires, he said he had been deeply impressed lately with their deplorable doctrines. "Continually disappointed because we don't all burn up on a sudden, they forget to be thankful for their preservation from the dire fate they predict with so much complacency."

He had just received a proof of his poem "Miriam," with the introduction, and he could not be content until they had both been read aloud to him. After the reading they were duly commented upon, and revised until he thought he could do no more; yet twice before our departure the proofs were taken out of the hand-bag where they were safely stowed away, and again more or less altered.

Whittier's ever-growing fame was not taken by him as a matter of course. "I cannot think very well of my own things," he used to say; "and what is mere fame worth when thee is at home, alone, and sick with headaches, unable either to read or to write?" Nevertheless, he derived very great pleasure and consolation from the letters and tributes which poured in upon him from hearts he had touched or lives he had quickened. "That I like," he would say sometimes; "that is worth having." But he must often have known the deeps of sadness in winter evenings when he was too ill to touch book or pen, and when he could do nothing during the long hours but sit and think over the fire.

We slept in Elizabeth's chamber. The portrait of their mother, framed in autumn leaves gathered in the last autumn of her life, hung upon the wall. Here, too, as in our bedroom at Dickens's, the Diary of Pepys lay on the table. Dickens had read his copy faithfully, and written notes therein. Of this copy the leaves had not been cut; but with it lay the "Prayers of the Ages," and volumes of poems, which had all been well read, and "Pickwick" upon the top.

In the year 1867 Charles Dickens came to America to give his famous Readings. Whittier, as we have seen, was seldom tempted out of his country home and habitual ways, but Dickens was for one moment too much for him. To our surprise, he wrote to ask if he could possibly get a seat to hear him. "I see there is a crazy rush for tickets." A favorable answer was dispatched to him as soon as practicable, but he had already repented of the indiscretion. "My dear Fields," he wrote, "up to the last moment I have hoped to occupy the seat so kindly promised me for this evening. But I find I must give it up. Gladden with it the heart of some poor wretch who dangled and shivered all in vain in your long queue the other morning. I must read my 'Pickwick' alone, as the Marchioness played cribbage. I should so like, nevertheless, to see Dickens and shake that creative hand of his! It is as well, doubtless, so far as he is concerned, that I cannot do it; he will have enough and too much of that, I fear. I dreamed last night I saw him surrounded by a mob of ladies, each with her scissors snipping at his hair, and he seemed in a fair way to be 'shaven and shorn,' like the Priest in 'The House that Jack Built.'"

The large events of humanity were to Whittier a portion of his own experience, his personal life being, in the ordinary sense, devoid of incident. The death of Charles Dickens, in 1871, was a personal loss, just as his life had been a living gain to this remote and invalid man. One long quiet summer afternoon shortly after, Whittier joined us for the sake of talking about Dickens. He told us what sunshine came from him into his own solemn and silent country life, and what grateful love he must ever bear to him. He wished to hear all that could be told of him as a man. Tea came, and the sun went down, and still he talked and questioned, and then, after a long silence, he said suddenly: "What's he doing now? Sometimes I say, in Shakespeare's phrase, O for some 'courteous ghost,' but nothing ever comes to me. He was so human I should think thee must see him sometimes. It seems as if he were the very person to manifest himself and give us a glimpse beyond. I believe I have faith; I sometimes think I have; but this desire to see just a little way is terribly strong in me. I have expressed something of it in my verses to Mrs. Child about Loring."

He spoke also of the significance of our prayers; of their deep value to our spirit in constantly renewing the sense of dependence; and further, since we "surely find that our prayers are answered, what blindness and fatuity there is in neglect or abuse of our privilege!"

He was thinking of editing a new edition of John Woolman. He hoped to induce certain people who would read his own books to read that, by writing a preface for it.

The death of Henry Ward Beecher was also a loss and a sadness to him in his solitary life. "I am saddened by the death of Beecher," he wrote; "he was so strong, so generous, so warm hearted, and so brave and stalwart in so many good causes. It is a mighty loss. He had faults, like all of us, and needed forgiveness; but I think he could say, with David of old, that he would rather fall into the Lord's hands than into the hands of man."

It is anticipating the years and interrupting the narrative to mention here a few of the men who gladdened his later life by their friendship, but the subject demands a brief space before we return to the current story of his days.

Matthew Arnold went to see him upon his arrival in this country, and it is needless to say that Whittier derived sincere pleasure from the visit; but Arnold's delightful recognition of Whittier's "In School Days" as one of the perfect poems which must live, gave him fresh assurance of fulfilled purpose in existence. He had followed Arnold with appreciation from his earliest appearance in the world of letters, and knew him, as it were, "by heart" long before a personal interview was possible. In a letter written after Arnold's return to England, he says: "I share thy indignation at the way our people have spoken of him—one of the foremost men of our time, a true poet, a wise critic, and a brave, upright man, to whom all the English-speaking people owe a debt of gratitude. I am sorry I could not see him again."

When the end came, a few years later, he was among the first to say, "What a loss English literature has sustained in the death of Matthew Arnold!"

As I have already suggested, he kept the run of all the noteworthy persons who came to Boston quite as surely as they kept in pursuit of him.

"I hope thee will see the wonderful prophet of the Bramo Somaj, Mozoomdar, before he leaves the country. I should have seen him in Boston but for illness last week. That movement in India is the greatest event in the history of Christianity since the days of Paul.

"So the author of 'Christie Johnstone' is dead. I have read and re-read that charming little story with ever-increasing admiration. I am sorry for the coarseness of some of his later writings; but he was, after all, a great novelist, second only in our times to George Eliot, Dickens, and Thackeray.... I shall be glad to hear more about Mr. Wood's and Mrs. ——'s talks. Any hint or sign or token from the unseen and spiritual world is full of solemn interest, standing as I do on the shore of 'that vast ocean I must sail so soon.'...

"You will soon have Amelia Edwards again with you. I am sorry that I have not been able to call on her. Pray assure her of my sincere respect and admiration."

And again: "Have thee seen and heard the Hindoo Mohini? He seems to have really converted some people. I hear that one of them has got a Bible!"

