This was the acme of his career, and alas! how soon he fell away from it. About a year before this time, his friends began to notice certain expressions in his speeches which puzzled them not a little. At length a severe and unjust attack on Senator Wilson as a frequenter of drinking-saloons explained the new departure to them. Phillips was evidently taking a hand in practical politics, and as Wilson's term was nearly expiring, wished to make General Butler his successor. So strangely are good and evil united in us, that this happened about the same period as the Garrison controversy. The less said about General Butler perhaps the better. At the same time Wendell Phillips' support of him would seem to be no worse than Judge Hoar's continued support of Blaine for the presidency; and it is also true that General Butler's reputation was better at this time than it afterwards became; he was well received at the political clubs, and even considered in the light of a presidential candidate by prominent republicans. Phillips' subsequent explanation of the matter was, that the negro was his client, and General Butler was the only person who had the will and ability to manage his case. He was not inconsistent in this, for he afterwards supported General Grant in the machine governments at the south for the same reason.

Another bond of mutual interest between them was socialism. When or where Phillips became a socialist is uncertain. He was conservative in religion, and there is no more necessary connection between the abolition of slavery and socialism than between socialism and free-trade. On the contrary, the votes of the Irish laborers, who now divided his interest with the negroes, had always been the chief bulwark and mainstay of the slave power in the northern states. It must however, have been a question of principle with him, a theory of abstract right, for the course and conduct of his whole life is a true witness against any meaner motive. But General Butler's socialism was doubtless a matter of personal ambition—a bait to catch the popular vote. Nobody except Phillips, not even the laborers themselves, imagined anything else in his case. [Footnote: In the autumn of 1884 my brother asked a plumber then working for him, if he intended to vote for General Butler, who was presidential candidate that year for the labor-party. "No," replied the fellow, "Butler is a bad man; he will do for Governor of Massachusetts, but for President of the United States we want something different."] This unholy alliance was productive of no good to either party: Phillips injured his reputation by it, and what advantage Butler may have gained is yet to be discovered.

In 1870 Phillips injured himself still more by a public attack on the Bird Club; a company of merchants and politicians who met together for a Saturday-afternoon dinner. This was done so evidently in Butler's interest that the general's future plans were disclosed by it. He wished to obtain the nomination for governor the following year, and looked upon the Bird Club as the chief obstacle in the way of his doing so.

Frank W. Bird, who usually presided at the table, was one of the most patriotic and single-minded men that ever labored for the good of his country. He was so sincere and warm-hearted that there was no possibility of mistaking his character. He was in the legislature for nearly twenty years, and a member of the governor's council; but offices were not what he cared for. He was at once the most intimate friend of Andrew and Sumner,—two men who never could agree because one wanted to organize all men under his banner, and the other was equally determined to be independent of everybody. He might almost have been called the balance-wheel of Massachusetts politics. At the State House he was the terror of all mean and mischievous members; a sentinel always on the watch to prevent extravagance, fraud, and political chicanery. His persistent opposition to that monstrous abortion the Houssac tunnel, for which our children and grandchildren will be taxed ad infinitum, cost him an election to Congress. Upon this account he had numerous enemies, but even General Butler could not discover the smallest reproach against his character. He was one of the most useful men in the State. The club was called by his name because it had neither name nor organization. It originated with a few friends who used to meet at Chevalier Howe's office during the Kansas excitement; and Wendell Phillips' charge against them that they managed the politics of Massachusetts, had less than half a leg to stand on. While the governor and both senators were members of the club it must have been of course an influential body. Sumner certainly never made use of official patronage to promote his private interests. Yet this was the only charge, mixed with some dark insinuations, that Phillips could bring against them; and even this might have had some excuse if it had not been in the interest of General Butler.

The remainder of his life was a wreck, though he may not have been aware of it. Frank Bird and his associates were the best friends that Wendell Phillips ever had. They were friends who would have held fast to him through everything except such an attack as he made on them. Alone now with his invalid wife, childless and well-nigh friendless, his life must have been gloomy and miserable. No company was ever invited to his house, and it was by the rarest chance that he went to any entertainment. Who his associates were in this new phase of his life, is often a matter of conjecture. Revolutionary socialists mostly, practical and unpractical—not of the harmless theoretical sort: but he never was seen on the street in company with other men. Whoever they were, they could not have been either cheerful or elevating society. The audiences that went to hear him were composed of quite a different class of people from those of the preceding era, and could not sustain him with the same moral force as formerly. No wonder if his temper became sharp and his mind melancholic; if the lines deepened in his face and the quick, bright look of his eye changed to a fitful, suspicious and desperate expression; if his splendid talent deteriorated too much into mannerism. Although this was his own fault, we could not help feeling pity for him, and the kind of regret with which we look on the fragments of a beautiful statue. He was evidently carried away with the ambition of becoming a world reformer.

There is a sentence in his speech on Lincoln's election which may cast light on Wendell Phillips' socialistic views. He says, "Caesar crossed the Rubicon borne in the arms of a people trodden into poverty and chains by an oligarchy of slaveholders; but that oligarchy proved too strong even for Caesar and his legions." This was a bold and original opinion in those days, for Mommsen's history, to which we are mainly indebted for our change of sentiment in regard to Caesar, had not yet been translated. There is at the present time an oligarchy of land owners and capitalists in England of whom Froude has predicted that they will come to the same catastrophe as the Roman oligarchy did finally, and as that of Bohemia in the sixteenth century, and of France in the eighteenth, unless the present course of events shall be arrested by judicious legislation and magnanimous sacrifices. Phillips had already taken a hand in suppressing one American oligarchy, who have been compared by Mommsen to the Roman senatorial party, and he thought he foresaw another rising in our midst from the iron kings, and other great industrial magnates. He may have been far-sighted in this, for he often proved to be a true prophet, and there are many now who think the same; but that would not justify the methods by which he undertook to provide against the evil. The condition of the laboring classes in America, where a thrifty and temperate mechanic can occupy as good a house as a country doctor in Europe, is the most favorable yet known in history; much more favorable, comparatively, than that of our professional classes; but Phillips had seen the most wealthy and highly educated people ranged against him throughout the long conflict with slavery, and had acquired the habit of considering them a dangerous element in the community.

There is a certain artistic perfection in the contrasts of his life. Thirty-seven years after his Lovejoy speech, he appeared again in Faneuil Hall attended by a retinue of government employees, with intent to capture a meeting called to protest against the interference of the government at Washington in Louisiana politics. There was wrong no doubt on both sides of this question, but the interference of the government was equally illegal and injudicious. Phillips appeared now more on the side of the oppressor than for the oppressed, and though his speech was, as formerly, the best of the occasion, it failed to win the sympathy of the audience. He was consistent in his devotion to the interests of the freed, men, but he would have been more true to himself if he had been willing to recognize, as the more reasonable anti-slavery people did, how absurd and even abominable, were the negro governments in the southern states; but he had long since lost his good judgment, and when President Hayes removed the troops for whose maintenance he could obtain no appropriation from Congress, and the pyramid which had been so long supported on its apex suddenly fell over, Phillips could scarcely find terms harsh enough to express his rage and exasperation. His attacks on the Hayes administration might fairly be called philippics had they possessed the saving grace of Hellenic self-control, but they remind us rather of Carlyle's furious "Latter Day Pamphlets."

Yet even in December there are bright days, and when in his seventieth year the veteran orator was invited to deliver an address before the graduates of his own college, from whose festivities he had been excluded since the time of his Lovejoy speech, warmed with the recollections of his youth, his genius blazed forth with all its former brilliancy. With customary hardihood he selected for his subject "The Danger from the Educated Classes"; that is, the tendency of intellectual culture to exclusiveness and separation from the less fortunate portion of mankind. It is not to be supposed that the Harvard Alumni were well pleased with this topic, but he presented it with so much skill, and even eloquence, as to win applause from some of his most inveterate opponents. This sympathy for the unfortunate had been the key-note and true explanation of his course in life. It came to him there in the days of his youthful gayety like a dream, and now after fifty years he had returned to celebrate his last triumph in the same place where this vision of Heavenly mercy had appeared to him.

