At this time the poet was feeling the pinch of real poverty and was living in a little one-story cottage that gave him no room for a study, and no suitable chamber for a guest. It was at this time that he received the letter which contained not only a check for overdue salary, but a promise of a gift of one thousand dollars from his generous English friend, Joseph Sturge. The result of this beneficence was the building of the "garden room," to which thousands of visitors come from all parts of this and other countries, because in it were written "Snow-Bound," "The Eternal Goodness," and most of the poems of Whittier's middle life and old age. Mr. Sturge had sent Whittier six years earlier a draft for one thousand dollars, intending it should be used by him in traveling for his health. But Whittier had given most of this toward the support of an anti-slavery paper in New York. Two years later the same generous friend offered to pay all his expenses if he would come to England as his guest, an offer he was obliged to decline. A portrait of Sturge is appropriately placed in this room. Tappan's letter was written April 21, 1847, and the addition to the cottage was built in the summer of that year. The whole expense of the improvement was no doubt covered by Sturge's gift. Other interesting letters of the same period were included in the package in the wall.



In a drawer of the desk is a most remarkable album of autographs of public men, presented to Mr. Whittier on his eightieth birthday, by the Essex Club. It is a tribute to the poet signed by every member of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, the Supreme Court of the United States, the Governor, ex-Governors, and Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and all the members of the Essex Club; also, many distinguished citizens, such as George Bancroft (who adds to his autograph "with special good wishes to the coming octogenarian"), Robert C. Winthrop, Frederick Douglass, and J. G. Blaine. An eloquent speech of Senator Hoar, who suggested this unique tribute, is engrossed in the exquisite penmanship of a colored man, to whom was intrusted the ornamental pen-work of the whole volume. The congressional signatures were obtained by Congressman Coggswell of the Essex district. It is noticeable that no Southern member declined to sign this tribute to one so identified with the anti-slavery movement.

The "garden room" remains almost precisely as when occupied by the poet—the same chairs, open stove, books, pictures, and even wall-paper and carpet, remaining in it as he placed them. In the north window the flowers pressed between the plates of glass are those on receipt of which he wrote "The Pressed Gentian." By the desk is the cane he carried for more than fifty years, made of wood from his office in Pennsylvania Hall, burned by a pro-slavery mob in 1838. This is the cane for which he wrote the poem "The Relic:"—

"And even this relic from thy shrine, O holy Freedom! hath to me A potent power, a voice and sign To testify of thee; And, grasping it, methinks I feel A deeper faith, a stronger zeal."



He had many canes given him, some valuable, but this plain stick was the only one he ever carried. With this cane may be seen one made of oak from the cottage of Barbara Frietchie—not, as was erroneously stated in the biography, a cane carried by the patriotic Barbara. The portraits he hung in this room are of Garrison, Thomas Starr King, Emerson, Longfellow, Sturge, "Chinese" Gordon, and Matthew Franklin Whittier. There is also a fine picture of his birthplace, a water-color sent him by Bayard Taylor from the most northern point in Norway, and a picture, also sent by Bayard Taylor, of the Rock in El Ghor, on receipt of which the poem of that title was written. The Norway picture was painted by Mrs. Taylor, and represents the surroundings of the northernmost church in the world. The mirror in this room is an heirloom of the Whittier family, dating at least a century before the birth of the poet. The little table under it is almost equally old.

The album containing the likeness of Dr. Weld has also a photograph under which Whittier has written "Mary E. S. Thomas," and this has a special interest, as it is a portrait of his relative, schoolmate, and life-long friend, Mary Emerson Smith, who became the wife of Judge Thomas of Covington, Ky. She was a granddaughter of Captain Nehemiah Emerson, who fought at Bunker Hill, was an officer in the army of Washington, serving at Valley Forge and at the surrender of Burgoyne, and her grandmother was Mary Whittier—a cousin of the poet's father, whom Whittier used to call "aunt Mary." For a time, when in his teens, he stayed at Captain Emerson's, and went to school from there, making himself useful in doing chores. Mary Smith, then a young girl, passed much of her time at her grandfather's, and later was a fellow-student of Whittier's at the Academy. I think there is now no impropriety in stating that it is to her that the poem "Memories" refers.[4] She was living at the time when the biography of Whittier was written, and for that reason her name was not given, but only a veiled reference in "Life and Letters," as at page 276. During many years of her widowhood she spent the summer months in New England, and occasionally met Mr. Whittier at the mountains. They were in friendly correspondence to the close of his life. She survived him several years. It has been suggested with some show of probability that it is a memory of the days they spent together at her grandfather's that is embodied in the poem "My Playmate." At the time when this poem was written she was living in Kentucky.

"She lives where all the golden year Her summer roses blow; The dusky children of the sun Before her come and go."

But this poem, like others of Whittier's, is probably a composite of memories and largely imaginative, as is shown in what is elsewhere said about the localities of Ramoth Hill and Folly Mill.



In the "garden room" also is a miniature on ivory of a beautiful girl of seventeen, crowned with roses. This is Evelina Bray of Marblehead, a classmate of Whittier's at the Academy in the year 1827, when this portrait was painted. But for adverse circumstances, the school acquaintance which led to a warm attachment between them might have resulted in marriage. But the case was hopeless from the first. He was but nineteen years old, and she seventeen. On both sides the families opposed the match. Among the Quakers marriage "outside of society" was not to be thought of in those days; in his case it would mean the breaking up of a family circle dependent on him, and a severance from his loved mother and sister. This same reason prevented the ripening of other attachments in later life; for in each case his choice would have been "out of society." Two or three years after they parted at the close of an Academy term, he walked from Salem to Marblehead before breakfast on a June morning, to see his schoolmate. He was then editing the "American Manufacturer," in Boston. She could not invite him in, and they walked to the old ruined fort, and sat on the rocks overlooking the beautiful harbor. This meeting is commemorated in three stanzas of one of the loveliest of his poems, "A Sea Dream"—a poem, by the way, not as a whole referring to Marblehead or to the friend of his youth. But I have good authority for the statement that these three stanzas refer directly to the Marblehead incident. All who are familiar with the locality will recognize it in these verses:—



"The waves are glad in breeze and sun, The rocks are fringed with foam; I walk once more a haunted shore, A stranger, yet at home, A land of dreams I roam.

"Is this the wind, the soft sea-wind That stirred thy locks of brown? Are these the rocks whose mosses knew The trail of thy light gown, Where boy and girl sat down?

"I see the gray fort's broken wall, The boats that rock below; And, out at sea, the passing sails We saw so long ago Rose-red in morning's glow."

With a single exception, these schoolmates did not meet again for more than fifty years, and Whittier was never aware of this exception. In middle life, when the poet was editing the "Pennsylvania Freeman," and Miss Bray was engaged with Catherine Beecher in educational work, they once happened to sit side by side in the pew of a Philadelphia church, but he left without recognizing her, and she was too shy to speak to him. I had the story from a lady who as a little girl sat in the pew with them, and knew them both. Miss Bray married an Englishman named Downey, and in a romantic way[5] Mr. Whittier discovered her address. Mr. Downey was an evangelist making a crusade in the great cities against Romanism, and met his death from wounds received in facing a New York mob. Whittier, supposing he was poor, and that his schoolmate was having a hard time, sent Downey money without her knowledge. She accidentally discovered this and returned the money. In her widowhood she occasionally corresponded with Mr. Whittier, who induced her to come to the reunion of his schoolmates in 1885, more than fifty years after their parting at Marblehead, and more than forty years after the chance meeting in Philadelphia. At this reunion she gave him the miniature reproduced in our engraving, which was returned to her after Whittier's death. When she died it went to another schoolmate, the wife of Rev. Dr. S. F. Smith, author of our national hymn. From her it came to Whittier's niece, and is now kept in the drawer where the poet originally placed it. With it is the first portrait ever taken of Whittier—it being painted by the same artist (J. S. Porter) two or three years after the girl's miniature, while he was editing the "Manufacturer."



Here is an extract from a note Whittier sent Mrs. Downey soon after the reunion: "Let me thank thee for the picture thee so kindly left with me. The sweet, lovely girl face takes me back to the dear old days, as I look at it. I wish I could give thee something half as valuable in return." The portrait of Mrs. Downey at the age of eighty, here given, is from a photograph she contributed to an album presented to Whittier by his schoolmates of 1827, after the reunion of 1885. Rev. Dr. S. F. Smith attended this reunion in place of his wife, who was then an invalid, and he wrote to his wife this account of the appearance of her old schoolmate at that meeting: "She looked, O so distingue, in black silk, with a white muslin veil, reaching over the silver head and down below the shoulders. Just as if she were a Romish Madonna, who had stepped out from an old church painting to hold an hour's communion with earth."

I was in correspondence with Mrs. Downey during the last years of her life, but she would not give me permission to call upon her, and the reason given was that I had seen the miniature, and she preferred to be remembered by that. She was very shy about telling of her early acquaintance with Whittier, and whatever I could learn was by indirection. For instance, I obtained the Marblehead story by her sending me a copy of Whittier's poems which he had given her, and she had drawn a line around the stanzas quoted above. No word accompanied the book. Of course I guessed what she meant, and asked if my guess was correct. She replied "Yes," and no more. Whittier said he had the Captain Ireson story from a schoolmate who came from Marblehead. I asked her if she, as the only Marblehead schoolmate, was the person referred to, and received an emphatic "No." To an intimate friend she once said that during her early acquaintance with Whittier it seemed as if the devil kept whispering to her, "He is only a shoemaker!"

