VII
Whittier’s biography mentions the encouragement given to his earliest attempts at literature and the prospect thus held out to him of fame and competence in comparative youth; of his congenial work in Boston and his opportunities there for study and research.
But in the garden room by his own fireside the poet one day told the writer of an early experience given later in his biography. To his astonishment he had been called upon by George D. Prentice, then editor of the “New England Review,” to take charge of this magazine during Prentice’s temporary absence. Whittier’s secret tremors had not caused him an instant’s hesitation in accepting the position; and as the phrase goes, he soon “caught on.”
But before long there came a malignant attack upon one of his editorials, an anti-slavery article called forth by some incident of the day; and no doubt Whittier had struck out from the shoulder, as was his habit in fighting against wrong. The poet in his youth and inexperience was overwhelmed by the virulence of the attack and wondered at first if he should not take the writer’s scornful advice and “go back to the farm.” But he did no such thing; he braced himself and“made good.” Telling the story that day in the garden room with the world singing his praises, he added that he did not know what had become of that critic. But this remark was far from wishing to emphasize his own eminent position; there was not an iota of boast in Whittier; it was made as a significant encouragement to his youthful companion who, as he knew, had felt the sting of literary rebuffs.
It was not in literature alone, however, that the spirit moved him to say and do the kind thing. A short time after the Civil War his friend, Dr. S——, who had been long trying to secure a pension for a soldier’s widow, very poor, at last appealed to the poet to help him. Whittier sent the following letter:
“Amesbury, 26, 10th mo., 1867 (or 69)“Dear General:Our excellent friend General F—— goes to Boston today with reference to the pension of Mrs. D—— of this town whose husband lost his life in the service of his country. It is a very urgent case and there has been some difficulty in obtaining the needed papers; but I hope if it is in thy power, thee will aid him in his object.Very truly thy friend,John G. Whittier.”
“Amesbury, 26, 10th mo., 1867 (or 69)“Dear General:
Our excellent friend General F—— goes to Boston today with reference to the pension of Mrs. D—— of this town whose husband lost his life in the service of his country. It is a very urgent case and there has been some difficulty in obtaining the needed papers; but I hope if it is in thy power, thee will aid him in his object.
Very truly thy friend,John G. Whittier.”
The pension was secured.
The world knows well many of the poet’s rare and gracious qualities. But the life that Whittier lived in his own family and among his neighbors, the traits that came out in this daily life—these are not known to the world, and never can be, except by lightest sketches. Yet of all his poems the most beautiful was his life.
It was in 1869 that he wrote the following characteristic note to Dr. S——, the “doctor” of these pages:
“Dear Doctor:There is to be what they call a surprise party at Mrs. C——’s this evening—the anniversary of her marriage forty years ago. They would like to see thee and Mrs. S——, I am sure. It was got up by some of her friends and relatives.”
“Dear Doctor:
There is to be what they call a surprise party at Mrs. C——’s this evening—the anniversary of her marriage forty years ago. They would like to see thee and Mrs. S——, I am sure. It was got up by some of her friends and relatives.”
The poet does not mention that he himself was one of the “friends” most active in this endeavor to help a neighbor to tide over one of those hard places plentifully scattered throughout her life. Her home was across the little side street from Mr. Whittier’s. She had always been a friend and many times a nurse to his sister Elizabeth. For in those days when trained nurses were rare in the country, she often went into families to nurse in illness. She hadbeen much in the poet’s home in his anxiety, his sorrow, and his own times of straitened means.
Her early opportunities of education had been small, and yet the terms on which she lived with the Whittier family were in themselves an education. Whittier appreciated her love of books, and it is to her advice that the world owes a beautiful poem. One day when she was in the house he came out of the garden room with a volume of “Mrs. Jamieson” in his hand, and reading this neighbor in whose literary judgment he believed, that writer’s account of the origin of the stars and stripes, he remarked that it would be a good subject for a poem.
“Indeed, it would; and you are just the one to write it,” retorted his listener with spirit. “Why don’t you do it?”
The poet returned to his room. And we have “The Mantle of St. John de Matha.”
Years afterward when poverty and illness had become intimates of hers, from her bed of pain which was henceforth to know only respite and not cure, she epitomized in a sentence the poet’s character. Looking up into the face of the writer who standing beside her had been speaking of him, she exclaimed:
“Oh—Mr. Whittier!” Her voice choked, her face lighted, her eyes filled with tears. Shesaw the past with its many trials and sufferings, and to relieve these whenever possible, that blessed presence whose visits to her in her need had not been in one respect as is wrongly said of the angels—“few and far between.” In a moment she added brokenly, “When you needhim, you never have to say, ‘Come!’ he’s always there!”
He was “always there” for any need of any one that he could meet, and he could meet many and diverse needs. For his was his Master’s definition of his neighbor. There was nothing in the range of human experience to which he did not accord open-hearted sympathy—except meanness of motive and falsity of any kind. Yet mixed with hatred of the sin was always compassion for the sinner; for no empty words to him were these:
“And hope for all the language is,That He remembereth we are dust.”
“And hope for all the language is,That He remembereth we are dust.”
“And hope for all the language is,That He remembereth we are dust.”
“And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust.”