He looked like Cicero, and there is a bust of Cicero on the Pincian hill at Rome, which if placed in Boston would certainly be mistaken for him. His figure, however, was better than Cicero's, who is reported to have had a long neck and rather slender legs. He resembled Cicero in his refined tastes, his admiration for great writers his command of language, his tact, fluency, fiery invective, and in the anti-climax of his career. If he had prepared his speeches for a body of men like the Roman senate, he might have been more nearly Cicero's equal. He used to wear a high-crowned soft felt hat, which was remarkably suited to the Roman-like contour of his face. He was skillful in all things, and might have been equally celebrated as a writer, an actor, or possibly as an artist, if his interest and inclination had led him in either of these directions. What we feel the lack of in him is contemplative depth: he was more Gallic than Germanic. He possessed a deep nature, but his character was not equal to it. He was too refined, too much of an artist perhaps, for the rough work fortune gave him to do. He had the heart of a lion, but the mind of a woman.

Yet as we view his life from a distance it has grand outlines. When the western continent was discovered, it seemed as if it were a paradise which had been kept in reserve for the most civilized races; but this had no sooner happened, than a curse was fastened upon it,—the curse of slavery, which had already been abolished in Europe in its mildest type. This may have been necessary at first in the tropical portions of America, where it is impossible for a white man to labor in the sun; but it was contrary to the spirit of Christianity and inimical to true civilization. To eradicate this wide-spread, deep-rooted evil was a tremendous undertaking, one of the most gigantic in history; and among those who contributed to this, none, except perhaps John Brown and Charles Sumner, accomplished more—and few have done so much as Wendell Phillips. The right aspect then in which to regard his career, is as a sacrifice to this great cause. Let it be said of him that he loved mankind not wisely, but too well.



APPLEDORE AND THE LAIGHTONS.

The Isles of Shoals are seven: Duck, Appledore, Cedar, Haley's, Star, Londoner's, and White. Besides these there are Square Rock, Mingo Rock, and a number of other out-lying rocks and reefs. Appledore, Haley's, Cedar, Star, and Londoner's form almost a semi-circle, or horse-shoe, nearly a mile in width with the tips turned toward the west. Duck Island lies a mile-and-a-half to the north of this group, and White Island with it's light-house about the same distance to the south-east.

They are mostly bare rocks, like mountain tops rising above the water. They are not however submerged mountains, for as their name indicates the sea is nowhere very deep about them. If the points of the horse-shoe had been turned toward the east instead of the west they would not have been habitable and the place would have been known to navigators as the Devil's Reef, the Devil's Horse-shoe or by some other term ominous of shipwrecks. The group of islands now form a cosy though not very safe harbor where every evening in the mackerel season a small fleet of fishing-vessels sail in there to anchor for the night.

As might be expected the fauna and flora of the Shoals is neither rare nor extensive. Gulls are to be seen of course at all times,—especially the large burgomaster gull, one of the finest of birds in size and ferocity, and in power of sight nearly equal to an eagle. In spring and fall flocks of coot and the more fishy sort of ducks are to be found there together with a good many loons. Snowy owls are not uncommon in cold weather, and during winter almost any kind of Arctic bird may arrive there. A flock of eider ducks once took refuge and were shot under the same overhanging rock where the terrified servant-girl concealed herself when pursued by the murderer Wagner. There are probably more green snakes on Appledore than anywhere else in America. Wild roses and morning-glories are the only flowers large enough to attract the notice of a passing tourist, but Celia Thaxter has also written a pretty poem on the pimpernel. There are no trees to speak of.

Their geological structure is more interesting. It is generally supposed that the soil of New England rests on a foundation of primeval granite, but it is not exactly that. There is very little true granite in New England, what is taken for it commonly being syenite, a rock indeed that differs from granite only in the substitution of hornblend for mica. The so-called Quincy granite is a finer sort of syenite, and the White Mountains are composed of syenite capped with granite. The Isles of Shoals are also mostly syenite, but there are large boulders of coarse granite lying about, and in some places the syenite changes suddenly to granite as if the two had been welded together. Then there are dykes of dark brown trap or ancient lava, from four to ten feet wide running across the islands from south-west to north-east, and others again at right-angles to these. This would seem to indicate that the elevation above the surrounding plateau was due to volcanic action. The structure of White Island is very different from the others, a large portion of the rock being studded with innumerable small garnets, while veins of some grayish white minerals run through it in which there are still smaller garnets.

How did these bare, bleak and barren rocks come to be inhabited? Originally it was from love of gold. Men will go wherever there is money to be made, and wherever men go women are pretty sure to follow. In 1879 a city suddenly arose in the most desolate and uncomfortable part of the Rocky Mountains; and in the middle of the last century there was a large settlement on the Isles of Shoals, with a young ladies' boarding-school at Appledore, and a fort on Star Island for protection against pirates and Indians. Fish merchants carried on a flourishing trade with France and Spain. In course of time however cod and haddock became largely fished out and the settlement on Appledore disappeared with them, boarding-school and all. So it is predicted that some day Leadville will again become a silent wilderness. In 1850 the population of the Shoals had dwindled to about a dozen families of poor fishermen when a fresh impulse was given to the activity of the place from a direction that nobody could ever have imagined.

The Laightons were residents of Portsmouth. The father of Thomas B. Laighton was a spar-maker and did a considerable business when shipbuilding was thriving in those times. Thomas B. in his youth was afflicted with a fever which confined him to his room for many months and from the effects of which he never recovered. He married Miss Eliza Rymes, a woman of remarkable good-sense and strong physique. He preferred journalism to spar-making, and his connection with the New Hampshire Gazette soon led him into politics. He was an ardent supporter of "old Hickory" and rewarded for it finally with the position of postmaster for his native city. Whether he surrendered this position for the forlorn and less lucrative one of White Island lighthouse on account of ill-health or from a different motive, is uncertain. There was formerly a story in circulation that he was defeated as a candidate for some political office and retired in disgust from the haunts and ways of men. This however is not likely. Thomas Laighton was a man of a blunt and rugged sincerity, tenacious and determined; such as would not be likely to lose his mental balance at the first unfavorable turn of fortune.



He went to White Island in 1838, was removed by Harrison the First and reappointed by Tyler. His life there must have been a rough one. Of all the Isles of Shoals, White Island is the most difficult of access. It is not easy to land there in good summer weather, and during winter communication with the outer world is as rare as cold days in July. From December till May the breakers thunder on the cliff beneath the light-house like the roar of artillery. One would like to know what his reflections may have been during this Alexander Selkirk kind of life,—how he and his wife managed to entertain themselves. Rev. John Weiss and a friend going to Portsmouth in the summer of '46 visited the lighthouse and made friends with the family there. They found old Laighton a pretty rough customer, but good humored enough, and his wife uncommonly glad to see them. Their daughter Celia was a very bright looking, rosy faced girl, and the two boys Oscar and Cedric had their hair cut straight across their foreheads to keep it out of their eyes. Mr. Weiss thought that when they were in the water they must have looked a good deal like seals.

In 1848 he resigned his position and removed to Appledore; then as always on the charts of the coast-survey known as Hog Island. It would seem to be the last stretch of a fisherman's imagination to call every long sloping island by that name. There he and his brother Joseph, who had thus far been a grocer in Portsmouth, built cottages for themselves and went into the fishing business, purchasing boats, seines, and hiring a large number of men. This lasted for some years and finally came to an end through the death of Joseph and the invalidism of Thomas, who was always lame and unable to give the work his personal supervision. Meanwhile their friends came over from the mainland to visit them, and admired the climate so much and remained so long that the brothers concluded to build a small hotel where these and others could pay for their entertainment. It was a three-story building, almost square, the parent stem of that great banyan-tree which has since spread over a large portion of the island. The accomodations at first were primitive. A visitor in '51 was obliged to wait an hour for a room and an opportunity to wash his hands, though he was at the time the only guest in the house. An empty flour-barrel turned upside down served for a wash-stand. However, the sailing and fishing were good, as also were Mrs. Laighton's doughnuts, of which there was always an unfailing supply, so that numbers of people came there.