The apartment now used as a reception room was the kitchen of the original cottage, and has the large fireplace and brick oven that were universal in houses built a century ago. A small kitchen was later built as an ell, and this central room became the dining room, remaining so as long as Mr. Whittier lived. In the reception room is a large bookcase filled with a part of the poet's library, exactly as when he was living here. His books overrun all the rooms in the house, and many are packed in closets. The large engraving of Lincoln over the mantel is an artist's proof, and was placed there by Whittier forty years ago. An ancient mirror in this room, surmounted by a gilt eagle, was broken by a lightning stroke in September, 1872. The track of the electrical current may still be seen in the blackening of a gilt moulding in the upper left corner. The broken glass fell over a member of the family sitting under it, and Whittier himself, who was standing near the door of the "garden room," was thrown to the floor. All in the house were stunned and remained deafened for several minutes, but no one was seriously injured. Up to that time the house had been protected by lightning rods; but Mr. Whittier now had them removed, and refused to have them replaced, though much solicited by agents. In revenge, one of the persistent brotherhood issued a circular having a picture of this house with a thunderbolt descending upon it, as an awful warning against neglect! He had the impudence to emphasize his fulmination by printing a portrait of the poet, who, it was intimated, would yet be punished for defying the elements.

The old parlor, the principal room of the original cottage, has suffered no change in the several remodelings of the house. The beams in the corners show a frame of the olden style—for the cottage had been built many years when the Whittiers came here. The clear pine boards in the dado are two feet in width. In this room are placed many memorials of the poet of interest to visitors. What to him was the most precious thing in the house is the portrait of his mother over the mantel—a work of art that holds the attention of the most casual visitor. The likeness to her distinguished son is remarked by all. One sees strength of character in the beautiful face, and a dignity that is softened by sweetness and serenity of spirit. The plain lace cap, white kerchief, drab shawl, and folded hands typify all the Quaker virtues that were preeminently hers.

On the opposite wall is the crayon likeness of Elizabeth, the dearly loved sister, so tenderly apostrophized in "Snow-Bound:"—

"I cannot feel that thou art far, Since near at need the angels are; And when the sunset gates unbar, Shall I not see thee waiting stand, And, white against the evening star, The welcome of thy beckoning hand?"

When she died, in 1864, her friend, Lucy Larcom, had this excellent portrait made and presented it to the bereaved brother, and it has hung on this wall nearly forty years. All the other members of the "Snow-Bound" family are here represented by portraits, except the father and uncle Moses, of whom no likenesses exist, save as found in the poet's lines. The Hoit portrait of Whittier, painted when he was about forty years of age, was kept out of sight in a seldom-used chamber, while the poet was living, for he allowed no picture of himself to be prominently displayed. The portrait of his brother was painted when he was about forty years of age. A small photograph of his older sister, Mary Caldwell, is shown, and a silhouette of aunt Mercy; also a portrait of his brother's daughter, Elizabeth (Mrs. Pickard), who was a member of his household for twenty years, and to whom he left this house and its contents by his will. Her son Greenleaf, to whom when four years of age his granduncle inscribed the poem "A Name," now resides here.



In this parlor is the desk on which "Snow-Bound" was written, also "The Tent on the Beach" and other poems of this period. The success of these poems enabled him to buy a somewhat better desk, now to be seen in the "garden room," where this desk formerly stood. In this desk are presentation copies of many books, with the autographs of their authors—Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lydia Maria Child, Miss Mitford, Julia Ward Howe, John Hay, T. B. Aldrich, and others. Here also is the diary kept by Elizabeth Whittier, in the years 1835-37, covering the period of the removal from Haverhill to Amesbury. Of antiquarian interest is an account-book of the Whittier family, from 1786 to 1800, going into minute details of household expenses, and containing many times repeated the autographs of Whittier's grandfather, his father, and his uncles Moses and Obadiah, who recorded their annual settlements of accounts in this book. Near the desk are bound volumes of papers edited by Whittier—the "New England Review" of 1830, the "Pennsylvania Freeman" of 1840, and the "National Era" of 1847-50. These contain much of his prose and verse never collected. The Rogers group of statuary representing Whittier, Beecher, and Garrison listening to the story of a fugitive slave girl, who holds an infant in her arms, is in the corner of the room, where it has been for about thirty years. The garden, in the care of which Mr. Whittier took much pleasure, comprises about one half acre of land. He had peach, apple, and pear trees—but the peaches gave out and were not renewed. He also raised grapes, quinces, and small fruit in abundance. The rosebush he prized as his mother's favorite is still flourishing, as are also the fine magnolia, laburnum, and cut-leaved birch of his planting. The ash tree in front of the house was planted by his mother.

While gathering grapes in an arbor in this garden, in 1847, Mr. Whittier received a bullet wound in the cheek. Two boys were firing at a mark on the grounds of a neighbor, and this mark was near where Whittier stood, but on account of a high fence they did not see him. When the bullet struck him, he was so concerned lest his mother should be alarmed by the accident that he said nothing, not even notifying the boys. He bound up his bleeding face in a handkerchief and called on Dr. Sparhawk, who lived near. As soon as the wound was dressed, he came home and gave his family their first notice of the accident. The boys had not then learned the result of their carelessness. The lad who fired the gun was named Philip Butler, and he has since acquired a high reputation as an artist. The painting representing the Haverhill homestead which is to be seen at the birthplace was executed by this artist. He tells of the kindness with which Whittier received his tearful confession. It was during the first days of the Mexican war, and some of the papers humorously commented upon it as a singular fact that the first blood drawn was from the veins of a Quaker who had so actively opposed entering upon that war.



Once while his guest at Amesbury, I went with him to town meeting. He was one of the first men in the town to vote that morning, and after voting spent an hour talking politics with his townsmen. General C., his candidate for Congress, had been intemperate, and the temperance men were making that excuse for voting in favor of Colonel F., who, Whittier said, always drank twice as much as C., but was harder headed and stood it better. Other candidates were being scratched for reasons as flimsy, and our Grand Old Man was getting disgusted with the Grand Old Party, as represented at that meeting. He said to a friend he met, "The Republicans are scratching like wild cats." In the evening an old friend and neighbor called on him, and was complaining of Blaine and other party leaders. At last Mr. Whittier said, "Friend Turner, has thee met many angels and saints in thy dealings with either of the parties? Thy experience should teach thee not to expect too much of human nature." On the same evening he told of a call Mr. Blaine made upon him some time previously. The charm of his manner, he said, recalled that of Henry Clay, as he remembered him. On that occasion Blaine made a suggestion for the improvement of a verse in the poem "Among the Hills," which Whittier adopted. The verse is descriptive of a country maiden, who was said to be

"Not beautiful in curve and line."

Blaine suggested as an amendment,—

"Not fair alone in curve and line;"

and this is the reading in the latest editions.



Thomas Wentworth Higginson, during his residence in Newburyport, was often a guest at the Amesbury home, and he has this to say of each member of the family: "The three members of the family formed a perfect combination of wholly varying temperaments. Mrs. Whittier was placid, strong, sensible, an exquisite housekeeper and 'provider;' it seems to me that I have since seen no whiteness to be compared to the snow of her table-cloths and napkins. But her soul was of the same hue; and all worldly conditions and all the fame of her children—for Elizabeth Whittier then shared the fame—were to her wholly subordinate things, to be taken as the Lord gave. On one point only this blameless soul seemed to have a shadow of solicitude, this being the new wonder of Spiritualism, just dawning on the world. I never went to the house that there did not come from the gentle lady, very soon, a placid inquiry from behind her knitting-needles, 'Has thee any farther information to give in regard to the spiritual communications, as they call them?' But if I attempted to treat seriously a matter which then, as now, puzzled most inquirers by its perplexing details, there would come some keen thrust from Elizabeth Whittier which would throw all serious solution further off than ever. She was indeed a brilliant person, unsurpassed in my memory for the light cavalry charges of wit; as unlike her mother and brother as if she had been born into a different race. Instead of his regular features she had a wild, bird-like look, with prominent nose and large liquid dark eyes, whose expression vibrated every instant between melting softness and impetuous wit; there was nothing about her that was not sweet and kindly, but you were constantly taxed to keep up with her sallies and hold your own; while her graver brother listened with delighted admiration, and rubbed his hands over bits of merry sarcasm which were utterly alien to his own vein."



The village of Amesbury enjoyed a sense of proprietorship in Whittier which it never lost, even when Danvers claimed him for a part of each year. He did not give up the old house, consecrated by memories of his mother and sister, but returned to it oftener and oftener in his last years, and he hoped that he might spend his last days on earth where his mother and sister died. The feeling of the people of Amesbury was expressed in a poem written by a neighbor, and published in the village paper, under the title of "Ours," some stanzas of which are here given:—

"I say it softly to myself, I whisper to the swaying flowers. When he goes by, ring all your bells Of perfume, ring, for he is ours.

"Ours is the resolute, firm step, Ours the dark lightning of the eye, The rare sweet smile, and all the joy Of ownership, when he goes by.

. . . . .

"I know above our simple spheres His fame has flown, his genius towers; These are for glory and the world. But he himself is only ours."