The phrase that he is "beset by pilgrims" occurs frequently in his letters, contrasted with pleased expressions, and descriptions of visits from Phillips Brooks, Canon Farrar, Governor and Mrs. Claflin, and other friends whose faces were always a joy to him.

I have turned aside from the narrative of every-day life to mention these friends; but it is interesting to return and recall the earlier years, when he came one day to dine in Charles Street with Mr. Emerson. As usual, his coming had been very uncertain. He was never to be counted upon as a visitor, but at length the moment came when he was in better health than ordinary, and the stars were in conjunction. I can recall his saying to Emerson: "I had to choose between hearing thee at thy lecture and coming here to see thee. I chose to see thee. I could not do both." Emerson was heard to say to him solicitously: "I hope you are pretty well, sir! I believe you formerly bragged of bad health."

It was Whittier's custom, however, to make quite sure that all "lions" and other disturbing elements were well out of the way before he turned his steps to the library in Charles Street. I recall his coming one Sunday morning when we were at church, and waiting until our return. He thought that would be a safe moment! He was full, as Madame de Sevigne says, "de conversations infinies" being especially interested just then in the question of schools for the freedmen, and eagerly discussed ways and means for starting and supporting them.

We were much amused by his ingenuity in getting contributions from his own town. It appears he had taken into consideration the many carriage-makers in Amesbury. He suggested that each one of these men should give some part of a carriage—one the wheels, one the body, one the furnishings, thus dividing it in all among twenty workmen. When it was put together, there stood a carriage which was sold for two hundred dollars, exactly the sum requisite for Amesbury to give.

He had just parted from his niece, who had gone to teach the freed people in a small Southern village. He could not help feeling anxious for her welfare. She and her young co-workers would be the only Northerners in the place. Of course, such new comers would be regarded with no friendly eye by the "mean whites," and their long distance from home and from any protection would make their position a very forlorn one indeed if the natives should turn against them. He was fearful lest they should be half starved. However, they had departed in excellent spirits, which went a long way to cheer everybody concerned.

He was also full of sympathy and anxiety regarding the well being of a young colored girl here at the North, whose sad situation he had been called upon to relieve; and after discussing ways and laying plans for her comfort (which he afterwards adhered to, until in later years she was placed in a happy home of her own), he went on to discuss the needs of yet a third young person, another victim of the war, who was then teaching in Amesbury. He was almost as remarkable as Mrs. Child in his power of making his own small provision into a broad mantle to cover many shoulders. He was undaunted, too, in his efforts, where his own resources failed, to get what was needed by the help of others. His common sense was so great and his own habits so frugal, that no one could imagine a dollar wasted or misapplied that was confided to his stewardship. His benefactions were ceaseless, and they were one of the chief joys of his later life. The subject of what may be done for this or that person or cause is continually recurring in his letters. Once I find this plea in verse after the manner of Burns:—

"O well-paid author, fat-fed scholar, Whose pockets jingle with the dollar, No sheriff's hand upon your collar, No duns to bother, Think on 't, a tithe of what ye swallow Would save your brother!"

And again and again there are passages in his letters like the following: "I hope the Industrial Home may be saved, and wish I was a rich man just long enough to help save it. As it is, if the subscription needs $30 to fill it up, I shall be glad to give the mite." "I have long followed Maurice," he says again, "in his work as a religious and social reformer—a true apostle of the gospel of humanity. He saw clearly, and in advance of his clerical brethren, the necessity of wise and righteous dealing with the momentous and appalling questions of labor and poverty."

He wrote one day: "If you go to Richmond, why don't you visit Hampton and Old Point Comfort, where that Christian knight and latter-day Galahad, General Armstrong, is making his holy experiment? I think it would be worth your while."

General Armstrong and his brave work in founding and maintaining the Hampton School for the education, at first, of the colored people alone, and finally for the Indians also, was one of the near and living interests of Whittier's life. Often and often in his letters do we find references to the subject; either he regrets having to miss seeing the general, upon one of his Northern trips, or he rejoices in falling in with some of the teachers at Asquam Lake or elsewhere, or his note is jubilant over some new gift which will make the general's work for the year less difficult.

Once he writes: "I am grieved to hear of General Armstrong's illness. I am not surprised at it. He has been working in his noble cause beyond any mortal man's strength. He must have a rest if it is possible for him, and his friends must now keep up the school by redoubled efforts. Ah me! There is so much to be done in this world! I wish I were younger, or a millionaire."

And yet again: "I had the pleasure of sending General Armstrong at Christmas, with my annual subscription, one thousand dollars which a friend placed in my hand. I wish our friend could be relieved from the task of raising money by a hundred such donations."

The choice of the early breakfast hour for his visits was his own idea. He was glad to hit upon a moment which was not subject to interruptions, one when he could talk at his ease of books and men. These visits were always a surprise. He liked to be abroad in good season, and had rarely missed seeing the sun rise in forty years. He knew, too, that we were not late people, and that his visits could never be untimely. Occasionally, with the various evening engagements of a city, we were not altogether fit to receive him, but it was a pleasure to hear his footstep in the morning, and to know that we should find him in the library by the fire. He was himself a bad sleeper, seldom, as he said, putting a solid bar of sleep between day and day, and therefore often early abroad to question the secrets of the dawn. We owe much of the intimate friendship of our life to these morning hours spent in private, uninterrupted talk.

"I have lately felt great sympathy with ——," he said one morning, "for I have been kept awake one hundred and twenty hours—an experience I should not care to try again."

One of Whittier's summer pleasures, in which he occasionally indulged himself, was a visit to the Isles of Shoals. He loved to see his friend Celia Thaxter in her island home, and he loved the freedom of a large hotel. He liked to make arrangements with a group of his more particular friends to meet him there; and when he was well enough to leave his room, he might be seen in some carefully chosen corner of the great piazzas, shady or sunny, as the day invited him, enjoying the keenest happiness in the voluntary society and conversation of those dear to him. Occasionally he would pass whole days in Celia Thaxter's parlor, watching her at her painting in the window, and listening to the talk around him. He wished to hear and know what interested others. He liked nothing better, he once said, than going into the "store" in the old days at Amesbury, when it was a common centre, almost serving the purpose of what a club may be in these later days, and sitting upon a barrel to hear "folks talk." The men there did not know much about his poetry, but they understood his politics, and he was able to put in many a word to turn the vote of the town. In Celia Thaxter's parlor he found a different company, but his relations to the people who frequented that delightful place were practically the same. He wished to understand their point of view, if possible, and then, if he could find opportunity, he would help them to a higher standpoint.