Among them was a recent graduate of Harvard, from the vicinity of Boston, named Levi Thaxter. He was a young man of refined tastes and rare intellectual endowment; afterwards widely known as the apostle of Browning's poetry in America. He was not one of those college graduates who seemed to have been run in a mould like bullets, but already possessed character and a mind of his own. He was by nature rather an admirer of art than an artist; in fact he was a critic, and with a right opportunity he might have become a Froude, a Taine, or a Ruskin. A wise father might have done much for him, but his father belonged to that class of men who are only acquainted with a small circle of their own affairs; he had not the least conception of what was needed for his brilliant son. So the best years of young Thaxter's life were consumed in fruitless efforts to harmonize his lofty aspirations with the stubborn facts about him. It was like a fruit-tree planted in a stone quarry. Too late he learned from experience the wisdom that should have come to him from his ancestors. He might have succeeded better if he had been less unwilling to compromise his sincerity,—to duck his head to the golden calf. But he would not do that, he intended to remain Levi Thaxter or die in the attempt: and once he came very near doing so. He was a romance character, and if his biography could be written it would be more interesting than that of some of our most celebrated men. Socially he was delightful; and a hundred friends could bear witness to his integrity, his fidelity, his kindly nature, his wit, humor, and keen appreciation. William Hunt the painter and Doctor Henry I. Bowditch were his two most intimate friends.

He studied dramatic reading, and nearly made a profession of it. Actors sometimes studied with him to learn a good pronunciation and dramatic effect. His partiality for Browning's poetry is quite generally known. He first read it to his friends; then in private companies; and finally in public halls. When in 1882 he went to Philadelphia to read Browning there he created such enthusiasm for the subject that the libraries and bookstores were quickly exhausted and fresh copies of Browning had to be sent for from other cities to supply the demand. He considered Browning, Aeschylus and Shakespeare the three most dramatic writers. All the Browning clubs that have nourished so extensively for many years past might be considered Levi Thaxter's lineal descendants.

His conversation on art and literature was often so interesting that it is a pity his occasional bursts of eloquence could not have been preserved. But the important matter at this moment is that he fell in love with Celia Laighton, married her and carried her off to the environs of Boston, where she made valuable friends and met with larger opportunities for intellectual development.

Hawthorne came to the Shoals on the thirtieth of August, 1852, and has given a full account of his visit in his usual minute and pictorial manner. He left Franklin Pierce, who was then candidate for the presidency, in Concord, New Hampshire, and embarked at Portsmouth in a small schooner which was then the only mode of conveyance,—-and often a very dilatory one. On the way two of his fellow passengers became sea-sick, and another "sat in the stern looking very white." On arriving at Appledore he was met in the doorway by Mr. Laighton of whom he gives rather a realistic description; adding, however, "He addressed me in a hearty, hospitable tone, and judging that it must be my landlord, I delivered a letter of introduction from Pierce, which of course gave me the best the house afforded."

It seems strange that Hawthorne, who understood human nature better than any other American writer, should have so rarely penetrated into the character of the people whom he mentions in his note-books. Old Laighton was a solid rock of sense and grit, and the chief impression he made upon strangers was of a man whom it was best to keep on the right side of. The detonations of his frankness sometimes cleared the air in a truly remarkable manner, and would scatter all light spirits to a prudent distance. He reminded one of Longfellow's description of Simon Danz:

"Restless at times with heavy strides He paces his parlor to and fro; He is like a ship that at anchor rides, And swings with the rising and falling tides, And tugs at her anchor-tow."

Hawthorne seems to have found a kindred spirit in Mr. Thaxter, who invited him to their cottage to meet the ladies and drink apple-jack. There he also found John Weiss, a man of wit and genius little inferior to his own. Neither did Celia Thaxter impress him, except in a rather external way. He says, "We found Mrs. Thaxter sitting in a neat little parlor, very simply furnished, but in good taste. She is not now, I believe, more than eighteen years old, very pretty, and with the manners of a lady,—not prim and precise, but with enough of freedom and ease."

The ideality in her face, which probably attracted her husband and is visible in her earliest pictures, was not observed by the idealist himself. He spent the next two weeks in company with Mr. Thaxter, roaming about on the water, visiting different islands, and conversing with the inhabitants. It must have been a rare occasion for young Thaxter, and Hawthorne for once found a companion who could either be silent or talk in an interesting manner. Hawthorne's account of it would suffice as a guide-book for the Shoals. He tells the story of Betty Moody, who was said to have concealed herself with her baby in a sort of cave on Star Island in order to escape from the Indians who had made a raid on the place while her husband was fishing out at sea. Unhappily the child screamed, and the wretched mother is said to have murdered it to prevent discovery. How the other wives and mothers on the island saved themselves at this juncture is not reported; and the myth no doubt originated from a dark red lichen growing on the rocks there which resembles blood-stains and has a scientific name to that effect.

Much more probable is the tradition that a large heap of stones formed like an Esquimaux hut on the highest point of Appledore, was built there by Captain John Smith and his men as a memorial of their discovery of the islands. This heap of stones is a veritable cairn, such as climbers of the Alps build on the summits of those peaks which they have ascended for the first time. It is customary in such cases to insert a champagne bottle among the stones, containing the card of the fortunate explorer; but perhaps Captain Smith was not provided with these articles while cruising off the coast of North America. It is at least more interesting and more in keeping with the rugged aspect of the place than the delicate triangular plinth that has been erected to his memory on Star Island. Another poetic subject is the Spaniards' graves on Smutty Nose: hapless mariners, wrecked where no friendly or kindred eye will look on the cold stones which mark their interment!

Eleven years elapsed before Hawthorne visited the Shoals again, and for the last time in his life. Meanwhile much had changed there. The hotel had grown by the addition of a large dormitory; and the boys, Oscar and Cedric, had grown up with it to be vigorous and very healthy looking young men. The Hon. Thomas P. Laighton had become a confirmed invalid; nor did he live very long after this time. The management of the property was wholly in the hands of his sons. Mrs. Thaxter had grown to a bright, self-possessed woman with three small boys to look after, and with her reputation as a poet now well assured to her both by critics and the general public. Her face, figure and manner all gave evidence of a concentrated personality. Her husband, a handsome and full-bearded man, was now in the prime of life and intellectual vigor. Rev. John Weiss, their never-failing friend and a constant habitue of the place, had written the life of Theodore Parker, and received due recognition as a gifted man and elegant speaker. And there was another, more distinguished than them all,—a tall figure, more erect than a soldier, pacing across the long piazza, or watching a game in the billiard-room, or seated in a retired corner of Mrs. Thaxter's parlor, whose face had long since been known to Hawthorne as that of John G. Whittier.

Social life at the Shoals has had its incipient childhood, its period of youthful strength and gaiety, its bright noontide of maturity, and seems now to be lapsing into a serene and comfortable old age. Many, at least, of the brilliant men and women who made it what it was, are gone, and others do not appear to take their places. The Isles of Shoals are changing as all things change except the rocks and sea. The south-easterly parlor in Mrs. Thaxter's cottage is historic ground. "There have been fine people here," she said one day in September, about ten years ago, as the house was closing for the season, "but the summer is gone, and they have gone with it." Nowhere else since Margaret Fuller's time have so many wits, geniuses and brilliant women been gathered together. Whittier and Hawthorne are enough to have consecrated it, but there have been many others. Hunt, the painter, came there, and Professor Paine, the composer, as well as other fine artists and musicians. Even Ole Bull, that Norwegian waif and celebrated violinist, wandered in there of a forenoon, and entertained the company with accounts of sea-serpents standing on their tails in front of water-falls, and other marvels only visible in Norway:—supposing, I presume, that his hearers would believe anything that he told them.

Mrs. Thaxter's poetry, like all genuine poetry, is indigenous,—native to the soil. She has taken her subjects from the life and incidents about her: the little sand-piper, the burgomaster gull, the pimpernel, and the wreck on White Island—where a vessel was once wrecked in a dense fog right under the light-house. [Footnote: In the winter of 1876, centennial year, a schooner laden with salt somehow ran on to the southerly reef of White Island and lost its rudder. The vessel consequently became unmanageable, and was finally thrown up on Londoner's, where the island is so low that at high tide the sea nearly divides it in two. The crew tried to escape by jumping on to the rocks. Only three succeeded in doing this, the captain, the cabin-boy and one sailor, A tremendous wave washed over them, and when it had subsided the sailor found himself alone. Fortunately he knew where he was, and by clinging flat to the rocks, like a starfish, and watching his chances, he succeeded after a time in reaching a point of safety. But no sooner was he fairly out of the water than his clothes became a mass of ice. There is a rude, unplastered house on Londoner's. The door was fastened, but he broke through it with a blow of his foot, then wiping his hands as well as he could on the rough boards, he felt along the first transverse beam-joist until, to his great delight, he came upon some matches. These saved his life, for there can be no doubt that otherwise he would have been frozen to death before morning. There was a stove in the house, and even a few sticks of wood. For kindling-wood he tore off splinters from the edges of the boards. He could see nothing within the house, and it is said that after his fire was lighted, he had only one match left. Next morning people on Haley's Island saw the wreck and the smoke from his fire, and went to his rescue.