The Friends' meeting-house, in 1836, was nearly opposite the Whittier cottage, on the site of the present French Catholic church. Two centuries ago there had been an earlier meeting-house of the Society, also on Friend Street, and the name of the street was given on this account. The present meeting-house, on the same street, was built in 1851, upon plans made by Mr. Whittier, who was chairman of the committee having it in charge. He once told me that some conservative Friends were worried lest he make the house too ornate. To satisfy them, he employed three venerable carpenters, one of them a Quaker minister and the other two elders of the Society, and the result was this perfectly plain, neat structure, comfortable in all its appointments. Visitors like to find the seat usually occupied by Whittier. It is now marked by a silver plate. I have accompanied him to a First Day service here, in which for a half hour no one was moved to say a word. And this was the kind of service he much preferred to one in which the time was "fully occupied." The meeting was dismissed without a spoken word, the signal being the shaking of hands by two of the elders on the "facing seats." Then each worshiper shook the hand of the person next him. There was no sudden separation. The company formed itself into groups for a pleasant social reunion. In the group that surrounded Whittier were ten or twelve octogenarians, whom he told me he had met in this way almost every week since his boyhood; for even when living in Haverhill, this was the meeting his family attended. It was delightful to see the warmth and tenderness of the greetings of these venerable life-long friends. I once accompanied him to a devotional meeting, where many of the leading Friends of the Society were present, and as the papers had announced the names of several speakers from distant States, he expressed the fear that there would be no opportunity to get "into the quiet." As the speakers followed each other in rapid succession, he asked me if I had a bit of paper and a pencil with me. Then he appeared to be taking notes of the proceedings. I fancied some of the speakers noticed his pencil, and were spurred by it to an enlargement of utterance. When we were at home, I asked what he had written. He smiled and handed me his "notes," which are before me as I write. "Man spoke," "Woman sang," "Man prayed," and so on for no less than fourteen items. Being slightly deaf, he had heard scarcely anything, and had been noting the number and variety of the performances. It was his protest against much speaking. At dinner the same day, his cousin, Joseph Cartland, commented upon the inarticulate sounds that accompanied the remarks of one or two of the speakers. "Let us shame them out of it," he said, "let's call it grunting." "Oh, no, Joseph," said Whittier, "don't thee do that—take away the grunt, and nothing is left!"



Mr. Whittier had many wonderful stories illustrating the guidance of the spirit to which members of the Society of Friends submitted in the daily intercourse of life. One was of an aged Friend, who never failed to attend meeting on First Day. But one morning he told his wife that he was impelled to take a walk instead of going to meeting, and he knew not whither he should go. He went into the country some distance and came to a lane which led to a house. He was impressed to take this lane, and soon reached a house where a funeral service was in progress. At the close of the service he arose, and said that he knew nothing of the circumstances connected with the death of the young woman lying in the casket, but he was impelled to say that she had been accused of something of which she was not guilty, and the false accusation had hastened her death. Then he added that there was a person in the room who knew she was not guilty, and called upon this person, whoever it might be, to vindicate the character of the deceased. After a solemn pause, a woman arose and confessed she had slandered the dead girl. In telling such stories as this, Mr. Whittier did not usually express full and unreserved belief in their truth, but he maintained the attitude of readiness to believe anything of this kind which was well authenticated, and he approved of the methods of work adopted by the Society for Psychical Research in England and in this country.



The hills encircling the lovely valley of the short and busy Powow River, beginning with the southwestern extremity of the amphitheatre, are: Bailey's, on the declivity of which, overlooking the Merrimac, is the site of Goody Martin's cottage, the scene of the poem of "Mabel Martin;" next is the ridge on which is the Union Cemetery where Whittier is buried; then Whittier Hill, named not for the poet but for his first American ancestor who settled here, and locally called "Whitcher Hill"—showing the ancient pronunciation of the name; then, across the Powow, are Po, Mundy, Brown's, and Rocky hills. On a lower terrace of the Union Cemetery ridge, and near the cemetery, is the Macy house, built before 1654 by Thomas Macy, first town clerk of Amesbury (and ancestor of Edwin M. Stanton, the great war secretary), who was driven from the town for harboring a proscribed Quaker in 1659, as told in the poem "The Exiles;"[6] also, the birthplace of Josiah Bartlett, first signer of the Declaration of Independence after Hancock, whose statue, given by Jacob R. Huntington, a public-spirited citizen of Amesbury, stands in Huntington Square; and near by is "The Captain's Well," dug by Valentine Bagley in pursuance of a vow, as told in Whittier's poem; also the Home for Aged Women, for which Whittier left by his will nearly $10,000. It is to a view of Newburyport as seen from Whittier Hill, a distance of five miles, that the opening lines of "The Preacher" refer:—

"Far down the vale, my friend and I Beheld the old and quiet town; The ghostly sails that out at sea Flapped their white wings of mystery; The beaches glimmering in the sun, And the low wooded capes that run Into the sea-mist north and south; The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth; The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar, The foam line of the harbor-bar."

The cemetery in which Whittier is buried can be reached by either the electric line from Merrimac, or the one from Newburyport—the latter approaching nearest the part in which is the Whittier lot. This lot is in the section reserved for the Society of Friends, and is surrounded by a well-kept hedge of arbor vitae. Here is buried each member of the family commemorated in the poem "Snow-Bound," and also the niece of the poet, who was for twenty years a member of his household. There is a row of nine plain marble tablets, much alike, with Whittier's slightly the largest. At the corner where his brother is buried is a tall cedar, and at the foot of his own grave is another symmetrical tree of the same kind. Between him and his brother lie their father and mother, their two sisters, their uncle Moses and aunt Mercy. His niece, daughter of his brother, has a place by his side. Inclosed by the same hedge is the burial lot of his dearly-loved cousin, Joseph Cartland. For those who take note of dates it may be said that his father died in 1830, and not, as stated on his headstone, one year later.



Po Hill, originally called Powow, because of the tradition that the Indians used to hold their powwows upon its summit, is three hundred and thirty-two feet high, and commands a view so extended that many visitors make the ascent. One of Whittier's early prose legends is of a bewitched Yankee whose runaway horse took him to the top of this hill into a midnight powwow of Indian ghosts. In describing the hill he says: "It is a landmark to the skippers of the coasting craft that sail up Newburyport harbor, and strikes the eye by its abrupt elevation and orbicular shape, the outlines being as regular as if struck off by the sweep of a compass." From it in a clear day may be seen Mount Washington, ninety-eight miles away; the Ossipee range; Passaconaway; Whiteface; Kearsarge in Warner; Monadnock; Wachusett; Agamenticus and Bonny Beag in Maine; the Isles of Shoals with White Island light; Boon Island in Maine; and nearer at hand Newburyport with its harbor and bay; Plum Island; Cape Ann; Salisbury and Hampton beaches; Boar's Head and Little Boar's Head; Crane Neck and many other of the beautiful hills of Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, and Danvers. The view of Cape Ann as seen from Po Hill is referred to by Whittier at the opening of the poem "The Garrison of Cape Ann:"—

"From the hills of home forth looking, far beneath the tent-like span Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland of Cape Ann."

Down the south side of the Po flows the Powow River in a series of cascades, the finest of which are now hidden by the mills, or arched over by the main street of the village of Amesbury. The hill is celebrated in several of Whittier's poems, including "Abram Morrison," "Miriam," and "Cobbler Keezar's Vision." The Powow, a little way above its plunge over the rocks where it gives power for the mills, flows in front of the Whittier home, and but the width of a block distant. The surface of its swift current is but a few feet below the level of Friend Street. Po Hill rises steeply from its left bank. The Powow is mentioned in the poem "The Fountain:"—

"Where the birch canoe had glided Down the swift Powow, Dark and gloomy bridges strided Those clear waters now; And where once the beaver swam, Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam."



"The Fountain" is a spring that may be found on the western side of Mundy Hill. The oak mentioned in this poem is gone, and a willow takes its place. The Rocky Hill meeting-house is well worth the attention of visitors, as a well-preserved specimen of the meeting-houses of the olden time. Its pulpit, pews, and galleries retain their original form as when built in 1785. It is situated on the easternmost of the fine circlet of hills that incloses the valley of the Powow. This hill is well named, for here the melting glaciers left their most abundant deposit of boulders. A trolley line from Amesbury to Salisbury Beach passes this venerable edifice.



Salisbury Beach, now covered with summer cottages, will hardly be recognized as the place described by Whittier in his "Tent on the Beach." When that poem was written, not one of these hundreds of cottages was built, and those who encamped here brought tents. Hampton Beach is a continuation of Salisbury Beach beyond the state line into New Hampshire. It has given its name to one of the most notable of Whittier's poems, and several ballads refer to it. "The Wreck of Rivermouth" has for its scene the mouth of the Hampton River, which, winding down from the uplands across salt meadows, and dividing this beach, finds its outlet to the sea. At the northern end of the beach is the picturesque promontory of Boar's Head, and eastward are seen the Isles of Shoals, and in the further distance the blue disk of Agamenticus. Whittier describes the place with his usual exactness:—

"And fair are the sunny isles in view East of the grisly Head of the Boar, And Agamenticus lifts its blue Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er; And southerly, when the tide is down, 'Twixt white sea-waves and sand-hills brown, The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls wheel Over a floor of burnished steel."



Rev. J. C. Fletcher, in an article published in 1879, says that he was with Whittier at Salisbury Beach, in the summer of 1861, when he saw the remarkable mirage commemorated in these lines in "The Tent on the Beach:"—

"Sometimes, in calms of closing day, They watched the spectral mirage play; Saw low, far islands looming tall and nigh, And ships, with upturned keels, sail like a sea the sky."