I remember one season in particular, when the idle talk of idle persons had been drifting in and out during the day, while he sat patiently on in the corner of the pretty room. Mrs. Thaxter was steadily at work at her table, yet always hospitable, losing sight of no cloud or shadow or sudden gleam of glory in the landscape, and pointing the talk often with keen wit. Nevertheless, the idleness of it all palled upon him. It was Sunday, too, and he longed for something which would move us to "higher levels." Suddenly, as if the idea struck him like an inspiration, he rose, and taking a volume of Emerson from the little library he opened to one of the discourses, and handing it to Celia Thaxter said:

"Read that aloud, will thee? I think we should all like to hear it."

She read it through at his bidding; then he took up the thread of the discourse, and talked long and earnestly upon the beauty and necessity of worship—a necessity consequent upon the nature of man, upon his own weakness, and his consciousness of the Divine Spirit within him. His whole heart was stirred, and he poured himself out towards us as if he longed, like the prophet of old, to breathe a new life into us. I could see that he reproached himself for not having spoken out in this way before, but his enfranchised spirit took only a stronger flight for the delay.

I have never heard of Whittier's speaking in the meeting-house, although he was doubtless often "moved" to do so; but to us who heard him on that day he became more than ever a light unto our feet. It was not an easy thing to do to stem the accustomed current of life in this way, and it is a deed only possible to those who, in the Bible phrase, "walk with God."

Such an unusual effort was not without its consequences. It was followed by a severe headache, and he was hardly seen abroad again during his stay.

We heard from him again, shortly after, under the shadow of the great hills where he always passed a part of every year. He loved them, and wrote eloquently of the loveliness of nature at Ossipee: "the Bearcamp winding down," the long green valley close by the door, the long Sandwich and Waterville ranges, and Chocorua filling up the horizon from west to northeast.

The frequent loneliness of his life often found expression. Once he says:—

"I wish I could feel that I deserved a tithe even of the kind things said of me by my personal friends. If one could but be as easily as preach! The confession of poor Burns might, I fear, be made of the best of us:—

"'God knows I'm no the thing I would be, Nor am I even the thing I could be.'

And yet I am thankful every day of my life that God has put it into the hearts of so many whom I love and honor and reverence to send me so many messages of good will and kindness. It is an unspeakable comfort in the lonely and darkening afternoon of life. Indeed, I can never feel quite alone so long as I know that all about me are those who turn to me with friendly interest, and, strange to say, with gratitude. A sense of lack of desert on my part is a drawback, of course; but then, I say to myself, if my friends judge me by my aim and desire, and not by my poor performance, it may be all right and just."

The painful solitude of his life after his dear niece's marriage was softened when he went to live with his cousins at Oak Knoll, in Danvers, a pleasant country seat, sheltered and suited to his needs.

Of this place Mrs. Spofford says, in a delightful biographical paper: "The estate of Oak Knoll is one of some historical associations, as here once lived the Rev. George Burroughs, the only clergyman in the annals of Salem witchcraft who was hung for dark dealings, Danvers having originally been a part of the town of Salem, where witchcraft came to a blaze, and was stamped out of existence.... The only relic on the place of its tragedy is the well of the Burroughs' house, which is still in the hay-field, and over which is the resting-place of the sounding-board of the pulpit in the church where the witches were tried."

At Danvers he was able to enjoy the free open air. He loved to sit under the fine trees which distinguished the lawn, to play with the dogs, and wander about unmolested until he was tired. The ladies of the house exerted themselves to give him perfect freedom and the tenderest care. The daughter became his playmate, and she never quite grew up, in his estimation. She was his lively and loving companion. Writing from Danvers, one December, he says, "What with the child, and the dogs, and Rip Van Winkle the cat, and a tame gray squirrel who hunts our pockets for nuts, we contrive to get through the short dark days."

Again: "I am thankful that February has come, and that the sun is getting high on his northern journey. The past month has been trying to flesh and spirit.... I am afraid my letter has a complaining tone, and I am rather ashamed of it, and shall be more so when my head is less out of order.... There are two gray squirrels playing in my room. Phoebe calls them Deacon Josiah and his wife Philury, after Rose Terry Cooke's story of the minister's 'week of works' in the place of a 'week of prayer.'"

He showed more physical vitality after he went to Danvers, and his notes evince a wide interest in matters private and public outside his own library life. He still went to Portland to see his niece and her husband whenever he was able, and now and then to Boston also. But Philadelphia at the time of the Centennial was not to be thought of. "I sent my hymn," he wrote from Amesbury in 1876, "with many misgivings, and am glad it was so well received. I think I should like to have heard the music, but probably I should not have understood. The gods have made me most unmusical.

"I have just got J. T. F.'s charming little book of 'Barry Cornwall and His Friends.' It is a most companionable volume, and will give rare pleasure to thousands.... I write in the midst of our Quaker quarterly meeting, and our house has been overrun for three days. We had twelve to dine to-day; they have now gone to meeting, but I am too tired for preaching.

"I don't expect to visit Philadelphia. The very thought of that Ezekiel's vision of machinery and the nightmare confusion of the world's curiosity shop appalls me. I shall not venture."

He was full of excellent resolutions about going often to Boston, but he never could make a home there. "I see a great many more things in the city than thee does," he would say, "because I go to town so seldom. The shop windows are a delight to me, and everything and everybody is novel and interesting. I don't need to go to the theatre. I have more theatre than I can take in every time I walk out."

No sketch of Whittier, however slight, should omit to mention his friendship for Bayard Taylor. Their Quaker parentage helped to bring the two poets into communion; and although Taylor was so much the younger and more vigorous man, Whittier was also to see him pass, and to mourn his loss. He took a deep interest in his literary advancement, and considered "Lars" his finest poem. Certainly no one knew Taylor's work better, or brought a deeper sympathy into his reading of it. "I love him too well to be a critic of his verse," he says in one of his letters. "But what a brave worker he was!"

