XIV
The poet had the happiest way of making people feel at ease with themselves, and so of bringing out their best. A man often left his presence feeling himself a more worthy fellow than he had done when he had entered it. And so he ought to have been.
But there were times when peculiar exhibitions of character roused Whittier to keen comment.
While in Boston he was talking one day to two ladies at the same hotel. A young woman just out of boarding school coming to pay them a visit, was introduced to the poet. But she was far from comprehending the honor done her, and it was impossible then and there to enlighten her.
“Whittier!” she repeated patronizingly. At the school they had just been reading “Snow Bound.” It was beautiful—“so fine!” And she gushed inanely in its praise. Had he read it? she questioned.
The poet admitted thathe had looked it over!
And he admired it, of course? Taking assent for granted, she next asked Mr. Whittierif he were any relative of the poet? He answered her that he had not studied out what relation.
“And have you ever seen the Poet Whittier?” she propounded promptly.
The poet thought that hehadmet him.
For some time the young woman talked on, happy in the sound of her own voice and patronizing still more both poem and poet—to say nothing of the unknown who bore his name.
In speaking of her the poet remarked that he always pitied such young women.
Among his many experiences of autograph hunters he enjoyed the following:
He was on his way to the mountains. It was a delightful autumn day. The sunshine, the brilliant colors of earth and sky, the nectar of the clear and balmy air, all acted upon his sensitive nerves and brought a keen pleasure which prepared him for the enjoyment of any amusing phase of human nature that might present itself. The train drew up at a junction. As the poet alighted with that alertness of movement which to the last distinguished him and made his way toward his exchange, a young woman forced a passage through the rushing crowd and came up to him.
“Are you Mr. Whittier?” she inquired of him breathlessly.
The poet assented.
“Won’t you please write your name in myalbum?” And she held out her book open at the desired page.
His dark eyes lighting with amusement passed swiftly from the puffing train—his train on which in another moment the bell would ring and from which the conductor was already shouting, “All aboard!”—to the eager and entreating face of the speaker. He appreciated the situation; he liked her pluck. But what was he to write with? Fountain pens were then uninvented.
He flashed his glance about the station; then with the young woman in tow, hurried to the telegraph office, seized a pen, dashed off his autograph, walked swiftly to his train, and in another moment was being whirled onward.
That must have been one of the occasions when his hand smote his knee in keen appreciation of the episode.
Although Whittier never perpetrated matrimony, he was far from being like the melancholy Jacques, and much enjoyed looking at happiness through other men’s eyes—and through women’s too.
He was vastly amused at the man who complained to him because a certain young relative of the poet would persist in quitting the room by one door at the moment he entered it by another.
“The woman ought to do her part!” quoted the poet with great gusto from the plaint of the complainer who was too dense to read the significant scorn of the lady’s conduct to him.
A mother boasted to him that she had never done anything to have her daughters married.
“But thee ought,” retorted the poet.
When one day a young man had come with a span of fine horses and carried off one of his nieces to drive, Whittier commented on the event in his most humorous vein. He didn’t think she cared for the young man in the least, he said. The span was the attraction. As for what her uncle thought of her going, she cared nothing at all. He didn’t know what he could do about it—except find a young man with three horses!
But for all the poet’s jesting, love’s young dreamers were very interesting persons to him. He once said with a laugh which yet had conviction under it, that he would have made a good husband—if he’d been caught young!
He was confident that in many instances he could have made better matches for certain young persons than they had done for themselves. And with his vision that nothing escaped, his keen perceptions, his infinite tact, it came about more than once that he turned thewavering balance of fancy in the head—or heart—of some young man, or woman, and, like destiny, resolved uncertainty into joy. And where he was thus successful, the lovers themselves had no inkling of his co-operation and outsiders could only surmise that the poet’s skill might have had play.
Only once in this skillful manipulation of the susceptible heart of youth did the credit for his insinuations recoil upon his own head. A betrothed couple came one day to pay him a visit. In the course of this the young man congratulating himself upon the wisdom and success of his choice, openly commended his host for having suggested it to him—and this in the presence of the intended bride! It was in vain that the embarrassed poet hastened to repudiate the charge, of which he could never have been guilty in the manner of which he was accused. This only made the young man more insistent. Whittier’s quickness of retort must have opened to him some way of escape from the situation. And he had a consolation; for in telling the story, he added that during this conversation the young woman gazed at her betrothed as if she believed wisdom would die with him.
On the day of the wedding of the poet’s niece at his Amesbury home the whole house was incommotion. The poet in a vain attempt to restore order was overheard saying with authority to his cousin, Mr. Cartland, who had become infected with the general restlessness:
“Thee sit down, Joseph. Thee isn’t going to be married.”