Mr. Fletcher was spending several weeks that summer with his family in a tent on the beach. He says: "Here we were visited by friends from Newburyport and Amesbury. None were more welcome than Whittier and his sister, and two nieces, one of whom, Lizzie, as we called her, had the beautiful eyes—the grand features in both the poet and his sister. Those eyes of his sister Elizabeth are most touchingly alluded to by Whittier when he refers to his sister's childhood in the old Snow-bound homestead:—

"'Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, Now bathed in the unfading green And holy peace of Paradise.'

"One day, late in the afternoon, I recall how Elizabeth was enjoying a cup of tea in the family tent, while Whittier and myself were seated upon a hillock of sand outside. It had been a peculiarly beautiful day, and as the sun began to decline, the calm sea was lit up with a dreamy grandeur wherein there seemed a mingling of rose-tint and color of pearls. All at once we noticed that the far-off Isles of Shoals, of which in clear days only the lighthouse could be seen, were lifted into the air, and the vessels out at sea were seen floating in the heavens. Whittier told me that he never before witnessed such a sight. We called to the friends in the tent to come and enjoy the scene with us. Elizabeth Whittier was then seeing from the shore the very island, reduplicated in the sky, where two years afterwards she met that fatal accident which, after months of suffering, terminated her existence."



Elizabeth fell upon the rocks at Appledore in August, 1863. It was not thought at the time that she was seriously injured, and perhaps Mr. Fletcher is wrong in attributing her death solely to this cause. For many years before and after the death of his sister, Mr. Whittier spent some days each summer at Appledore. It was at his insistence that Celia Thaxter undertook her charming book, "Among the Isles of Shoals."



Other ballads of this region are "The Changeling," and "The New Wife and the Old." The ancient house which is the scene of the last named poem is still standing, and may be seen by passengers on the Boston and Maine road, near the Hampton station. It has a gambrel roof, and is on the left when the train is going westward. On the right as the train passes Hampton Falls station may be seen in the distance, shaded by magnificent elms, the house of Miss Gove, in which Whittier died. It was upon these broad meadows and the distant line of the beach that his eyes rested, when he took his last look upon the scenery he loved and has so faithfully pictured in his verse. The photographs here reproduced were taken by his grandnephew a few days before his death, and the last time he stood on the balcony where his form appears. The room in which he died opens upon this balcony. It was his cousin, Joseph Cartland, who happened to stand by his left side when the picture was taken. This house is worthy of notice aside from its connection with Whittier, as one of the finest specimens of colonial architecture, its rooms filled with the furniture and heirlooms of the ancestors of the present proprietor. A trolley line from Amesbury now passes the house.



As a coincidence that was at the time considered singular, the superstition in regard to the matter of thirteen at table was recalled when Whittier dined for the last time with his friends. During the summer he had lodged at the house of Miss Gove, taking his meals with others of his party in a house adjoining. One evening all had taken their places at the table except Mr. Whittier. His niece noticed there were twelve seated, and without comment took her plate to a small table in a corner of the room. When her uncle came in, he said in a cheery way, "Why, Lizzie, what has thee been doing, that they put thee in the corner?" Some evasive reply was made, but probably Mr. Whittier guessed the reason, for he was well versed in such superstitions, and sometimes laughingly heeded them. In a few minutes, Mr. Wakeman, the Baptist clergyman of the village, just returned from his summer vacation, came in unexpectedly, and took the thirteenth seat that had just been vacated. Whittier's grandnephew, to again break the omen, took his plate over to the table in the corner with his mother. It was all done in a playful way, but the matter was recalled while we were at breakfast next morning. The news then came of the paralysis which had affected Mr. Whittier while dressing to join us. He never again came to the dining room. Another incident of the same evening was more impressive, and remains to this day inexplicable. After sitting for a while in the parlor conversing with friends, he took his candle to retire, and as he said "Goodnight" to his friends, and passed out of the door, an old clock (the clock over the desk) struck once! It had not been wound up for years, and as no one present had ever before heard it strike, it excited surprise—the more so as the hands were not in position for striking. It was an incident that had a marked effect upon a party little inclined to heed omens; and in many ways, without success, we tried to get the clock to strike once more.



A beautiful little lake in the northern part of Amesbury, formerly known as Kimball's Pond, is the scene of "The Maids of Attitash." Its present name was conferred by Whittier because huckleberries abound in this region, and Attitash is the Indian name for this berry. His poem pictures the maidens with "baskets berry-filled," watching

... "in idle mood The gleam and shade of lake and wood."

In a letter to the editor of "The Atlantic" inclosing this ballad, he says of Attitash: "It is as pretty as St. Mary's Lake which Wordsworth sings, in fact a great deal prettier. The glimpse of the Pawtuckaway range of mountains in Nottingham seen across it is very fine, and it has noble groves of pines and maples and ash trees." A trolley line from Amesbury to Haverhill passes this lake; but this is not the line which passes the Whittier birthplace.

Annually, in the month of May, the Quarterly Meeting of the Society of Friends is held at Amesbury, and during the fifty-six years of Mr. Whittier's residence in the village, this was an occasion on which he kept open house, and wherever he happened to be, he came home to enjoy the company of friends, giving up all other engagements. He could not be detained in Boston or Danvers, or wherever else he might be, when the time for this meeting approached. It was an annual event in which his mother and sister took much interest, and after they passed away, the custom was maintained with the same spirit of hospitality with which they had invested it, to the last year of his life.

Among Mr. Whittier's neighbors was an aged pair, a brother and sister, whose simple, old-fashioned ways and quaint conversation he much enjoyed. He thought they worked harder than they had need to do, as the infirmities of age fell upon them, for they had accumulated a competency, and on one occasion he suggested that they leave for younger hands some of the labor to which they had been accustomed. But the sister said, "We must lay by something for our last sickness, and have enough left to bury us." Whittier replied, "Mary, did thee ever know any one in his last sickness to stick by the way for want of funds?" The beautiful public library of Amesbury was built with the money of this aged pair, whose will was made at the suggestion of Whittier. Part of the money Whittier left to hospitals and schools would have been given to this library, had he not known that it was provided for by his generous neighbors.



In his poem "The Common Question," Whittier refers to a saying of his pet parrot, "Charlie," a bird that afforded him much amusement, and sometimes annoyance, by his tricks and manners. His long residence in this Quaker household had the effect to temper his vocabulary, and he almost forgot some phrases his ungodly captors had taught him. But there would be occasional relapses. He had the freedom of the house, for Whittier objected to having him caged. One Sunday morning, when people were passing on the way to meeting, Charlie had gained access to the roof, and mounted one of the chimneys. There he stood, dancing and using language he unfortunately had not quite forgotten, to the amazement of the church-goers! Whatever Quaker discipline he received on this occasion did not cure him of the chimney habit, but some time later he was effectually cured; for while dancing on this high perch he fell down one of the flues and was lost for some days. At last his stifled voice was heard in the parlor, in the wall over the mantel. A pole was let down the flue and he was rescued, but so sadly demoralized that he could only faintly whisper, "What does Charlie want?" He died from the effect of this accident, but we will not dismiss him without another story in which he figures: He had the bad habit of nipping at the leg of a person whose trousers happened to be hitched above the top of the boot. One day Mr. Whittier was being worn out by a prosy harangue from a visitor who sat in a rocking-chair, and swayed back and forth as he talked. As he rocked, Whittier noticed that his trousers were reaching the point of danger, and now at length he had something that interested him. Charlie was sidling up unseen by the orator. There was a little nip followed by a sharp exclamation, and the thread of the discourse was broken! The relieved poet now had the floor as an apologist for his discourteous parrot.

At a time when Salmon P. Chase was in Lincoln's Cabinet, but was beginning to think of the possibility of supplanting him at the next presidential election, he visited Massachusetts, and called upon his old anti-slavery friend, Mr. Whittier. Chase told him among other things that he did not like Abraham Lincoln's stories. Whittier said, "But do they not always have an application, like the parables?" "Oh, yes," said Chase, "but they are not decent like the parables!"

Henry Taylor was a village philosopher of Amesbury given to the discussion of high themes in a somewhat eccentric manner, and Whittier had a warm side for such odd characters. Once when Emerson was his guest, he invited Taylor to meet him, knowing that the Concord philosopher would be amused if not otherwise interested in his Amesbury brother. Taylor found him a good listener, and gave him the full benefit of his theories and imaginings. Next morning Whittier called on him to inquire what he thought of Emerson. "Oh," said he, "I find your friend a very intelligent man. He has adopted some of my ideas."



The likeness of Whittier on page 97 is from a daguerreotype taken in October, 1856, and has never before been published in any volume written by or about the poet. Mr. Thomas E. Boutelle, the artist who took this daguerreotype, is now living in Amesbury at the age of eighty-five. He tells me how he happened to get this picture,—a rather difficult feat, as it was hard to induce the poet to sit for his portrait. He had set up a daguerrean saloon in the little square near Whittier's house, and Whittier often came in for a social chat, but persistently refused to give a sitting. One day he came in with his younger brother Franklin, whose picture he wanted. When it was finished, Franklin said, "Now, Greenleaf, I want your picture." After much persuasion Greenleaf consented, and Mr. Boutelle showed him the plate before it was fully developed, with the remark that he thought he could do better if he might try again. By this bit of strategy he secured the extra daguerreotype here reproduced, but he took care not to show it in Amesbury, for fear Whittier would call it in. He took it to Exeter, N. H., and put it in a show-case at his door. His saloon was burned, and all he saved was this show-case and the daguerreotype, which many of the poet's old friends think to be his best likeness of that period.