The reading of good books was, very late in life, as it had been very early, his chief pleasure. His travels, his romance, his friendships, were indulged in chiefly by proxy of the printed page. "I felt very near Dr. Mulford through his writings," he said. "He was the strongest thinker of our time, and he thought in the right direction. 'The Republic of God' is intellectually greater than St. Augustine's 'City of God,' and infinitely nearer the Christian ideal."

"That must be a shrewd zephyr," Charles Lamb used to say, speaking of his Gentle Giantess, "that can escape her." And so we may say of Whittier and a book. "Has thee seen the new book by the author of 'Mr. Isaacs'?" he asked (having sent me "Mr. Isaacs" as soon as it appeared, lest I should miss reading so novel and good a story). In the same breath he adds: "I have been reading 'The Freedom of Faith,' by the author of 'On the Threshold,' just published by Houghton & Co. It is refreshing and tonic as the northwest wind. The writer is one of the leaders of the new departure from the ultra-Calvinism. Thank thee just here for the pleasure of reading Annie Keary's biography. What a white, beautiful soul! Her views of the mission of spiritualism seem very much like ——'s. I do not know when I have read a more restful, helpful book.

"How good Longfellow's poem is! A little sad, but full of 'sweetness and light.' Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, and myself are all getting to be old fellows, and that swan-song might serve for us all. 'We who are about to die.' God help us all! I don't care for fame, and have no solicitude about the verdicts of posterity.

"'When the grass is green above us And they who know us and who love us Are sleeping by our side, Will it avail us aught that men Tell the world with lip and pen That we have lived and died?'

"What we are will then be more important than what we have done or said in prose or rhyme, or what folks that we never saw or heard of think of us."

The following hitherto unpublished poem was written about this period upon the marriage of the daughter of his friend Mrs. Leonowens:—

TO A. L.

WITH THE CONGRATULATIONS OF HER MOTHER'S FRIEND

The years are many, the years are old, My dreams are over, my songs are sung, But, out of a heart that has not grown cold, I bid God-speed to the fair and young. Would that my prayer were even such As the righteous pray availing much, But nothing save good can Love befall, And naught is lacking since Love is all, Thy one great blessing of life the best, Like the rod of Moses swallows the rest!

(Signed) JOHN G. WHITTIER.

Oak Knoll, 6th mo. 7, 1878.

Later he describes himself as listening to the "Life of Mrs. Stowe." "It is a satisfying book, a model biography, or, rather, autobiography for dear Mrs. Stowe speaks all through it. Dr. Holmes's letters reveal him as he is—wise, generous, chivalrous. Witness the kindliness and delicate sympathy of his letters during the Lord Byron trouble.... Miss W. has read us some of Howells's 'Hazard of New Fortunes.' It strikes me that it is a strong book. That indomitable old German, Linden—that saint of the rather godless sect of dynamiters and anarchists—is a grand figure; one can't help loving him."

The poet's notes and letters are full of passages showing how closely he followed public affairs. "If I were not sick, and to-morrow were not election day," he says, "I should go to Boston. I hope to be there in a few days, at any rate. You must 'vote early and often,' and elect Hooper. Here we are having Marryat's triangular duel acted over by our three candidates. I wish they were all carpet-bagging among the Kukluxes. It wouldn't hurt us to go without a representative until we can raise one of our own." ...

And again: "I am somewhat disappointed by the vote on the suffrage question. It should be a lesson to us not to trust to political platforms. A great many Republicans declined to vote for it or against it. They thought the leaders of the suffrage movement had thrown themselves into the hands of Butler and the Democrats. However, it is only one of those set-backs which all reforms must have—temporary, but rather discouraging.

"I worked hard in our town, and we made a gain of nearly one hundred votes over last year."

"I am happy," he says later, "in the result of the election—thankful that the State has sat down heavily on ——. I never thought of taking an active interest in politics this year, but I could not help it when the fight began."

And still later in life: "I am glad of the grand overturn in Boston, and the courage of the women voters. How did it seem to elbow thy way to the polls through throngs of men folk?"

Whittier never relinquished his house at Amesbury, where his kind friends, Judge Cate and his wife, always made him feel at home. As the end of his life drew near, it was easy to see that the village home where his mother and his sister lived and died was the place he chiefly loved; but he was more inaccessible to his friends in Amesbury, and the interruptions of a fast-growing factory town were sometimes less agreeable to him than the country life at Oak Knoll. He was a great disbeliever in too much solitude, however, and used to say, "The necessary solitude of the human soul is enough; it is surprising how great that is."

Once only he expresses this preference for the dear old village home in his letters. "I have been at Amesbury for a fortnight. Somehow I seem nearer to my mother and sister; the very walls of the rooms seem to have become sensitive to the photographs of unseen presences."

As the end drew near, he passed more and more time with his beloved cousins Gertrude and Joseph Cartland in Newburyport, whose interests and aims in life were so close to his own.

The habit of going to the White Mountains in their company for a few weeks during the heat of summer was a fixed one. He grew to love Asquam, with its hills and lakes, almost better than any other place for this sojourn. It was there he loved to beckon his friends to join him. "Do come, if possible," he would write. "The years speed on; it will soon be too late. I long to look on your dear faces once more."

His deafness began to preclude general conversation; but he delighted in getting off under the pine-trees in the warm afternoons, or into a quiet room upstairs at twilight, and talking until bedtime. He described to us, during one visit, his first stay among the hills. His parents took him where he could see the great wooded slope of

Agamenticus. As he looked up and gazed with awe at the solemn sight, a cloud drooped, and hung suspended as it were from one point, and filled his soul with astonishment. He had never forgotten it. He said nothing at the time, but this cloud hanging from the breast of the hill filled his boyish mind with a mighty wonder, which had never faded away.