Mrs. Rymes is authority for the statement that White Island was not called so from its color, but from a family of Whites who lived on it before the light-house was built, and that the miser White who was murdered by Crowninshield in Salem was born on that island.]



She made the best use of her material, which after all is much the same as Emerson's, with the difference between a barren island and a well-wooded country town taken into account. Another difference is that she looks at her subject objectively, and then treats it subjectively; whereas Emerson does exactly the reverse. It is like the difference between Schiller and Goethe, or Longfellow and Browning; and is the manner in which a poet always must write in order to be popular. Her verses are graceful, refined, and—as they should be—feminine. Yet there is a good deal of strength in it also: or if the phrase is permissible, a good deal of back-bone.

Her style reminds one of Whittier, but is sufficiently original. Sometimes she escapes from concrete things into abstract subjects; and her short poem on "Heroism" seems to me the best she ever wrote. There was formerly a strong prejudice against this kind of poetry, but it seems to be disappearing. Those of her poems which Whittier included in his collection of English and American poetry are also fine, and may be said to deserve their place. Her criticism was better than is usually the case with poets; and her conversation about authors and literature always interesting. It was not didactic at all, but frank, spontaneous and open to correction. She liked the most diverse writers; Tennyson, and Dickens, and Browning. In early years I remember her speaking of Hawthorne in a tone of veneration; but later in life she preferred Emerson, even to Whittier. There was formerly a portrait of Goethe in her parlor with Emerson's lines about him underneath it, copied in her own picturesque hand-writing.

It seems strange that she never tried her hand at a novel, for of all resorts on the coast the Isles of Shoals is the best ground to study human nature on. People lose their artificial ways in that atmosphere and their peculiarities are brought out distinctly, as oil brings out the veins in black walnut. The epic gift, however, is very different from the lyric and the two are not often united in the same person. Mrs. Thaxter's prose writings are almost as rare as Whittier's. She published a detailed account of a murder that was committed on Haley's Island about twenty years ago;—what would seem to be a peculiar subject for a cultivated person to fasten on—and yet she succeeded in giving it a good deal of dignity. One consequence of this has been that hundreds of people cross over every summer to Smutty Nose to stare at the miserable old shanty where the event took place, though there is absolutely nothing to be seen there.

It was a choice occasion in the old Shoals days when Mrs. Thaxter consented to read Browning or Tennyson to her friends. I think it was the finest reading I ever heard, simply because it was neither dramatic, rhetorical, nor elocutionary. It was plain, distinct reading with just enough of the dramatic element to give fullness to the meaning,—and with such a voice! Why is it that some people who have unpleasant voices are yet able to sing sweetly, and others who cannot sing are able to read or converse so it is music to hear them? I was formerly acquainted with an old man, much beyond the period of life when singers retire from the stage, whose voice was nevertheless, as one heard it at some distance, as musical as a Stradivarius.

With all her frankness and fearlessness, she was as sensitive to personal influences as poets usually are; and persons who called on her, who lacked delicacy of feeling, not only wearied her, but sometimes caused her positive suffering. In such cases she fortified herself with what she called a strong dose of conversation; would talk with great volubility on all possible subjects, as if in this manner to keep the unpleasant influence at a distance. "I wish all good people," she said, "were pleasant, and all the bad people disagreeable; for then life would be a more simple affair than it is now. The world is such a mixture that I never quite know how to take it."

At times she was a merciless critic. An admiring Quaker in Philadelphia wrote some verses in honor of Whittier, which were presented to Mrs. Thaxter for her approval. When she was asked how she liked them, she replied, "I do not like it all; it goes humpety, lumpety, dumpety, bump;" and immediately changed the subject of conversation.

On another occasion she took up a volume of poetry which had been printed for private circulation, and said, "There are two really fine poems in this, which is more than can be usually said of such collections." Then she read them to us with such expressive grace as might almost make poetry out of Latin grammar. One was called the "Whip of the Sky," and the other was a sonnet about Pompeii.

She early discovered in herself the mesmeric power of a spiritist; and Wasson was present at a seance which she gave at the house of a friend in Newburyport, reporting messages from another world to various persons in the room. She thus naturally became a believer in spiritism, and finally a Theosophist; but she found that such supernatural performances were physically injurious and mentally demoralizing, so that in later years she rarely indulged in them.

One cold, foggy evening in August, 1868, we were gathered in the parlor of the Thaxter cottage, when some one proposed that we should make an experiment with planchette. So the little triangular board was produced, with a long pencil in the apex, and a large sheet of brown paper. Mrs. Thaxter placed her left hand on it, and Mrs. H., a New York lady, placed her right hand, while the rest of us formed a circle around the table.

In five or ten minutes, planchette began to move, and wrote out "John Laighton," in plain, bold letters. "He was my great-uncle," said Mrs. Thaxter; "and there used to be a proverb in Portsmouth, 'As honest as John Laighton.'" Then she wrote on the paper: "Where is my father?"

A few minutes afterward, Mrs. H. closed her eyes, and fell back in her chair, as if she were fainting. Suddenly coming to herself, she seized the pencil from planchette and wrote rapidly on the paper, while Mrs. Thaxter held her other hand. She was at the left of Mrs. Thaxter, but I cannot remember now whether Mrs. H. wrote with her right or left hand. Mrs. Thaxter was greatly excited and looked all the time in Mrs. H.'s face in the most earnest and impressive manner. Mrs. H. behaved like a person under the influence of strong emotion, and continued to write intermittently until the sheet of paper was nearly covered. Mrs. Thaxter read the sentences eagerly, but without saying a word. Several times Mr. H. entreated his wife to desist, but she paid no attention to him. The whole performance lasted nearly half an hour, and when it was over, Mrs. Thaxter said, "They are all answers to questions which I asked of my father," and remained very grave and quiet during the rest of the evening.

The next forenoon we examined the paper and found the writing on it was intelligible, but at the same time conveyed no real information. They were such answers as a woman might herself suggest to a person who was slow in making a reply. One of them was, "You will know everything perfectly when the right time comes." Mr. H. said, "My wife never could have imagined all this; there must have been some occult communication between her and Mrs. Thaxter. Neither do I think she ever heard before of John Laighton." Mrs. Thaxter evidently was satisfied that she had received messages from her father, who had been dead about two years; and though the rest of us did not credit this, the fact in itself seemed marvellous enough.

When some one remarked that he would give five dollars at any time to see a ghost, Mrs. Thaxter retorted, "I think you would give fifty to have him leave you again."

Where the poetical talent of the Laighton family came from is a rare mystery. Both of Mrs. Thaxter's brothers inherited a share of it. A poem of Oscar's was published in the "Atlantic" many years ago, and afterwards included in her first volume of poetry. Cedric wrote a very amusing parody on his sister's "Little Sandpiper," and sent it to her when she was staying in Boston. The scene was represented in winter when there wasn't any little sandpiper.

Mrs. Thaxter's poetry, however, was the making of Appledore as a summer resort. Between 1865 and 1875 thousands of people came there every summer to catch a sight of her. How she dared to go to the dinner-table in the face of such a multitude, I do not know; but after a time she retained a body-guard of friends, old and young, who were quite sufficient to keep intruders at a distance; and they could not be prevented from walking around her cottage, peering in at the windows, and stealing an occasional flower from her garden. Some even walked boldly into her parlor to demand an autograph. She received strange letters also from her unknown admirers. One was from a woman who wished to come to see her, but was afraid to do so on account of the green snakes which Hawthorne speaks of as inhabiting Appledore. (Hawthorne accidentally caught one of these pretty reptiles by the tail, and was not a little startled by it.) Another was from a naval officer who had been forcibly retired to a plantation in Maryland. I suppose she was secretly pleased by this rude homage of the vulgar, but no one knew better that the approval of her friends Weiss and Whittier was worth the whole of it.