Several of Whittier's poems referring to New Hampshire scenery celebrate particular trees remarkable for age and size. For these giants of the primeval forest he ever had a loving admiration. The great elms that shade the house in which he died would no doubt have had tribute in verse if his life had been spared. He invited the attention of every visitor to them. The immense pine on the Sturtevant farm, near Centre Harbor, called out a magnificent tribute in his poem "The Wood Giant." Our engraving on page 99 gives some idea of "the Anakim of pines." There is a grove at Lee, N. H., on the estate of his dearly-loved cousins, the Cartlands, to which he refers in his poem "A Memorial:"—

"Green be those hillside pines forever, And green the meadowy lowlands be, And green the old memorial beeches, Name-carven in the woods of Lee!"

There is a "Whittier Elm" at West Ossipee, and indeed wherever he chose a summer resort, some wood giant still bears his name.



Visitors to Whittier-Land will find an excursion to Oak Knoll, in Danvers, to be full of interest. Here the poet, after the marriage of his niece, spent a large part of each of the last fifteen years of his life in the family of his cousins, the Misses Johnson and Mrs. Woodman. Without giving up his residence in Amesbury, where his house was always kept open for him during these years by Hon. George W. Cate, he found in the beautiful seclusion of the fine estate at Oak Knoll a restful and congenial home. Many souvenirs of the poet are here treasured, and the historical associations of the place are worthy of note. Here lived the Rev. George Burroughs, who suffered death as a wizard more than two centuries ago. He was a man of immense strength of muscle, and his astonishing athletic feats were cited at his trial as evidence of his dealings with the Evil One. The well of his homestead is shown under the boughs of an immense elm, and the canopy now over it was the sounding-board of the pulpit of an ancient church of the parish so unenviably identified with the witchcraft delusion.

Inquiries are sometimes made in regard to the places in Boston associated with the memory of Whittier. His first visit to the city was in his boyhood, when he came as the guest of Nathaniel Greene, a distant kinsman of his, who was editor of the "Statesman" and postmaster of Boston. Many of his earliest poems were published in the "Statesman" under assumed names, and until lately never recognized as his. Not one of these juvenile productions, of which I have happened upon many specimens, was ever collected. When he was editing the "Manufacturer," he boarded with the publisher of that paper, Rev. Mr. Collier, at No. 30 Federal Street. When visiting Boston in middle life, he felt most at home in the old Marlboro Hotel on Washington Street. He would often leave the hotel for a morning walk, and find a hearty welcome at the breakfast hour from his dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. James T. Fields, at No. 148 Charles Street. In later life, at the home of Governor Claflin, at No. 63 Mount Vernon Street, he was frequently an honored guest. It was here he first met Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, who gives this account of their meeting: "On this morning he came in across the thick carpet with that nervous but soft step which every one who ever saw him remembers. Straight as his own pine tree, high of stature, and lofty of mien, he moved like a flash of light or thought. The first impression which one received was of such eagerness to see his friends that his heart outran his feet. He seemed to suppose that he was receiving, not extending the benediction; and he offered the delicate tribute to his friend of allowing him to perceive the sense of debt. It would have been the subtlest flattery, had he not been the most honest and straightforward of men. We talked—how can I say of what? Or of what not? We talked till our heads ached and our throats were sore; and when we had finished we began again. I remember being surprised at his quick, almost boyish, sense of fun, and at the ease with which he rose from it into the atmosphere of the gravest, even the most solemn, discussion. He was a delightful converser, amusing, restful, stimulating, and inspiring at once." The winter of 1882-83 he spent at the Winthrop Hotel, on Bowdoin Street, where the Commonwealth Hotel now stands.



A visit to Whittier-Land is incomplete if Old Newbury and Newburyport (originally one town) are left out of the itinerary. At the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Newbury, in 1885, a letter from Whittier was read in which he recites some of the reasons for his interest in the town. He says: "Although I can hardly call myself a son of the ancient town, my grandmother, Sarah Greenleaf of blessed memory, was its daughter, and I may therefore claim to be its grandson. Its genial and learned historian, Joshua Coffin, was my first school-teacher, and all my life I have lived in sight of its green hills, and in hearing of its Sabbath bells. Its history and legends are familiar to me.... The town took no part in the witchcraft horror, and got none of its old women and town charges hanged for witches. 'Goody' Morse had the spirit rappings in her house two hundred years earlier than the Fox girls did, and somewhat later a Newbury minister in wig and knee-buckles rode, Bible in hand, over to Hampton to lay a ghost who had materialized himself and was stamping up and down stairs in his military boots.... Whitefield set the example since followed by the Salvation Army, of preaching in its streets, and now lies buried under one of the churches with almost the honor of sainthood. William Lloyd Garrison was born in Newbury. The town must be regarded as the Alpha and Omega of the anti-slavery agitation."

The grandmother to whom he refers was born in that part of the town nearest to his own birthplace. The outlet to Country Brook is nearly opposite the Greenleaf place, and Whittier's poem "The Home-Coming of the Bride" describes the crossing of the river and the bridal procession up the valley of the lesser stream, a part of which is known as Millvale because of the mills alluded to in the poem.

The house in which Garrison was born is on School Street next to the Old South meeting-house, in which Whitefield preached, and under the pulpit of which his bones are deposited. Whitefield died in the house next to Garrison's birthplace. The ancient Coffin house, built in 1645, the home of Joshua Coffin, to whom Whittier addressed his poem "To My Old Schoolmaster," is on High Street, about half a mile below State Street. Whittier's cousins, Joseph and Gertrude Cartland, with whom he spent a large part of the last year of his life, lived at No. 244 High Street, at the corner of Broad.



WHITTIER'S SENSE OF HUMOR



III

WHITTIER'S SENSE OF HUMOR

Few men of his day, of equal prominence, have been so greatly misunderstood as Whittier by the public which knows him only by the writings he allowed to be published. These reveal him on the one hand as an earnest reformer bitterly denouncing the sins of a guilty people, and on the other as a prophet of God, with a message of cheer to those who turn them from their evil ways. While slavery existed, he lashed the institution with a whip of scorpions, and in later years, in poems of exquisite sweetness, he sang of "The Eternal Goodness," and brought words of consolation and hope to despairing souls. In the popular mind there has been built up for him a reputation for extreme seriousness and even severity. To be sure, some of the poems in his collected works have witty and even merry lines, but they usually have a serious purpose. The real fun and frolic of his nature were known only to those privileged with his intimacy. He delighted at times in throwing off his mantle of prophecy, and unbending even to jollity, in his home life and among friends. The presence of a stranger was a check to such exuberance. And it was not from any unsocial habit that he fell into this restraint. It was because he found that the unguarded words of a public man are often given a weight they were not intended to bear. If he unbent as one might whose every word has not come to be thought of value, it led to misunderstandings. In his home and among near friends he revealed a charming readiness to engage in lively and frolicsome conversation.

Some stories illustrating his keen sense of humor, and specimens of verse written in rollicking vein for special occasions, which might not properly find place in a serious attempt at biography, I have thought might be allowed in such an informal work as this. Few of the lines I shall here give have ever appeared in any of his collected works, and some of them were never before in print. I am sure I do no wrong to his memory in thus bringing out a phase of his character which could not be fully treated in biography.

I never heard him laugh aloud, but a merrier face and an eye that twinkled with livelier glee when thoroughly amused are not often seen. He would double up with mirth without uttering a sound,—his chuckle being visible instead of audible,—but this peculiar expression of jollity was irresistibly infectious. The faculty of seeing the humorous side of things he considered a blessing to be coveted, and he had a special pity for that class of philanthropists who cannot find a laugh in the midst of the miseries they would alleviate. A laugh rested him, and any teller of good stories, any writer of lively adventures, received a hearty greeting from him. He told Dickens that his "Pickwick Papers" had for years been his remedy for insomnia, and Sam Weller had helped him to many an hour of rested nerves. He loved and admired Longfellow and Lowell, and they were his most cherished friends, but the lively wit of Holmes had a special charm for him, and jolly times they had whenever they met. The witty talk and merry letters of Gail Hamilton, full as they were of a mad revelry of nonsense, were a great delight to him. It was not in praise of but in pity for Charles Sumner that he wrote:—

"No sense of humor dropped its oil On the hard ways his purpose went; Small play of fancy lightened toil; He spake alone the thing he meant."

As an illustration of his own way of speaking the thing he did not mean, just for fun, take the following: More than thirty years ago, a Division of the Sons of Temperance was organized in Amesbury, and his niece, one of his household, joined it. Her turn came to edit a paper for the Division, and she asked her uncle to contribute something. He had often complained in a laughing way in regard to the late hours of the club, and had threatened to lock her out. This accounts for the tone of the following remarkable contribution to temperance literature from one of the oldest friends of the cause:—

THE DIVISION

"Dogs take it! Still the girls are out," Said Muggins, bedward groping, "'T is twelve o'clock, or thereabout, And all the doors are open! I'll lock the doors another night, And give to none admission; Better to be abed and tight Than sober at Division!"

Next night at ten o'clock, or more Or less, by Muggins's guessing, He went to bolt the outside door, And lo! the key was missing. He muttered, scratched his head, and quick He came to this decision: "Here 's something new in 'rithmetic, Subtraction by Division!