Notwithstanding his strong feeling for Amesbury, and his presence there always at "quarterly meeting," he found himself increasingly comfortable in the companionship of his devoted relatives. Something nearer "picturesqueness" and "the beautiful" came to please the sense and to soothe the spirit at Oak Knoll. He did not often make record in his letters of these things; but once he speaks charmingly of the young girl in a red cloak, on horseback, with the dog at her side, scampering over the lawn and brushing under the sloping branches of the trees. The sunset of his life burned slowly down; and in spite of illness and loss of power, he possessed his soul in patience. After a period when he usually felt unable to write, he revived and wrote a letter, in which he spoke as follows of a poem which had been sent for his revision: "The poem is solemn and tender; it is as if a wind from the Unseen World blew over it, in which the voice of sorrow is sweeter than that of gladness—a holy fear mingled with holier hope. For myself, my hope is always associated with dread, like the shining of a star through mist. I feel, indeed, that Love is victorious, that there is no dark it cannot light, no depth it cannot reach; but I imagine that between the Seen and the Unseen there is a sort of neutral ground, a land of shadow and mystery, of strange voices and undistinguished forms. There are some, as Charles Lamb says, 'who stalk into futurity on stilts,' without awe or self-distrust. But I can only repeat the words of the poem before me."....

One of the last, perhaps the very last visit he made to his friends in Boston was in the beautiful autumn weather. The familiar faces he hoped to find were absent. He arrived without warning, and the very loveliness of the atmosphere which made it possible for him to travel had tempted younger people out among the falling leaves. He was disappointed, and soon after sent these verses to rehearse his experience:—

"I stood within the vestibule Whose granite steps I knew so well, While through the empty rooms the bell Responded to my eager pull.

"I listened while the bell once more Rang through the void, deserted hall; I heard no voice, nor light foot-fall, And turned me sadly from the door.

"Though fair was Autumn's dreamy day, And fair the wood-paths carpeted With fallen leaves of gold and red, I missed a dearer sight than they.

"I missed the love-transfigured face, The glad, sweet smile so dear to me, The clasp of greeting warm and free; What had the round world in their place?

"O friend, whose generous love has made My last days best, my good intent Accept, and let the call I meant Be with your coming doubly paid."

But even this journey was beyond his strength. He wrote: "Coming back from Boston in a crowded car, a window was opened just behind me and another directly opposite, and in consequence I took a bad cold, and am losing much of this goodly autumnal spectacle. But Oak Knoll woods were never, I think, so beautiful before."

In future his friends were to seek him; he could go no more to them: the autumn had indeed set in.

Now began a series of birthday celebrations, which were blessings not unmixed in his cup of life. He was in the habit of writing a brief note of remembrance on these anniversaries; in one of which, after confessing to "a feeling of sadness and loneliness," he turns to the Emerson Calendar, and says, "I found for the day some lines from his 'World Soul:'—

"'Love wakes anew this throbbing heart, And we are never old; Over the winter glaciers I see the summer glow, And through the wild piled snow-drift The warm rose-buds blow.'

Reading them, I took heart."

On another occasion he says: "In the intervals of visitation on that day my thoughts were with dear friends who have passed from us; among whom, I need not say, was thy dearest friend. How vividly the beautiful mornings with you were recalled! Then I wondered at my age, and if it was possible that I was the little boy on the old Haverhill farm, unknown, and knowing nobody beyond my home horizon. I could not quite make the connection of the white-haired man with the black- locked boy. I could not help a feeling of loneliness, thinking of having outlived many of my life-companions; but I was still grateful to God that I had not outlived my love for them and for those still living. Among the many tokens of good will from all parts of the country and beyond the sea, there were some curious and amazing missives. One Southern woman took the occasion to include me in her curse of the 'mean, hateful Yankees.' To offset this, I had a telegram from the Southern Forestry Congress assembled in Florida, signed by president and secretary, informing me that 'In remembrance of your birthday, we have planted a live-oak tree to your memory, which, like the leaves of the tree, will be forever green.'"

Birthdays, on the whole, in the face of much sadness, brought him also much that was agreeable and delightful in remembrance. One old friend always gave him great pleasure by sending a huge basket of gilded wicker, in which were placed fruits of every variety from all quarters of the globe, and covered with rare flowers and ferns. In this way he visited the gardens of the Orient, and could see in his imagination the valleys of Napa and of Shiraz. On the occasion of a dinner given him at the Brunswick Hotel, on his seventieth birthday, he wrote: "I missed my friend. In the midst of so much congratulation, I do not forget his earlier appreciation and encouragement, and every kind word which assured and cheered me when the great public failed to recognize me. I dare not tell thee, for fear of seeming to exaggerate, how much his words have been to me."

Thus the long years and the long days passed on with scarcely perceptible diminution of interest in the affairs of this world. "I am sorry to find that the hard winter has destroyed some handsome spruces I planted eight years ago," he wrote one May day; "they had grown to be fine trees. Though rather late for me, I shall plant others in their places; for I remember the advice of the old Laird of Dumbiedikes to his son Jock: 'When ye hae naething better to do, ye can be aye sticking in a tree; it'll aye be growin' when ye are sleeping.' There is an ash-tree growing here that my mother planted with her own hands at threescore and ten. What agnostic folly to think that tree has outlived her who planted it!"

The lines of Whittier's life stretched "between heaven and home" during the long period of eighty-four years. A host of friends, friends of the spirit, were, as we have seen, forever clustering around him; and what a glorious company it was! Follen, Shipley, Chalkley, Lucy Hooper, Joseph Sturge, Channing, Lydia Maria Child, his sister Elizabeth—a shining cloud too numerous to mention; the inciters of his poems and the companions of his fireside. In the silence of his country home their memories clustered about him and filled his heart with joy.

"He loved the good and wise, but found His human heart to all akin

Who met him on the common ground Of suffering and of sin."

His "Home Ballads" grew out of this very power of clinging to the same places and the old loves, and what an incomparable group they make! "Telling the Bees," "Skipper Ireson's Ride," "My Playmate," "In School Days," are sufficient in themselves to set the seal to his great fame.

As a traveler, too, he is unrivaled, giving us, without leaving his own garden, the fine fruit of foreign lands. In reading his poems of the East, it is difficult to believe that he never saw Palestine, nor Ceylon, nor India; and the wonder is no less when he writes of our own wide country. Indeed, the vividness of his poems about the slaves at St. Helena's Island and elsewhere make them among the finest of all his local poems. One called "The Pass of the Sierra" may easily bear the palm among much descriptive writing.