Meanwhile social life at Appledore had risen to a height. Mrs. Thaxter welcomed every one who had a claim upon her recognition. Open table was her motto, rather than exclusiveness; but those who considered themselves of superior clay found no chairs to sit on in her parlor. Her cottage was a scene of gaiety by day, and revelry at night. Beautiful girls, charming women, and distinguished men dazzled the beholder. Singing and laughter as well as instrumental music could often be heard there at a late hour. There are no people who are so full of good spirits in vacation as clergymen and college-professors—it is the reaction from their well-sustained gravity during the remainder of the year—and there was no lack of either.

Among them all none was so brilliant as John Weiss, though Eichberg the violinist came pretty close to him. Both were German Jews; Weiss, however, having been born in America. He belonged to the same type of men as James Russell Lowell and David A. Wasson. He was the friend of both and equal to either in genius. He was the most eloquent preacher in New England at that time, and as a humorist only second to Lowell, if indeed second to any. His wit and his preaching were not, however, of a popular character: something more than phlegmatic common-sense was required to appreciate them. If he was not so popular as Lowell with the public, he was more so among his friends, in whose list might be counted almost every man of note and influence in Boston and vicinity. Bright flashes of his imagination came like the sudden gleam of a diamond, and would often convulse the company with laughter when one would least have expected it.

He was an excellent pantomimist; could perform all the parts in a comedy himself, and with the help of Fred Loring, or some other, would improvise a burlesque on almost any well-known play. It was after one of these performances that Whittier (who sat in his quiet corner enjoying it as much as an honest Quaker dared to) said to Mrs. Thaxter, "Celia, thou knowest I have never been to the theatre, but I think at last the theatre has come to me." Weiss was gay with the gay, but could be profoundly serious again at a moment's warning, and the biting shafts of his satire never wounded a human soul.

When some one spoke of the peculiarity of John Brown's spelling he exclaimed: "So much the better, so much the better! What good would a Webster's dictionary have been at Harper's Ferry? A whole edition of them could not have accomplished anything."

He was always ailing, and his friends in college doubted if he would ever reach maturity; yet he lived to be a grey-haired man, and published a number of excellent books. When he died, in 1878, there were not wanting malicious people to spread the report that he died of intemperance, though the wonder is how he could have lived so long. His death cast a shadow over the social life at Appledore so that it never quite recovered its former gaiety. About the same time several millionaires made their appearance; cottages began to arise upon the rocks; a small steam-yacht plied like a water-bug between the different islands, and the place became continually more fashionable and conventional. Whittier, feeling that he did not belong to this new order of things, retired to a quiet little inn at West Ossipee, in the White Mountains.

It was now that Professor John K. Paine, the musical composer, introduced a new element into the Shoals life. One morning he walked into Mrs. Thaxter's parlor with a large folio under his arm and said, "I am going to play you one of Beethoven's sonatas, for I think you will like it." Mrs. Thaxter was not quite sure that she would, but listened attentively. There had been a good deal of music before, in a small way; pupils of Eichberg playing on the violin with piano accompaniment, and even Eichberg himself,—which was quite a treat, though a single violin can never express a wide range of musical ideas. Beethoven's music she had also heard indifferently performed by young lady amateurs; but this was another affair.

Professor Paine is rather an organist than a pianist, and does not pretend to rare technical skill; but what is much better, he understands the music as only players like Rubinstein and Von Bulow can understand it, and he brought out the meaning with such joyous fullness as even the master himself might have been pleased to hear. It was a revelation to Celia Thaxter: it was easy to see there was no affectation in her enjoyment; neither did she lack words to express her delight. "Mr. Paine," said a classical gentleman who was present, "your playing reminds me of what Cicero said of Caesar's Commentaries, that a fool might think he could improve on it, but a wise man would not like to try." The Professor was so much pleased with Mrs. Thaxter's frank enthusiasm, that he dedicated a sonata he was composing to her, which was performed the following winter in Boston, and greatly praised also by the critics.

Piano recitals and concertos thus became the fashion at Appledore, and classical music was in good demand. Its refining and quieting influence on the little community was quite perceptible. It produced a change like the transition from flamboyant Gothic architecture to the pure Grecian style. At first only a few came to hear it: then the parlor was filled. The piazza became crowded, and finally gentlemen were obliged to find places on the rocks outside.

It is one thing to hear music in a crowded concert-room with gas-light and bad air just after we have left the jarring discords of the street; and quite a different affair to listen to it with congenial spirits in the summer air of these islands, which seems to have been made for attuning the senses to fine perceptions. To enjoy any kind of art, the mind needs to be like a clean slate on which every mark tells.

In 1881 Professor Paine improved his good reputation both here and in Europe by composing what is called his Greek music; that is, an overture to the play of "Oedipus Tyrannus," which was acted at Harvard in the spring of that year. Of course his seashore friends wished to hear him play it himself, and after the applause which followed had subsided, he said: "A little approbation is all the reward I get for my compositions. A good deal of money was made out of the Greek play by speculators, but none of it came to me." There was a general expression of regret; and then Mrs. Thaxter said, as if to herself, "If I were only the Commonwealth of Massachusetts I know what I would do." A physician at the house that summer warned Mrs. Paine never to let her husband work so hard again as he had that year.

I remember William Hunt, the portrait painter, in 1872 wheeling his youngest child, a beautiful boy named Paul, in a go-cart in front of the cottage. He looked like an Arab, with a beard nearly to his waist, and a decidedly Semitic head; but he had an aristocratic style, and the air of a man who was used to command. His friends congratulated themselves on his resemblance to Titian, and to the French artist Horace Vernet. Despite his proud bearing he was a tender-hearted man, and when in trouble always went to Levi Thaxter, who was a rarely sympathetic person. In 1879 he came again to the Shoals, flying from domestic affliction. He was also suffering from a severe nervous strain, the result of painting two immense pictures in the hall of the New York Assembly, at Albany; and was no longer able to work. Either of these by itself he might have contended against, but both together were too much for him.

One dark, rainy night he left the Thaxter cottage at a late hour, looking very sad and gloomy. The next morning his body was found in a freshwater cistern which had been built in a hollow between the rocks. There were some who thought that his death might have been accidental, but old Doctor Bowditch said, "My friends, there was only too much reason for it." Of all the wrecks on that dangerous coast was not this the most piteous and tragical! William Hunt narrowly missed being one of the greatest of painters. Though some of his portraits are wretched failures, there are others of his pictures that might grace any gallery in Europe.

Mountain air is better than sea air, both for those who are well and strong, and generally speaking for invalids; but people go to the sea because they like it,—for love of the dark blue ocean. Few things are more monotonous than sailing in a yacht. It is a confining sort of existence, subjects of conversation soon become exhausted, there are many inconveniences about it, and being becalmed in a ground swell is worse than riding in a stage coach on a hot and dusty road; yet how many men prefer spending their summer vacation in this manner to any other. It is that rolling, lisping, gurgling, mysterious, unfathomable unity which attracts them. Earth is the masculine element, sea the feminine; and all the cycles and epicycles of organic nature have resulted from these two. It develops imagination and romance in persons who would never have been suspected of possessing either. No wonder that the sailor delights in marvelous tales. It is a terrible destroyer, but at the same time a friend that we cannot do without.

Nowhere perhaps is that closeness to the ocean, this familiarity with the sea, so strongly felt as at the Isles of Shoals. There is really no land there: nothing but sky, rock and water. Living there is like a sea-voyage without the discomforts thereof. During the great storm of March '52, when the light-house on Minot's Ledge was overturned, an immense wave rolled across the centre of Appledore from side to side. There are windows in the hotel on Star Island where one can drop a pebble into the sea, and go to sleep listening to the murmur of the waves. Even in summer the surf sometimes runs so high that it is dangerous to approach the edge of the cliffs; and few people know how pleasant it is to watch the eddying swirl of the water round the promontories on the westerly side. One can sail in every direction, and if the wind does not suit one quarter it always will another. Better than any sailing, however, is rowing in an open boat at sunset or by moonlight, with one or two friends.