"And then," said he, "it puzzles me, I cannot get the right on 't, Why temperance talk and whiskey spree Alike should make a night on 't. D 'ye give it up?" In Muggins's voice Was something like derision— "It 's just because between the boys And girls there 's no Division!"



Whittier's favorite way of enjoying his annual vacation among the mountains was to go with a party of his relatives and neighbors, and take possession of a little inn at West Ossipee, known as the "Bearcamp House." Sturtevant's, at Centre Harbor, was another of his resorts. At these places his party filled nearly every room. It was made up largely of young people, full of frolic and love of adventure. The aged poet could not climb with them to the tops of the mountains; but he watched their going and coming with lively interest, and of an evening listened to their reports and laughed over the effervescence of their enthusiasm. Two young farmers of West Ossipee, brothers named Knox, acted as guides to Chocorua. They had some success as bear hunters, and supplied the inn with bear steaks. One day in September, 1876, the Knox brothers took a party of seven of Whittier's friends to the top of Chocorua, where they camped for the night among the traps that had been set for the bears. They heard the growling of the bears in the night, so the young ladies reported, with other blood-curdling incidents. Soon after the Knox brothers gave a husking at their barn,[7] and the whole Bearcamp party was invited. Whittier wrote a poem for the occasion, and induced Lucy Larcom to read it for him as from an unknown author, although he sat among the huskers. It was entitled:—

HOW THEY CLIMBED CHOCORUA

Unto gallant deeds belong Poet's rhyme and singer's song; Nor for lack of pen or tongue Should their praises be unsung, Who climbed Chocorua!

O full long shall they remember That wild nightfall of September, When aweary of their tramp They set up their canvas camp In the hemlocks of Chocorua.

There the mountain winds were howling, There the mountain bears were prowling, And through rain showers falling drizzly Glared upon them, grim and grisly, The ghost of old Chocorua!

On the rocks with night mist wetted, Keen his scalping knife he whetted, For the ruddy firelight dancing On the brown locks of Miss Lansing, Tempted old Chocorua.

But he swore—(if ghosts can swear)— "No, I cannot lift the hair Of that pale face, tall and fair, And for her sake, I will spare The sleepers on Chocorua."

Up they rose at blush of dawning, Off they marched in gray of morning, Following where the brothers Knox Went like wild goats up the rocks Of vast Chocorua.

Where the mountain shadow bald fell, Merry faced went Addie Caldwell; And Miss Ford, as gay of manner, As if thrumming her piano, Sang along Chocorua.

Light of foot, of kirtle scant, Tripped brave Miss Sturtevant; While as free as Sherman's bummer, In the rations foraged Plummer, On thy slope, Chocorua!

Panting, straining up the rock ridge, How they followed Tip and Stockbridge, Till at last, all sore with bruises, Up they stood like the nine Muses, On thy crown, Chocorua!

At their shout, so wild and rousing, Every dun deer stopped his browsing, And the black bear's small eyes glistened, As with watery mouth he listened To the climbers on Chocorua.

All the heavens were close above them, But below were friends who loved them,— And at thought of Bearcamp's worry, Down they clambered in a hurry,— Scurry down Chocorua.

Sore we miss the steaks and bear roast— But withal for friends we care most;— Give the brothers Knox three cheers, Who to bring us back our dears, Left bears on old Chocorua!



The next day after the husking, Lucy Larcom and some others of the party prepared a burlesque literary exercise for the evening at the inn. She wrote a frolicsome poem, and others devised telegrams, etc., all of which were to surprise Whittier, who was to know nothing of the affair until it came off. When the evening came, the venerable poet took his usual place next the tongs, and the rest of the party formed a semicircle around the great fireplace. On such occasions Whittier always insisted on taking charge of the fire, as he did in his own home. He even took upon himself the duty of filling the wood-box. No one in his presence dared to touch the tongs. By and by telegrams began to be brought in by the landlord from ridiculous people in ridiculous situations. Some purported to come from an old poet who had the misfortune to be caught by his coat-tails in one of the Knox bear-traps on Chocorua. It was suggested that he might be the author of the poem read at the husking. Lucy Larcom, who, by the way, was another of the writers popularly supposed to be very serious minded, but who really was known among her friends as full of fun, read a poem addressed to the man in the bear-trap, entitled:—

TO THE UNKNOWN AND ABSENT AUTHOR OF "HOW THEY CLIMBED CHOCORUA"

O man in the trap, O thou poet-man! What on airth are you doin'?— We haste to the husking as fast as we can, —But where 's Mr. Bruin?

We listen, we wait for his sweet howl in vain, Like the far storm resounding. Brothers Knox ne'er will see Mr. Bruin again, Through the dim moonlight bounding.

For, thou man in the trap, O thou poet-y-man, Scared to flight by thy singing, Away through the mountainous forest he ran, Like a hurricane winging.

Aye, the bear fled away, and his traps left behind, For the use of the poet; If an echo unearthly is borne on the wind— 'T is the man's—you may know it

By its tones of dismay, melancholy and loss, O'er his coat-tails' sad ruin; There 's a moan in the pine, and a howl o'er the moss— But it 's he—'t is n't Bruin!

And the fire you see on the cliff in the air[8] Is his eye-balls a-glarin'! And the form that you call old Chocorua there Is the poet up-rarin'!

And whenever the trees on the mountain-tops thrill And the fierce winds they blow 'em, In most awful pause every bear shall stand still— He 's writing a poem!

Whittier evidently enjoyed the fun, and after the rest had had their say, he remarked, "That old fellow in the bear-trap must be in extremis. He ought to make his will. Suppose we help him out!" He asked one of us to get pencil and paper and jot down the items of the will, each to make suggestions. It ended, of course, in his making the whole will himself, and doing it in verse. It is perhaps the only poem of his which he never wrote with his own hand. It came as rapidly as the scribe could take it. Every one at that fireside was remembered in this queer will—even the "boots" of the inn, the stage-driver, and others who were looking upon the sport from the doorway.

THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE MAN IN THE BEAR-TRAP

Here I am at last a goner, Held in hungry jaws like Jonah; What the trap has left of me Eaten by the bears will be. So I make, on duty bent, My last will and testament, Giving to my Bearcamp friends All my traps and odds and ends. First, on Mr. Whittier, That old bedstead I confer, Whereupon, to vex his life, Adam dreamed himself a wife. I give Miss Ford the copyright Of these verses I indite, To be sung, when I am gone, To the tune the cow died on. On Miss Lansing I bestow Tall Diana's hunting bow; Where it is I cannot tell— But if found 't will suit her well. I bequeath to Mary Bailey Yarn to knit a stocking daily.[9] To Lizzie Pickard from my hat A ribbon for her yellow cat. And I give to Mr. Pickard That old tallow dip that flickered, Flowed and sputtered more or less Over Franklin's printing press. I give Belle Hume a wing Of the bird that wouldn't sing;[10] To Jettie for her dancing nights Slippers dropped from Northern Lights. And I give my very best Beaver stove-pipe to Celeste— Solely for her husband's wear, On the day they're made a pair. If a tear for me is shed, And Miss Larcom's eyes are red— Give her for her prompt relief My last pocket-handkerchief![11] My cottage at the Shoals I give To all who at the Bearcamp live— Provided that a steamer plays Down that river in dog-days— Linking daily heated highlands With the cool sea-scented islands— With Tip her engineer, her skipper Peter Hines, the old stage-whipper.[12] To Addie Caldwell, who has mended My torn coat, and trousers rended, I bequeath, in lack of payment, All that 's left me of my raiment. Having naught beside to spare, To my good friend, Mrs. Ayer, And to Mrs. Sturtevant, My last lock of hair I grant. I make Mr. Currier[13] Of this will executor; And I leave the debts to be Reckoned as his legal fee.

This is all of the will that was written that evening; but the next morning, at breakfast, I found under my plate a note-sheet, with some penciling on it. As I opened it, Mr. Whittier, with a quizzical look, said, "Thee will notice that the bear-trap man has added a codicil to his will." This is the codicil:—

And this pencil of a sick bard I bequeath to Mr. Pickard; Pledging him to write a very Long and full obituary— Showing by my sad example, Useful life and virtues ample, Wit and wisdom only tend To bear-traps at one's latter end!

I had to go back to my editorial desk in Portland that day, and immediately received there this note from Mr. Whittier:—

"DEAR MR. P.,—Don't print in thy paper my foolish verses, which thee copied. They are hardly consistent with my years and 'eminent gravity,' and would make 'the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things.'"

I had no thought at the time of giving to the public this jolly side of Whittier's character, but do it now with little misgiving, as it is realized by every one that "a little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men." Whittier's capacity for serious work is well known, and his love of play never interfered with it. An earnest man without a sense of humor is a machine without a lubricant, worn out before its work is done. There can be no doubt that Whittier owed his length of days to his happy temperament.