He watched over his last remaining brother during a long illness and death, during the autumn and winter of 1882 and 1883 in Boston. The family all left Oak Knoll and came to be with him at a hotel, whence he could make frequent visits to his brother's bedside; but the unwonted experience of passing several months in town, and the wearing mission which brought him there, told seriously upon his health, and caused well-grounded anxiety as to the result. The day after the last services had been performed he wrote to a friend: "Indeed, it was a great comfort to sit beside you and to feel that if another beloved one had passed into the new life beyond sight and hearing, the warm hearts of loved friends were beating close to my own. You do not know how grateful it was to me. Dr. Clarke's presence and words were full of comfort. My brother did not approve of a display of flowers, but he loved violets, and your simple flowers were laid in his hand.... Give my love to S., and kiss the dear child for me."

It was not, however, until 1890 that we could really feel he had left the years of active service and of intellectual achievement as things of the past. He was shut out from much that gave him pleasure, but the spirit which animated the still breathing frame, though waiting and at times longing for larger opportunity, seemed to us like a loving sentinel, covering his dear ones as with a shield, and watching over the needs of humanity. The advance of the colored people, the claims of the Indians and their wrongs, opportunities for women, statesmen, and politicians, the private joys and sorrows of those dear to him, were all present and kept alive, though in the silence of his breast.

The end came, the door opened, while he was staying with the daughter of an old friend at Hampton Falls, in New Hampshire—that saintly woman whom we associate with one of the most spiritual and beautiful of his poems, "A Friend's Burial." After a serious illness in the winter of 1892 he was almost too frail for any summer journeying; but with his usual wisdom and instinctive turning of the heart towards old familiar places, he thought of this hospitable house where he seemed to gain strength, and where he found much happiness and the quietness that he loved. His last illness was brief; he was ministered to by those who stood nearest him. And thus the waves of time passed over him and swept him from our sight.

It is a pleasure now to recall many a beautiful scene in summer afternoons, under the trees at Danvers, when his spirit animated the air and made the landscape shine with a radiance not its own. Such memories serve to keep the whole world beautiful wherein he moved, and add to his poetry a sense of presence and a living light.

Old age appears in comparison to every other stage of human existence as a most undesirable state. We look upon its approaches and its ravages with alarm. Death itself is far less dreadful, and "the low door," if it will only open quickly, brings little fear to the thoughtful mind. But the mystery of decadence, the long sunsetting, the loss of power—what do they mean? The Latin word saga, from which the French get la sagesse, and we "the sage," gives us a hint of what we do not always understand—the spiritual beauty and the significance even of loss in age.

Whittier, wearing his silver crown, brought the antique word into use again, and filled it with fresh meaning for modern men.



TENNYSON

It is difficult at the present time, when Tennyson's poetry has become a part of the air we breathe, to look back into the world of literature as it existed before he came.

There is a keen remembrance, lingering ineradicably with the writer, of a little girl coming to school once upon recitation day, with a "piece" of her own selection safely stored away in her childish memory. It was a new poem to the school, and when her turn came to recite her soul was full of the gleam and glory of Camelot. She felt as if she were unlocking a treasure-house, and it was with unspeakable pleasure to herself that she gave, verse after verse, the entire poem of "The Lady of Shalott." Doubtless the child's voice drifted away into sing-song, as her whole little self seemed to drift away into the land of faery, and doubtless also the busy teacher, who was more familiar with Jane Taylor and Cowper, was sadly puzzled. When the child at length sat down, scarcely knowing where she was in her sudden descent from the land of marvel, she heard the teacher say, to her amazement and discouragement, after an ominous pause, "I wonder if any young lady can tell me what this poem means?" There was no reply.

"Can you tell us?" was the next question, pointed at the poor little girl who had just dropped out of cloudland. "I thought it explained itself," was the plaintive reply. With a slight air of depreciation, in another moment the next recitation was called for, and the dull clouds of routine shut down over the sudden glory. "Shades of the prison-house" then and there began to close over the growing child. One joy had for the present faded from her life, that of a sure sympathy and understanding. Not even her teacher could see what she saw, nor could feel what lay deep down in her own glowing heart. Nevertheless Tennyson was henceforth a seer and a prophet to this child and to the growing world; but for some, who could never learn his language, he was born too late.

The picturesqueness of Scott and Byron, the simple piety of Cowper, had satisfied the poetic and religious nature of the world up to that time. Shelley and Keats had indeed lived, but men had scarcely then learned generally to read them. Tennyson may be looked upon as their interpreter, in a measure, to the common world. Even Wordsworth, the mountain-top of poetry, the leader, whom Tennyson called his master— even he failed to give the common mind, which looks for drama, any long poem which he who runs may read. This humanity in poetry is distinctly, first of all, Shakespearian; but if this quality should seem to any reader not also Tennysonian, let him re-read "Guinevere," in the "Idylls of the King," and reverse his decision.

The hearts of men were largely attuned by Tennyson, and taught to understand the affinities and symbolisms of nature. This new era in literature opened about the year 1830, when Tennyson gave a few poems to the world, which were chiefly canceled by his later judgment. A small book in green paper covers lies before me as I write, "privately printed" in 1862, containing his poems printed between 1830 and 1833, and giving the first readings of some which have been sanctioned in his later editions. The volume "privately printed" has been most privately treasured lest anything should appear from it to "vex the poet's mind." For thirty years it has lain in a secret drawer, with these words inscribed upon the cover: "Not to be lent; not to be stolen; not to be given away."

Some of these poems have been wrought over until we are reminded of his own line,

"Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere,"

and incorporated in his later editions; others seem to have been gathered up and published without permission by an American publisher, who in some way gained possession of the book. The present perfected edition, however, published by Macmillan, evidently contains all the poems Tennyson wished to have remembered. The chief interest in the small green book is in the early readings, which are a good study for those who pursue the art of poetry. We see in them the sure integrity of the master-hand.