Their climate is equally remarkable, and Doctor Bowditch considered it, from its soothing and also stimulating quality, one of the finest in the world, and much the best on the Atlantic coast. This is owing to their geographical position, islands on the coast of Maine being afflicted with cold fogs, and those south of Cape Cod with warm ones. There are no sultry nights in summer, and the cutting east-winds of Mount Desert are unknown there. The climate is warmer in April and November than on the mainland; in May and October about the same. The winters are disagreeable enough; but there is a kind of glory there in summer, and the view at night from the piazza of the Oceanic is beautiful beyond all faculty of description.



WHITTIER.

From under the north star's beam, Through a region wild and free, The waters of a mighty stream Roll onward to the sea.

In the deep clefts of the mountain, Lie never melting snows; And there from an icy fountain A clear cold torrent flows.

When we go to see the Falls of Niagara, we expect to be astonished, and are not disappointed; though the expectation takes away somewhat from our sensation. The grand phenomenon makes a strong and permanent impression on us, and yet there is no feeling of affection mingled with this. We have seen it once and do not care to visit the place again. Many pictures have been painted of it, but they are not genuine pictures, for the human element is wanting in them. Niagara can turn no mill-wheels, and will float no ships. How different is it with those scenes of natural beauty which we never heard of and come upon by surprise—which we remember always with affection and a kindred interest.

Such were my thoughts many years ago at Amesbury, as I walked on the banks of the Merrimac and watched the calm, clear current of the river, as it hastened by, irresistible as time itself. I also reflected how often the poet Whittier must have walked in that same path; how dear to him must be that silent flood with its elm-trees, and great rolling hills; and how in times of darkness and discouragement he must have come to it for strength and consolation. The beauty of a river depends very much on its clearness and purity. The Rhine and the Tiber are more famous than the Merrimac; but their water is muddy and undrinkable.

Indeed the current of Whittier's life might not improperly be compared to the river beside which he dwelt so long. Commencing in the pure mountain air of the social and religious seclusion of his sect, the difficulties and limitations, which in his case waited upon the acquisition of knowledge, may well be compared to the passage through a rocky and unfruitful region, leaping as it were from one granite boulder to another; then no sooner has he gained depth and fulness from contact with natures like his own than he is caught in the mill-wheels of a great political revolution, he enters ardently into the anti-slavery conflict—as he says of himself in the "Tent on the Beach,"

"And one there was a dreamer born, Who with a mission to fulfill Had left the muses' haunts to turn The crank of an opinion mill"—

and finally having escaped past all expectation from this turmoil, victorious and laurel-crowned, he goes calmly and steadily forward to the end. What makes this parallel rather surprising in its perfection is that Concord River empties itself into the Merrimac, and one might fancy that its waters carried Emerson's magnetic thought and influence to Whittier's own door. May not the career of any great man be compared to the course of a river? and especially the lives of our American poets would seem to resemble in their purity and transparency the rivers of New England.

Whittier's house, however, does not stand by the river's brim, but near the centre of the village, almost a mile away. It was a modest looking structure, in appearance much like the Alcott house at Concord, but not nearly so well situated. It faces towards the north, and has little land about it, though there is a vegetable-garden in the rear. Neither is there any protection for it from the cold blasts of winter. Here he lived, at first with his sister and after her death with his niece, Miss Lizzie Whittier, and I believe with another niece, who married a Mr. Caldwell; but also a large portion of the time quite alone, except for one or two servants, reading, meditating and writing poetry. A man who has that kind of work to do, can never be very lonely. The interior of the house, was plainly and comfortably furnished, and contained some fine pictures and handsome books, the gifts of Boston friends; but its chief ornament was the quiet dignity and amiable courtesy of the poet himself.

The eastern coast of New England is famous for its thunder-storms, and in the summer of 1872 there was one in the midst of nearly every afternoon. A number of persons were killed by the lightning that season, and Whittier also met with a narrow escape. It was one of the last days of June, and from our piazza we could see the masses of black cloud rolling down the Merrimac Valley, not thinking of the imminent peril, which they were bringing to our poet. At the same time Miss Lizzie Whittier and a lady friend were seated in the room on the right hand of the front-door, when crash! an electric bolt came through the wall like a rifle-shot, just above her friend's head, laying her out upon the floor, shivering a mirror into splinters; then went through the doorway and meeting John G. Whittier in the front hall, knocked him senseless, and seizing two slats from a blind it escaped through an open window into the garden. Miss Lizzie was the first to regain her feet, and her anxiety and terror, when she saw her uncle lying senseless on the floor, may readily be surmised. It proved, however, that none of them were seriously injured, though their heads were confused and unserviceable for several days, and they did not wholly recover from the effects of this coup d' eclair until after an excursion to the Isles of Shoals.



When Whittier was asked how the stroke felt, he said, "It was like a blow from a pile-driver,—and I would not like to have it repeated." The hole which the lightning made in the side of the house, could scarcely be distinguished from that of a large rifle bullet. A few days afterwards I saw a small house set on fire by the lightning, and it was consumed in a very few minutes, so one may infer how narrowly the Whittier family escaped a double danger.

He was a tall, and rather slender man, measuring almost exactly six feet, with sloping shoulders, and he stood so straight, as almost to be the personification of uprightness. No soldier was ever more erect, and this without the least stiffness or conventionality. His head was not large at the base, but high-crowned and finely arched. His eyes were magnificent, and can only be compared to Hawthorne's eyes, though not so clear. Marshal von Moltke had eyes like two brilliant lights; even the Emperor dared not look into them. Whittier's were not like this, but seemed to be lighted by hidden fires; very large, dark, and powerful. He had a sensitive and refined mouth, which was closed, as if by an effort of the will. In general appearance he resembled men of the Revolutionary period, as if a cotemporary of Washington had luckily been dropped out of the eighteenth century. He looked like Copley's portrait of Samuel Adams, but with a more intellectual, and less stubborn expression. From boyhood he was always fragile and ailing, could not sleep well at night, and would repeat poetry to himself (for he knew any quantity of it, without making an effort to memorize it) until he fell asleep again: yet to what an age he lived, and how much work he accomplished!

I am tempted here to quote from an essay by David A. Wasson, written nearly thirty years ago:—

"God gave Whittier a deep, hot, simple, strenuous and yet ripe and spherical, nature, whose twin necessities were, first that it must lay an intense grasp upon the elements of its experience, and, secondly, that it must work these up into some form of melodious completeness. History and the world gave him Quakerism, America, and Rural Solitude; and through this solitude went winding the sweet, old Merrimac Stream, the river that we would not wish to forget, even by the waters of the river of life! And it is into these elements that his genius, with its peculiar vital simplicity and intensity, strikes root. Historic reality, the great facts of his time, are the soil in which he grows, as they are with all natures of depth and energy." "We did not wish," said Goethe, "to learn, but to live."

The anti-slavery movement originated with the Quakers. It seems to have been their mission in America. Benjamin Lundy was a Quaker: Garrison and his friends were non-resistants, which is political Quakerism. Whittier was one of the first to join them, and none of them afterwards, except Wendell Phillips, had such influence with the public. Neither was he content with writing poetry for the cause, controversial lyrics and war-songs of freedom, but he took a lively interest in the affairs of the New England Society, went to its meetings and served on committees. Phillips said that once, when the socialistic element in the movement was threatening to come to open rupture with the more moderate Garrisonian party, Whittier by his tact and good sense, and a few timely remarks, did more than any other to harmonize matters, and prevent a dissolution. When Emerson was informed of this, he remarked, "I have always held Mr. Whittier in great respect; but this is the finest flower in the poet's wreath."

It is astonishing enough now to reflect what the early abolitionists attempted to do, and the manner in which they expected to do it. The empire of Christianity, and of true civilization, was to be established here in America for the first time and finally; the slaves were to be emancipated, intemperance prevented, and all warfare ended. This was to happen in a world where the Malthusian theory of population is a dominant reality, where millions are fighting every day for the bread of life, and thousands are dying from the lack of proper food, raiment and shelter. One of their number whose name will not appear in history, published a book, entitled "True Civilization an Immediate Necessity." Surely enough true civilization is and always has been an immediate necessity: a necessity like the feast of Tantalus: but how is it to be realized? The purest saints and noblest statesmen have struggled and died in despair in the attempt to elevate humanity a single inch above the condition in which they found it.