Here is a story of Whittier told by Alice Freeman Palmer: One evening they sat in Governor Claflin's library, in Boston, and he was taking his rest telling ghost stories. Mrs. Claflin had given strict orders that no visitor be allowed to intrude on Mr. Whittier when he was resting. Suddenly, at the crisis of a particularly interesting story, there was a commotion in the hall, and the rest of that story was not told. A lady had called to see the poet, and would not be denied. The domestic could not stop her, and she came straight into the library. She walked up to Whittier and seized both his hands, saying, "Mr. Whittier, this is the supreme moment of my life!" The poor man in his distress blushed like a school-girl, and shifted from one foot to the other; he managed to get his hands free, and put them behind him for further security. And what do you think he said? All he said was, "Is it?" Miss Freeman thought a third party in the way, and slipped out. As she was going upstairs, she heard a quick step behind her, and Whittier took her by the shoulder and shook her, saying as if angry, "Alice Freeman, I believe thee has been laughing at me!" She could not deny it. "What would thee do, Alice Freeman, if a man thee never saw should come up in that way to thee, take both hands, and tell thee it was the supreme moment of his life?"

Probably the most seriously dangerous position in which he was ever placed was on the occasion of the looting and burning of Pennsylvania Hall, in the spring of 1838. His editorial office was in the building, and for two or three days the mob had been threatening its destruction before they accomplished it. It was not safe for him to go into the street except in disguise. And yet it was at this very time that he wrote the following humorous skit, never before in print. Theodore D. Weld had the year before made a contract of perpetual bachelorhood with Whittier, and yet he chose this troublous time to marry the eloquent South Carolina Quakeress, Angelina Grimke, who had freed her slaves and come North to rouse the people, and was creating a sensation on the lecture platform. Her burning words in Pennsylvania Hall had helped to make the mob furious. Whittier's humorous arraignment of his friend for breaking his promise of celibacy was written at this critical time, and he was obliged to disguise himself when he carried his epithalamium on the wedding night to the door of the bridegroom. He had been invited to assist at the wedding service, but as the bride was marrying "out of society," Whittier's orthodoxy compelled him to decline the invitation.

"Alack and alas! that a brother of mine, A bachelor sworn on celibacy's altar, Should leave me to watch by the desolate shrine, And stoop his own neck to the enemy's halter! Oh the treason of Benedict Arnold was better Than the scoffing at Love, and then sub rosa wooing; This mocking at Beauty, yet wearing her fetter— Alack and alas for such bachelor doing!

"Oh the weapons of Saul are the Philistine's prey! Who shall stand when the heart of the champion fails him; Who strive when the mighty his shield casts away, And yields up his post when a woman assails him? Alone and despairing thy brother remains At the desolate shrine where we stood up together, Half tempted to envy thy self-imposed chains, And stoop his own neck for the noose of the tether!

"So firm and yet false! Thou mind'st me in sooth Of St. Anthony's fall when the spirit of evil[14]

. . . . .

Filled the cell of his rest with imp, dragon and devil; But the Saint never lifted his eyes from the Book Till the tempter appeared in the guise of a woman; And her voice was so sweet that he ventured one look, And the devil rejoiced that the Saint had proved human!"

In 1874, Gail Hamilton's niece was married at her house in Hamilton, and she sent a grotesque invitation to Whittier, asking him to come to her wedding, and prescribing a ridiculous costume he might wear. As a postscript she mentioned that it was her niece who was to be married. Whittier sent this reply, pretending not to have noticed the postscript, but finally waking up to the fact that she was not herself to be the bride:—

AMESBURY, 12th mo. 29th, 1874.

GAIL HAMILTON'S WEDDING

"Come to my wedding," the missive runs, "Come hither and list to the holy vows; If you miss this chance you will wait full long To see another at Gail-a House!"

Her wedding! What can the woman expect? Does she think her friends can be jolly and glad? Is it only the child who sighs and grieves For the loss of something he never had?

Yet I say to myself, Is it strange that she Should choose the way that we know is good What right have we to grumble and whine In a pitiful dog-in-the-manger mood?

What boots it to maunder with "if" and "perhaps," And "it might have been" when we know it could n't, If she had been willing (a vain surmise), It 's ten to one that Barkis would n't.

'T was pleasant to think (if it was a dream) That our loving homage her need supplied, Humbler and sadder, if wiser, we walk To feel her life from our own lives glide.

Let her go, God bless her! I fling for luck My old shoe after her. Stay, what 's this? Is it all a mistake? The letter reads, "My niece, you must know, is the happy miss."

All 's right! To grind out a song of cheer I set to the crank my ancient muse. Will somebody kiss that bride for me? I fling with my blessing, both boots and shoes!

To the lucky bridegroom I cry all hail! He is sure of having, let come what may, The sage advice of the wisest aunt That ever her fair charge gave away.

The Hamilton bell, if bell there be, Methinks is ringing its merriest peal; And, shades of John Calvin! I seem to see The hostess treading the wedding reel!

The years are many, the years are long, 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.

All joy go with them from year to year; Never by me shall their pledge be blamed Of the perfect love that has cast out fear, And the beautiful hope that is not ashamed!

An aged Quaker friend from England, himself a bachelor, was once visiting Mr. Whittier, and was shown to his room by the poet, when the hour for retiring came. Soon after, he was heard calling to his host in an excited tone, "Thee has made a mistake, friend Whittier; there are female garments in my room!" Whittier replied soothingly, "Thee had better go to bed, Josiah; the female garments won't hurt thee."



Here is a specimen of his frolicsome verse written after he was eighty years of age. It deals largely in personalities, was meant solely for the perusal of a few friends whom it pleasantly satirized, and was never before in print. When the bronze statue of Josiah Bartlett was to be erected in Amesbury, Whittier of course was called upon for the dedicatory ode, and he wrote "One of the Signers" for the occasion. The unveiling of the statue occurred on the Fourth of July, 1888, and as might have been anticipated, the poet could not be prevailed upon to be present. The day before the Fourth he went to Oak Knoll, "so as to keep in the quiet," he said. But his thoughts were on the celebration going on at Amesbury, and they took the form of drollery. He imagined himself occupying the seat on the platform which had been reserved for him, and these amusing verses were composed, the satirical allusions in which would be appreciated by his townspeople. The president of the day was Hon. E. Moody Boynton, a descendant of the signer, and the well-known inventor of the bicycle railway, the "lightning saw," etc. He has the reputation of having the limberest tongue in New England, as well as a brain most fertile in invention. The orator of the day was Hon. Robert T. Davis, then member of Congress, a former resident of Amesbury, and like Bartlett a physician. Jacob R. Huntington, to whose liberality the village is indebted for the statue, is a successful pioneer in the carriage-building industry of the place. It was cannily decided to give the statue to the State of Massachusetts, so as to have an inducement for the Governor to attend the dedication. Whittier's play on this fact is in the best vein of his drollery. The statue is of dark bronze, and this gave a chance for his amusing reference to the Kingston Democrats, whom he imagined as coming across the state line to attend the celebration. Dr. Bartlett was buried in their town. Professor J. W. Churchill, of Andover, one of the "heretics" of the Seminary, was to read the poem. The other persons named were eccentric characters well known in Amesbury:—

MY DOUBLE

I 'm in Amesbury, not at Oak Knoll; 'T is my double here you see: I 'm sitting on the platform, Where the programme places me—

Where the women nudge each other, And point me out and say: "That 's the man who makes the verses— My! how old he is and gray!"

I hear the crackers popping, I hear the bass drums throb; I sit at Boynton's right hand, And help him boss the job.

And like the great stone giant Dug out of Cardiff mire, We lift our man of metal, And resurrect Josiah!

Around, the Hampshire Democrats Stand looking glum and grim,— "That thing the Kingston doctor! Do you call that critter him?

"The pesky Black Republicans Have gone and changed his figure; We buried him a white man— They've dug him up a nigger!"

I hear the wild winds rushing From Boynton's limber jaws, Swift as his railroad bicycle, And buzzing like his saws!

But Hiram the wise is explaining It 's only an old oration Of Ginger-Pop Emmons, come down By way of undulation!

Then Jacob, the vehicle-maker, Comes forward to inquire If Governor Ames will relieve the town Of the care of old Josiah.

And the Governor says: "If Amesbury can't Take care of its own town charge, The State, I suppose, must do it, And keep him from runnin' at large!"

Then rises the orator Robert, Recounting with grave precision The tale of the great Declaration, And the claims of his brother physician.

Both doctors, and both Congressmen, Tall and straight, you 'd scarce know which is The live man, and which is the image, Except by their trousers and breeches!

Then when the Andover "heretic" Reads the rhymes I dared not utter, I fancy Josiah is scowling, And his bronze lips seem to mutter:

"Dry up! and stop your nonsense! The Lord who in His mercies Once saved me from the Tories, Preserve me now from verses!"

Bad taste in the old Continental! Whose knowledge of verse was at best John Rogers' farewell to his wife and Nine children and one at the breast!

He 's treating me worse than the Hessians He shot in the Bennington scrimmage— Have I outlived the newspaper critic, To be scalped by a graven image!

Perhaps, after all, I deserve it, Since I, who was born a Quaker, Sit here an image worshiper, Instead of an image breaker!

In giving this picture of a poet at play, I have presented a side of Whittier's character heretofore overlooked, although to his intimate friends it was ever in evidence. I think there are few of the lovers of his verse who, if they are surprised by these revelations, will not also be pleased to become acquainted with one of his methods of recreation.