"Isabel" was not, perhaps, one of the very earliest poems, although it stands among the early poems of character in the perfected edition. It does not appear in the green book, yet the title already stands in the table of contents. In his own revised editions it has always appeared unchanged from the first. There is a flawless loveliness in this poem which makes it especially worthy of admiration. "Isabel" possesses a peculiar interest, because it is understood to be the poet's tribute to his wife, and indeed even his imaginative eye could hardly elsewhere have found another to whom this description would so properly fit:—

"The intuitive decision of a bright And thorough-edged intellect to part Error from crime; a prudence to withhold The laws of marriage character'd in gold Upon the blanched tablets of her heart; A love still burning upward, giving light To read those laws; an accent very low In blandishment, but a most silver flow Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, Right to the heart and brain, tho' undescried, Winning its way with extreme gentleness Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride A courage to endure and to obey; A hate of gossip parlance and of sway,— Crown'd Isabel, thro' all her placid life, The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife."

The relation of Tennyson's life to that of other men has been but imperfectly understood. There was indeed a natural sublimity in his character which gave him, as he has himself said of the poet's mind, a power for scorn of things fit to be scorned; but his capacity for friendship has been proved again and again. The tree, as of old, is known by its fruits, and we need only recall the poems to James Spedding, to F. D. Maurice, to Mary Boyle, to Lord Dufferin, his correspondence with Edward Fitzgerald, and the great note of grief and consolation in "In Memoriam," to know a man capable of friendship, and one who has drawn to himself the noble lovers of his time.

There was an unconsciousness of outward things, of the furniture of life, which left him freer than most men to face the individual soul that approached him. There was also a fine consistency in his personality,—no tampering with the world; no trying to serve two masters. The greatness of his presence was felt, we believe, by all who approached him; he seemed to be invested by a strange remoteness from the affairs of the world. Yet it was easy for the spirits to draw near to him who really wanted what he could give. His hospitality was large and sincere. In his own words of the "Great Duke" we read his perfect likeness:—

"As the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime."

A friend who knew him wrote once: "Tennyson found out in the golden season of his life, his youth, just what kind of work he was fitted to do, and he never squandered an hour in search of his primary bearings.... There is always a gravity about him, a becoming nobleness, which reminds one of what St. Simon said of Fenelon, 'When he is present it requires an effort to cease looking at him.'"

When this friend returned after his first interview with Tennyson, many years ago, we can well recall the eagerness with which we listened. His excitement as he described the hours they had passed together was hardly less than that of his hearer. Every minute detail of the interview was impatiently demanded. "How did he look?" was asked immediately in the first pause, and "What did he say?" followed before there was quite time to speak. In reply came a full description of the tall figure, clad in a long gray dressing-gown, presenting itself in the half-opened doorway of his chambers in the Temple, and looking cautiously out at the new comer.

"'Oh! it is you,' he said, drawing his visitor in through the narrow space with a most cordial welcome. He was sitting before the fire, with his books about him, which he put aside, and while he talked he began to toast sundry slices of bread for our repast. As for his looks, his head is a very grand one, and his voice has a deep swelling richness in it. He had just received from the printers some proof sheets of the 'Idylls of the King,' and then and there he chanted the story of Enid and Elaine: chanted is the true word to apply to his recitations. He had a theory that poetry should always be given out with the rhythm accentuated, and the music of the verse strongly emphasized, and he did it with a power that was marvelous."

The next recollection, and one that sweeps vividly across my memory, is that of going to Farringford for the first time, and seeing Tennyson among the surroundings so admirably suited to his tastes and necessities. The place was much more retired than at present; indeed, there was neither sight nor sound of any intrusion during those summer days. The island might have been Prospero's own, it seemed so still and far away.

Beyond the gardens and the lawn the great downs sloped to the sea, and in the distance on either hand could be seen the cliffs and shores as they wound away and were lost in the dim haze that lay between us and the horizon. We found ourselves suddenly walking as in a dream, surrounded with the scenery of his poems.

It is still easy to distinguish with perfect clearness to the "inward eye" two figures rambling along the downs that lovely day, and pausing at a rude summer-house, a kind of forgotten shelter, a relic of some other life. The great world was still as only the noon of summer knows how to be; the air blew freshly up from the sea, and the figures stopped a moment to look and rest. The door of the shelter hung idly on rusted hinges, and the two entered to enjoy the shade. Turning, they saw the whole delicious scene framed in the rude doorway. "Ah," the lady said, "I have found one of your haunts. I think you must sometimes write here." Tennyson looked at her with a smile which said, "I can trust my friends;" and putting his hand up high over the door, he took from the tiny ledge a bit of pencil and paper secreted there, held them out to her for one moment, and then carefully put them back again. There was not much said, but it was an immediate revelation, and a cherished bit of confidence. Perhaps on that sheet was already inscribed,

"Ask me no more; the moon may draw the sea, The cloud may stoop from heaven and lake the shape, With fold on fold, of mountain or of cape;"

or perhaps the page was waiting for "The Sailor-Boy," or glimpses of the great "Tyntagel," or "Lyonesse."

I could not know, nor did he, what he was yet to do. I only felt—all who knew him felt—that he knew his work demanded from him the sacrifice of what the world calls pleasure. He endeavored to hold his spirit ready, and his mind trained and responsive.

His constant preoccupation with the business of his life rendered him often impatient of wasting hours in mere "personal talk." He was always eager and ready to hear of large matters of church or state from those who were competent to inform him; but it was his chief joy, when his friends were gathered about him, to read from other poets or from his own books.

In this same visit there was much talk of Milton, of whom he spoke as "the great organist of verse, who always married sound to sense when he wrote." Surely no one ever gave the lines of that great poet as he did. It was wonderful to hear. It would be impossible to forget that grand voice as he repeated:—

"The imperial ensign which full high advanced Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind, With gems and golden lustre rich emblazed, Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds."

Tennyson's chanting of his own "Boaedicea" was very remarkable.

"Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated, Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable."

But nothing could excel the effect of his rendering of "Guinevere," his voice at times tremulous with emotion, and his face turned from the light as he read,

"Let no man dream but that I love thee still,"

and all the noble context glowing with a white heat. It was easy then to find that his own ideal,

"Flos regum Arthuris,"

was not a legend to him alone, but a vision of the Holy Grail toward which he aspired.