Of course such a chimera as that of the abolitionists could only be entertained by young, inexperienced and slightly educated men. Their effort was a noble one, a blunder in the right direction; but they had no conception of the explosive material which was contained in the doctrine of non-resistance. Instead of moral persuasion and an era of peace, there followed a desolating war in itself worse than fifty years of African Slavery. The abolitionists were blamed for that calamity very much as the Protestants have been blamed for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; and yet without doubt they were responsible for a portion of it. Gunpowder cannot be made of sulphur and carbon alone, but saltpetre also must be added.

Those who remain in this immature condition of fixed ideas throughout life, purchase their experience at too high a rate. Whittier's poetic art saved him from this and separated him finally from his Garrisonian allies. With Garrison himself he always remained the best of friends; but after the Kansas troubles began he did not continue to look upon him as a leader, and in 1872 they were in political antagonism, Whittier endorsing Sumner, and Garrison supporting Grant.

Perhaps the writing of "Ichabod" and Webster's subsequent death gave an indication to Whittier of deeper life currents than he had known before; for about that time, it seems to have dawned on him that didactic poetry was not after all the best kind of poetry, and a work of art to be pure and holy, must exist for its own sake, and be justified by its own excellence. He refers to this intellectual change, not only in the lines already quoted, but in a sort of confession, written at an earlier period. He says—

"Art's perfect forms no moral need, And beauty is its own excuse,"

and regrets that the highest reward of merit will never come to him on this account. He realizes now that he belongs to a party and has been looking at the world from the stand-point of party interest. In devoting himself more closely to his vocation as a poet he acquired that moral repose and better mental balance with which alone it is possible to see things as they are. From this time forward the quality of his verses shows a steady improvement.

The man possessed a deep nature and true breadth of character in spite of the limitations of his environment; yet there were certain prejudices and antipathies that adhered to him still. His unwillingness to listen to music, is rather to be attributed to the old quaker, puritanical notion that all sensuous enjoyment is sinful, than to the well known indifference of poets, for that sister art to which they owe so much. He once went so far as to take an interest in some musical glasses, and seemed to be pleased with the simple tunes that were played on them; but pianos and violins he had no liking for.

He enjoyed looking at portraits of distinguished men, but did not approve of religious pictures. Bayard Taylor presented him with a copy of his translation of "Faust," and he read it, for the sake of old acquaintance, but he did not like it and wondered especially what explanation "Goethe's apologists could make for the strange, and extraordinary characters in the second part." When some one asked him why he did not make a trip to Europe he said: "Travelling does not seem to agree with me; but beside that, I do not think I should find pleasure in it. Their great cathedrals which people go to see, would not be of any account to me; and I am afraid I should not enjoy the works of art. I should like to see Switzerland; but there are also fine mountains over there"—pointing to New Hampshire.

His prohibitory friends alleged that he was a good deal disturbed by the five kinds of wine provided for the seventieth birth-day dinner, with which his Boston publishers honored him. He endeavored to escape from this dinner, and Messrs. Osgood and Company were obliged to send for him three times, and most urgently, before he could be persuaded to come. It is doubtful however if he objected to people's drinking wine in their own homes. [Footnote: To a friend, who sent him on his seventy-fifth birth-day a bottle of rare old Andalusian "Olovosa" with a bouquet of flowers, he wrote:—

"I hasten to thank thee, dear Mrs. ——, for thy kind note, and accompanying flowers, wreathing like Hafiz on Omar Khayyam's roses, the wine—not of Shiraz, but of storied Andalusia.

"I am not accustomed to tarry long at the wine—in this case I shall remember Paul's advice to Timothy.

"I am gratefully thy old friend,

"JOHN G. WHITTIER.

"Boston, Dec. 17, 1892."]

He is the only American poet who may be fairly said to have earned his living by his poems, though Longfellow might have done so, if it had been his fortune to reside in a country town. Whittier may have assisted sometimes in editing the local newspaper, and he once published a volume of rather tame prose-studies of the Shakers and other strange people who are found in the southern counties of New Hampshire. I never met with but one copy of it, and it could not have had a large circulation. He was not so much an observer of life and manners, as an imaginative thinker,—one whose reflections took the shape of ideal pictures. This, as Shakespeare would have called it, is the right complexion of the lyric poet.

His exchequer suffered however in the earlier part of his career on account of his principles. All the anti-slavery people suffered for their convictions in one way or another—just as the slave-holders suffered for theirs, in the end. Garrison was mobbed: Phillips, who might have amassed wealth, like Phocian, died in poverty: Sumner was murderously assaulted: John Brown, lost his life; and George L. Stearns, died of unresting toil during the war, and wrecked his fortune: but Whittier represented the heart of the American people, and after the publication of "Barbara Frietchie" the tide turned in his favor. "Snow-bound" had an extensive sale, and brought him in nearly ten-thousand dollars. "The Tent on the Beach" paid almost as well; and his collection of English and American poetry was a fortunate hit, on the part of his publishers, which Whittier's modest nature would not otherwise have thought of; so that he was well provided for, in old age, and could even have made a journey around the world like General Grant, if he had been so disposed.



His popularity soon attracted the attention of politicians who hoped to make use of it for the good of the country. He was too influential a member of the community to be overlooked. Senator Wilson, Speaker Colfax, Governor Claflin and others called upon him, congratulated him on the fortunate turn of affairs, and hoped they might be of service to him. Quakers have always had a good reputation for shrewdness, and Whittier was not lacking in that quality. He understood perfectly well what they wanted of him, and was a good deal amused by it, but he liked to converse with vigorous and experienced men, and could obtain from them a better understanding of affairs than was to be found in the newspaper. His letters on politics were always able and interesting; and he sometimes adopted exactly the opposite view from what his advisors would have liked to have him. It is true he formerly dedicated a poem to Colfax as an ideal statesman, but perhaps Whittier was more nearly right in this than public opinion has been, since that time.

He disliked being lionized and was rarely seen in public. The adoration of young women was of all things the most disagreeable to him. He created quite a sensation by appearing at one of Emerson's noon-day lectures in May, 1866, and as soon as the discourse was over he became the centre of a small circle of celebrities. Yet he seemed even more glad to meet his humbler and more familiar friends. He said, "If I come again, it will be to hear that man," referring to Wendell Phillips, who stood a little at one side watching Emerson and Whittier with the air of an art critic.

He said of the Boston Radical Club (which nevertheless contained the best intellectual life of its time) that he feared the saints went there not only to worship but to be worshipped:—a large part of the audience consisting of pretty young women. Yet he finally went there himself, for the sake of an interview with the most distinguished of his admirers, the Emperor of Brazil. This magnificent monarch, who may even be called the Marcus Aurelius of modern times, openly declared that there was nothing in North America that he wished so much to see as the poet Whittier. A meeting was accordingly arranged, and no sooner had Dom Pedro caught sight of Whittier (whom he recognized from the pictures he possessed) than he hastened to embrace him, and would certainly have kissed the astonished Quaker, after the fashion that prevails among the Latin races, if Whittier had permitted him the least opportunity. After paying his compliments in a handsome manner to the assembled company the Emperor took his leave again, and insisted on carrying off the poet with him. One might like to know what sort of a conversation two such different and almost antipodal friends had together for that one hour in a lifetime.

The climate of the Isles of Shoals exactly suited Whittier's dreamy nature. He would wander from the piazza into the billiard-room, and back again to the piazza, and then look at the sea for an hour or more without speaking a word to any one. Indeed he talked very little even with those who knew him best, and strangers had no chance at all with him. There was something respectful in the hush of conversation whenever he approached a group of people who were talking loudly or laughing. I never met him walking over the rocks, or knew of his going out on the water either for sailing or fishing. One foggy evening when some of us were playing a game of writing verses in the hotel parlor, one of the ladies seeing Whittier alone, in a corner of the room, boldly invited him to join us, which he did with a very pleasant alacrity. It was noticed however that his compositions were not any better or even so good as those of the others, and we suspected that he took pains not to excel the rest of the company.