* * * * *

When Edmund Gosse visited this country in 1884, he called upon Mr. Whittier, and this is the impression he received of his personality: "The peculiarity of his face rested in the extraordinarily large and luminous black eyes, set in black eyebrows, and fringed with thick black eyelashes curiously curved inward. This bar of vivid black across the countenance was startlingly contrasted with the bushy snow-white beard and hair, offering a sort of contradiction which was surprising and presently pleasing. He struck me as very gay and cheerful, in spite of his occasional references to the passage of time and the vanishing of beloved faces. He even laughed frequently and with a childlike suddenness, but without a sound. His face had none of the immobility so frequent with very aged persons; on the contrary, waves of mood were always sparkling across his features, and leaving nothing stationary there except the narrow, high, and strangely receding forehead. His language, very fluent and easy, had an agreeable touch of the soil, an occasional rustic note in its elegant colloquialism, that seemed very pleasant and appropriate, as if it linked him naturally with the long line of sturdy ancestors of whom he was the final blossoming. In connection with his poetry, I think it would be difficult to form in the imagination a figure more appropriate to Whittier's writings than Whittier himself proved to be in the flesh."



WHITTIER'S UNCOLLECTED POEMS



IV

WHITTIER'S UNCOLLECTED POEMS

Between the years 1826 and 1835, Mr. Whittier was writing literally hundreds of poems which he never permitted to be collected in any edition of his works; and not only so, but he preserved no copies of them, in later years destroying such as came to his notice. Some of these verses went the rounds of the newspaper press of the country, giving him a widespread reputation as a poet. But in much of his early work we see traces of ambition for fame, and a feeling that the world was treating him harshly. When the change came over his spirit to which reference has been made in a preceding chapter, sweetening all the springs of life, he lost interest in these early productions, some of which were giving him the fame that in his earlier years he so much craved. It was this radical change which no doubt influenced him in his later life to omit from his collected works most of the verses written previous to it. I have in my possession more than three hundred poems which I have found in the files of old newspapers, the great mass of which I would by no means reproduce, although I find nothing of which a young writer of that period need be ashamed. A few of these verses are given below as specimens of the work he saw fit to discard.

The following poem, written when he was nineteen years of age, during his first term in the Haverhill Academy, shows in one or two stanzas the feeling that the world is giving him the cold shoulder:—

I WOULD NOT LOSE THAT ROMANCE WILD

I would not lose that romance wild, That high and gifted feeling— The power that made me fancy's child, The clime of song revealing, For all the power, for all the gold, That slaves to pride and avarice hold.

I know that there are those who deem But lightly of the lyre;— Who ne'er have felt one blissful beam Of song-enkindled fire Steal o'er their spirits, as the light Of morning o'er the face of night.

Yet there 's a mystery in song— A halo round the way Of him who seeks the muses' throng— An intellectual ray, A source of pure, unfading joy— A dream that earth can ne'er destroy.

And though the critic's scornful eye Condemn his faltering lay, And though with heartless apathy, The cold world turn away— And envy strive with secret aim, To blast and dim his rising fame;

Yet fresh, amid the blast that brings Such poison on its breath, Above the wreck of meaner things, His lyre's unfading wreath Shall bloom, when those who scorned his lay With name and power have passed away.

Come then, my lyre, although there be No witchery in thy tone; And though the lofty harmony Which other bards have known, Is not, and cannot e'er be mine, To touch with power those chords of thine.

Yet thou canst tell, in humble strain, The feelings of a heart, Which, though not proud, would still disdain To bear a meaner part, Than that of bending at the shrine Where their bright wreaths the muses twine.

Thou canst not give me wealth or fame; Thou hast no power to shed The halo of a deathless name Around my last cold bed; To other chords than thine belong The breathings of immortal song.

Yet come, my lyre! some hearts may beat Responsive to thy lay; The tide of sympathy may meet Thy master's lonely way; And kindred souls from envy free May listen to its minstrelsy.

8th month, 1827.

During the first months of Whittier's editorship of the "New England Review" at Hartford, his contributions of verse to that paper were numerous—in some cases three of his poems appearing in a single number, as in the issue of October 18, 1830. Two of these are signed with his initials, but the one here given has no signature. That it is his is made evident by the fact that all but one stanza of it appears in "Moll Pitcher," published two years later. It was probably because of the self-assertion of the concluding lines that the omitted stanza was canceled, and these lines reveal the ambition then stirring his young blood.

NEW ENGLAND

Land of the forest and the rock— Of dark blue lake and mighty river— Of mountains reared aloft to mock The storm's career—the lightning's shock,— My own green land forever!— Land of the beautiful and brave— The freeman's home—the martyr's grave— The nursery of giant men, Whose deeds have linked with every glen, And every hill and every stream, The romance of some warrior dream!— Oh never may a son of thine, Where'er his wandering steps incline, Forget the sky which bent above His childhood like a dream of love— The stream beneath the green hill flowing— The broad-armed trees above it growing— The clear breeze through the foliage blowing;— Or hear unmoved the taunt of scorn Breathed o'er the brave New England born;— Or mark the stranger's Jaguar hand Disturb the ashes of thy dead— The buried glory of a land Whose soil with noble blood is red, And sanctified in every part, Nor feel resentment like a brand Unsheathing from his fiery heart!

Oh—greener hills may catch the sun Beneath the glorious heaven of France; And streams rejoicing as they run Like life beneath the day-beam's glance, May wander where the orange bough With golden fruit is bending low;— And there may bend a brighter sky O'er green and classic Italy— And pillared fane and ancient grave Bear record of another time, And over shaft and architrave The green luxuriant ivy climb;— And far towards the rising sun The palm may shake its leaves on high, Where flowers are opening one by one, Like stars upon the twilight sky, And breezes soft as sighs of love Above the rich mimosa stray, And through the Brahmin's sacred grove A thousand bright-hued pinions play!—

Yet, unto thee, New England, still Thy wandering sons shall stretch their arms, And thy rude chart of rock and hill Seem dearer than the land of palms! Thy massy oak and mountain pine More welcome than the banyan's shade, And every free, blue stream of thine Seem richer than the golden bed Of Oriental waves, which glow And sparkle with the wealth below!

Land of my fathers!—if my name, Now humble, and unwed to fame, Hereafter burn upon the lip, As one of those which may not die, Linked in eternal fellowship With visions pure and strong and high— If the wild dreams which quicken now The throbbing pulse of heart and brow, Hereafter take a real form Like spectres changed to beings warm; And over temples worn and gray The star-like crown of glory shine,— Thine be the bard's undying lay, The murmur of his praise be thine!

One of the poems in the same number which contained this spirited tribute to New England was the song given below, which was signed with the initials of the editor, else there might be some hesitation in assigning it to him, for there is scarcely anything like it to be found in his writings. It was evidently written for music, and some composer should undertake it.

SONG

That vow of thine was full and deep As man has ever spoken— A vow within the heart to keep, Unchangeable, unbroken.

'T was by the glory of the Sun, And by the light of Even, And by the Stars, that, one by one, Are lighted up in Heaven!

That Even might forget its gold— And Sunlight fade forever— The constant Stars grow dim and cold,— But thy affection—never!

And Earth might wear a changeful sign, And fickleness the Sky— Yet, even then, that love of thine Might never change nor die.

The golden Sun is shining yet— And at the fall of Even There 's beauty in the warm Sunset, And Stars are bright in Heaven.

No change is on the blessed Sky— The quiet Earth has none— Nature has still her constancy, And Thou art changed alone!

The "Review" for September 13, 1830, has a poem of Whittier's prefaced by a curious story about Lord Byron:—

The Spectre.—There is a story going the rounds of our periodicals that a Miss G., of respectable family, young and very beautiful, attended Lord Byron for nearly a year in the habit of a page. Love, desperate and all-engrossing, seems to have been the cause of her singular conduct. Neglected at last by the man for whom she had forsaken all that woman holds dear, she resolved upon self-destruction, and provided herself with poison. Her designs were discovered by Lord Byron, who changed the poison for a sleeping potion. Miss G., with that delicate feeling of affection which had ever distinguished her intercourse with Byron, stole privately away to the funeral vault of the Byrons, and fastened the entrance, resolving to spare her lover the dreadful knowledge of her fate. She there swallowed the supposed poison—and probably died of starvation! She was found dead soon after. Lord Byron never adverted to this subject without a thrill of horror. The following from his private journal may, perhaps, have some connection with it:—

"I awoke from a dream—well! and have not others dreamed?—such a dream! I wish the dead would rest forever. Ugh! how my blood chilled—and I could not wake—and—and—

"Shadows to-night Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard Than could the substance of ten thousand— Armed all in proof—

"I do not like this dream—I hate its foregone conclusion. And am I to be shaken by shadows? Ay, when they remind us of—no matter—but if I dream again I will try whether all sleep has the like visions."—Moore's "Byron," page 324.

She came to me last night— The floor gave back no tread, She stood by me in the wan moonlight— In the white robes of the dead— Pale—pale, and very mournfully She bent her light form over me— I heard no sound—I felt no breath Breathe o'er me from that face of death; Its dark eyes rested on my own, Rayless and cold as eyes of stone; Yet in their fixed, unchanging gaze, Something which told of other days— A sadness in their quiet glare, As if Love's smile were frozen there, Came o'er me with an icy thrill— O God! I feel its presence still! And fearfully and dimly The pale cold vision passed, Yet those dark eyes were fixed on me In sadness to the last. I struggled—and my breath came back, As to the victim on the rack, Amid the pause of mortal pain Life steals to suffer once again! Was it a dream? I looked around, The moonlight through the lattice shone; The same pale glow that dimly crowned The forehead of the spectral one! And then I knew she had been there— Not in her breathing loveliness, But as the grave's lone sleepers are, Silent and cold and passionless! A weary thought—a fearful thought— Within the secret heart to keep: Would that the past might be forgot— Would that the dead might sleep!