It were easy, indeed it is a temptation, to record every detail, stamped as they all are on the memory after several visits at Farringford and at Aldworth; but the beautiful paper printed only a few years ago by Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie, now given to the world in a volume, where Tennyson stands as one of "The Light-Bearers," would make any repetition of the history of his family life worse than unnecessary. Mrs. Ritchie's friendship with the members of that household, and her familiarity with the houses and scenery which surrounded them, have given her the opportunity to do what her genius has executed.

Summer was again here, with a touch of autumn in the air—this autumn in which we write—when we last saw Lord Tennyson at Aldworth. He was already unwell and suffering from a cold. He sat, however, on his couch, which was drawn across the great window, where he could look off, when he turned his head, and see the broad green valley and the hills beyond, or, near at hand, could watch the terrace and his own trees, and catch a glimpse of the garden.

The great frame had lost its look of giant strength; the hands were thinner; but the habit of his mind and spirit was the same. Again we heard the voice; again we felt the uplift of his presence. He was aware that he was not to stay here much longer, and when we bent over him to say good-by, we knew and he knew it was indeed "farewell." He was surrounded with deep love and tenderness and the delightful presence of his little grandchildren, and when, shortly after, his weakness increased, he doubtless heard the words sounding in his mind:—

"Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages,

Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages."

He asked for "Cymbeline" that he might carry the noble lines clearly in remembrance. Later the moon shone full into the room, and in that dim splendor, and to the music of the autumn wind, his spirit passed.



EMILY, LADY TENNYSON

When I first saw Lady Tennyson she was in the prime of life. Her two sons, boys of eight and ten years of age perhaps, were by her side. Farringford was at that time almost the same beautiful solitude the lovers had found it years before, when it was first their home. Occasionally a curious sight-seer, or a poet-worshiper, had been known to stray across the grounds or to climb a tree in order to view the green retired spot; but as a rule Tennyson could still wander unwatched and unseen through the garden, over the downs, and stand alone on the shore of the great sea.

It was already afternoon when we arrived dusty and travel-stained at the hospitable door, which was wide open, shaded by vines, showing the interior dark and cool. Mrs. Tennyson, in her habitual and simple costume of a long gray dress and lace kerchief over her head, met us with her true and customary cordiality, leading us to the low drawing- room, where a large oriel window opening on the lawn and the half- life-size statue of Wordsworth were the two points which caught my attention as we entered. Her step as she preceded us was long and free. Something in her bearing and trailing dress, perhaps, gave her a mediaeval aspect which suited with the house. The latter, I have been told, was formerly a baronial holding, and the fair Enid and the young Elaine appeared to be at one with her own childhood. They were no longer centuries apart from the slender fair-haired lady who now lay on a couch by our side,—they were a portion of her own existence, of a nature obedient to tradition, obedient to home, obedient to love. The world has made large advance, and the sound of the wheels of progress were not unheard in the lady's room at Farringford. She was ready to sympathize with every form of emancipation; but for herself, her poet's life was her life, and his necessity was her great opportunity.

I recall Mrs. Browning once saying to me, "Ah, Tennyson is too much indulged. His wife is too much his second self; she does not criticise enough." But Tennyson was not a second Browning. The delicate framework of his imagination, filled in by elemental harmonies, was not to be carelessly touched. She understood his work and his nature, and he stood firm where he had early planted himself by her side in worshiping affection and devotion. "Alfred carried the sheets of his new poem up to London," she said one day, "and showed them to Mr. Monckton Milnes, who persuaded him to leave out one of the best lines; but I persuaded him to replace it when he came home. It is a mistake in general for him to listen to the suggestions of others about his poems."

All this was long ago, and the finger of memory has left faint tracings for me to follow; but I recall her figure at dinner as she sat in her soft white muslin dress, tied with blue, at that time hardly whiter than her face or bluer than her eyes, and how the boys stood sometimes one on either side of her in their black velvet dresses, like Millais' picture of the princes in the tower, and sometimes helped to serve the guests. By and by we adjourned to another room, where there was a fire and a shining dark table with fruit and wine after her own picturesque fashion, and where later the poet read to us, while she, being always delicate in health, took her accustomed couch. I remember the quaint apartment for the night, on different levels, and the faded tapestry,—recalling "the faded mantle and the faded veil," her tender personal care, and her friendly good- night, the silence, the sweetness, and the calm.

She sometimes joined our out-door expeditions, but could not walk with us. For years she used a wheeled chair, as Mrs. Ritchie has charmingly described in her truthful and sympathetic sketch of the life at Aldworth. I only associated her with the interior, where her influence was perfect.

The social atmosphere of Farringford, which depended upon its mistress, was warm and simple. A pleasant company of neighbors and friends was gathered when "Maud" was read aloud to us, a wide group, grateful and appreciative, and one to which he liked to read.

After this the mists of time close over! I can recall her again in the gray dress and kerchief following our footsteps to the door. I can see her graceful movement of the head as she waved her adieux; I can see the poet's dusky figure standing by her side, and that is all.

Sometimes she lives confusedly to the world of imagination as the Abbess at Almesbury; and sometimes, as one who knew her has said, she was like the first of the three queens, "the tallest of them all, and fairest," who bore away the body of Arthur. She was no less than these, being a living inspiration at the heart of the poet's every-day life.

It would seem to be upon another visit that we were talking in the drawing-room about Browning. "We should like to see him oftener," she said, "he is delightful company, but we cannot get him to come here; we are too quiet for him!"

I found food for thought in this little speech when I remembered the fatuous talk at dinner-tables where I had sometimes met Browning, and thought of Tennyson's great talk and the lofty serenity of his lady's presence.

My last interview with Lady Tennyson was scarcely two months before Tennyson's death. The great grief of their life in the loss of their son Lionel had fallen upon them meanwhile. They were then at Aldworth, which, although a house of their own building, was far more mediaeval in appearance than Farringford. She was alone, and still on the couch in the large drawing-room, and there she spoke with the same youth of heart, the same deep tenderness, the same simple affection which had never failed through years of intercourse. When she rose to say farewell and to follow me as far as possible, she stepped with the same spirited sweep I had first seen.

The happiness of welcoming her lovely face, which wore to those who knew her an indescribable heavenliness, is mine no more; but the memory cannot be effaced of one lady who held the traditions of high womanhood safe above the possible deteriorations of human existence.

THE END