Yet he could talk in a vigorous manner when the right occasion presented itself. There was a certain Colonel Greene who frequented Appledore in those years: a high-minded socialistic thinker, who had resigned a commission in the United States Army, during the war with the Florida Indians, on account of the government's breach of faith with Osceola. He was a born controversialist and always ready to discuss any subject in politics, religion or philosophy. John Weiss was not far behind him in this line, and delighted to set him going for the benefit of those who liked to hear. No sea air was sufficiently narcotic to dull the edge of Colonel Greene's argument. When these two were once discussing a book on pantheism, which had lately been published by Rev. J. W. Manning of the Old South Church, Whittier, who had been walking to and fro on the piazza just within reach of their voices, finally, came up and said: "I told Manning that the one kind of pantheist he had omitted from his book, was the orthodox pantheist. For that matter, I believe there are pantheists in every religious sect. They start like Professor Parsons the Swedenborgian, with the proposition that as even God could not make the universe out of nothing, he must have made it out of Himself; and you cannot argue them away from it. At the same time, they will insist that they are perfectly good Christians." He then cited several instances of this which had come under his own observation: and Colonel Greene also remembered some cases; but this was the only time we knew Whittier to speak on a religious question.

Longfellow, Tennyson and Whittier were the three most popular poets of the latter part of the present century, and it is difficult to determine which of them may be considered the best. While neither of them rises to the very highest rank, each has excellences peculiarly his own. Whittier does not equal the others in their graceful diction and rare metrical skill, but he surpasses them in earnestness and intensity. He paints in deeper colors, and with a firmer touch. The longer and more ambitious poems of Tennyson and Longfellow are interesting, but they lack the strength, vigor and greatness of design which are inseparable from all the noblest works of art.

They are written to please, rather than to educate the human race. Their shorter pieces are the best ones. Whittier's chief excellence is to be found in his ballads; in the "Wreck at Rivermouth," "Skipper Ireson," "The Relief of Lucknow," "Barbara Frietchie" and others. Nothing is more rare than a fine ballad. Coleridge's ballad of the "Ancient Mariner" is probably the greatest English poem written since Milton's time, and there are many old English ballads which are nearly equal to it. The ballad of "Mary Garvin," simply as a work of art, takes the first place among Longfellow's poems. Tennyson and Whittier both tried their hands on the siege of Lucknow, and Whittier carried off the prize.

His verses are always sensible, healthy and elevating. Complaint has been made that they are too much haunted by the spectre of his schoolmate; but without saying this, we could wish that such an immature affection had been replaced afterwards by a deeper and more manly attachment. He was assisted in the arrangement of his collection of poetry (which Lowell and other good critics considered the best we have) by his poetical friend Miss Lucy Larcom, and this was chiefly no doubt that she might receive a share of the profits from its publication. The sonnets from Shakespeare and many others, were of her selection. The art of poetry came so naturally to Whittier, that he said he could not understand why every one did not write it as well as or better than he could.

At the time of Hawthorne's last visit to the Isles of Shoals in company with his friend the ex-President, there was also a party of business men from Concord, New Hampshire, who tried to make his acquaintance, but without much success. Afterwards we went to Portsmouth with the same party and were becalmed on the way for nearly four hours, so that we had an excellent chance to become acquainted with our fellow passengers. One of them said:—"Nathaniel Hawthorne was a very reserved man. There's Franklin Pierce: he has been President of the United States, and yet anyone can go up and speak to him; but we found Hawthorne very different." Of course we had to tell this on our return, and Whittier laughed heartily. Mrs. Thaxter said, "Reserved was no word for it;" and Whittier added, "Hawthorne was a strange puzzle. I never felt quite sure whether I knew him or not. He never seemed to be doing anything, and yet he did not like to be disturbed at it." He disliked to hear people say that Hawthorne wrote the life of General Pierce for the sake of a government office. They were old college friends, and without doubt he would have obtained the office whether he wrote it or not. If he wished to live in Italy Buchanan should have given him the consulship of Leghorn or Venice. He looked on "Septimus Felton" as a failure, and thought that probably Hawthorne considered it so himself. He thought it not unlikely that Hawthorne would outlive every other writer of his time.

At another time he came to me and said, "What deep problems of government are you thinking over there all by yourself?" I laughed and told him that I was thinking of Rome; and how much that little patch of water looked like the piece of sea in Guido's Aurora; but I was glad to have him speak of politics, for the present condition of affairs was such as to give every serious man anxiety for the moral welfare of the country.

"Indeed it is," he replied. "What we read in the newspapers is bad enough; but I have information from private sources which represents matters as being even worse than is generally supposed." [Footnote: This was in 1875.]

"Perhaps," I said, "it is one of those evils which will cure itself after a certain time."

"It will, no doubt," he answered, "bring about a strong reaction against the Republican party; but even that is a thing to be deplored. Meanwhile what an example we present to the monarchical governments of Europe!"



"I suppose," said I, "that it is one of the consequences of our civil war."

"Yes," said he, "I am ready to agree to that,—a long and protracted war must have a hardening and brutalizing influence on the community even when it is fought for a good cause."

"Did not Hawthorne," I said, "predict something like this in an article in the 'Atlantic Monthly'?"

"Yes," he replied, "I remember that article,—it was just a year before his death,—and there was a good deal of wisdom in it. Some of my friends are inclined to think that woman suffrage would improve the present condition of politics, but I do not feel sure that it would."

"I have no doubt it would do good if only the sensible women were permitted to vote," I said. "My faith is that what we need to purify politics in America is not an extension, but a restriction of the suffrage. It is easy to see, for instance, how favorably that would work in the city of New York, which with its custom-house is now the heaviest burden we have to bear."

What Whittier thought of this idea I never knew; he seemed to be reflecting on it when the ladies of his party came in sight and we both rose to meet them.

Though he was not fond of travelling, he liked to read books of travel; and once, according to his doctor's advice, spent a winter at Amesbury reading everything of the kind that he could hear of and obtain. He spoke of Wilson's book on the Himalaya Mountains as the most interesting of them. "It seems as if there was nothing that a cultivated Englishman could not and would not go through with," he said. I mentioned Humboldt. "Yes," he replied, "Humboldt certainly accomplished wonderful things, but the Germans are generally more cautious and prudent. A cultivated Englishman seems to be equal to anything." Among modern travellers however, Vambery, the Hungarian, takes the highest rank.

At a later period, I was journeying through the White Mountains and reached West Ossipee one afternoon tired with travelling and weary from a sleepless night. I hastened to my room and threw myself upon the bed, but had scarcely closed my eyes when there was a knock at the door and there stood Mr. Whittier,—the pleasantest of all apparitions for some years. The next few days were like dwelling in the islands of the blest, compared with the ordinary current of human life. It was a holiday within a holiday. He was surrounded by charming ladies, among them his niece Mrs. Caldwell, and as it was late in the season we had the Bear Camp House—a place that now ought to be historic—almost to ourselves.

We had never known Whittier to be so friendly and companionable before. We walked under the elms, talked about books, and our absent friends, gazed at the mountains, and admired the sunsets which just at that time were remarkably brilliant. There was one, I remember, composed largely of luminous clouds, and a general translucent effect of the atmosphere, which Whittier could not remember he had ever seen the like of. He said, "I don't believe Emerson loves Nature any better than I do, though he has written more about it." There was a delightful lady in the party who told us pleasant and amusing stories of New York social life. She could go on in this way for a very good length of time, and Whittier would listen to her without saying a word, exactly as if she were reading to him.

The magnates of West Ossipee had named a mountain near Chocorua for Whittier and challenged him to climb to the top of it and christen it properly with a bottle of champagne, but he said No, that his days for climbing were over; that he thought mountains belonged to the whole country and he had no desire to appropriate any of them. He liked such names as Chocorua, Katahdin and Wachusett much better for mountains than Washington and Adams. The Bear Camp House is a rare sort of a tasteful country inn, and its proprietor was of course very proud of his distinguished guest, but at the same time sufficiently dignified to prevent this from being too apparent. It was there Whittier spent the last summers of his life, as long as he was able to leave his own home.

In his old age he enjoyed the celebrity of his more vigorous years as if it had been the fame of a constant friend; but I think he enjoyed still more the consciousness of having succeeded in living through life as he intended to do in the beginning.

THE END