XV
The poet’s friends and neighbors had for good and sufficient reasons a peculiar form of invitation to him. From the doctor’s family—often through the lips of one of its young members—the invitation would run:
“Mr. Whittier, we should be so glad to have you come to breakfast”—or dinner, or tea, as the case might be—“if you are able to come, if you are well; but do just as you feel about it.” Then would follow often the announcement that some other interesting guest was to be present. “Do just as you please, Mr. Whittier,” the messenger of the would-be hostess would always add anxiously; “but we shall be so glad to see you.”
The poet never promised. If he were tied, his headache would be sure to find him out; so, this method was taken as a charm to outwit the fiend. Quite often it was successful, and the poet would be on hand promptly. At other times the family having waited until it was believed that he was not coming, would sit down to table, when the doorbell would ring and Mr. Whittier appear. At such times he perhaps had a headache but had decided that it would be no worse there than at home. And having been free from obligation, and come because it washis own wish, he was delightful. To listen to him was an education—as to listen to him in the garden room when he talked in his deepest moods, and often then to one hearer, was an inspiration.
His unsolicited visits also made red-letter days. Sometimes on his way home from his customary walk to the post office in the morning, or in the evening, he would take the street leading past the house of some friend. Word would be tossed about from one to another, “There’s Mr. Whittier! Is he coming in?” And eager eyes would watch his movements. “Oh, he’s going by!” in accents of deep disappointment—“No, he’s coming in!” in jubilant tones.
And the visit would be one to be remembered.
It was upon some such occasion that the poet eagerly caught up a remark by his hostess, that people liked a good listener.
“Yes, that’s it, Mrs. S——,” he said, “a good listener.”
For the poet was quite able to talk, and he liked to do it.
It was Whittier’s habit to put on his hat when he chanced to answer the doorbell. This might have been on account of his neuralgia and the northwest wind which oftenswept freely down the street, or—what was worse to him—the east wind which swept up it and into the doorway. Or else, being uncertain who his visitor might be, he would possibly find it convenient to appear to be going out. But whatever had been his reason for donning the hat, upon most occasions it was promptly laid aside and the visitor was cordially invited to enter. This visitor was perhaps a neighbor, or friend, or both in one—or a stranger who thus spending an hour with the poet, forever afterward cherished a happy memory.
Readers of Whittier’s poems will recall one “On a Sun Dial,” beginning
“With warning hand I mark Time’s rapid flight.”
“With warning hand I mark Time’s rapid flight.”
“With warning hand I mark Time’s rapid flight.”
“With warning hand I mark Time’s rapid flight.”
In regard to this inscription, Dr. Henry I. Bowditch wrote his friend in Amesbury—Whittier’s physician—under date of December 30, 1854:
“Warm regards to Whittier, and tell him I stillhopefor the inscription for my old dial—that is, I wish if you have a fair chance you wouldgently alludeto my hopes; but, pray, do not let him think me troublesome about it. I think I could get one from H——, or F——,but I would prefer Whittier to any other that I know.”
Apparently, the “gentle allusion” must have been made with success—judging from the following extract of January fifteenth, 1855, about two weeks later. “The more I read Whittier’s lines,” wrote Bowditch to the doctor, “the more I admire them. Everybody is delighted with them, and I am obliged to give copies in every direction.”
With Bowditch’s noble character, his delightful enthusiasm and anti-slavery zeal, his frankness and charm, it was not to be wondered at that the admiration of the two men was reciprocal. There comes to mind the speech of the poet, after looking long and earnestly at a photograph of Dr. Bowditch. He glanced up at last to say that it made him think of one of the old Greek fathers.
Those who knew Whittier well remember the suddenness of his leave-takings. For, no matter how tranquilly he was seated and how absorbed in his subject he appeared, one could never be sure that the next moment he would not rise, make his adieus, and be off, all in a breath.
Somebody asked him one day why he always took leave so suddenly? He answered thatthe habit came from early training, that his father did not like prolixity—no, nor did his father’s son! Indeed, one day Whittier talking of himself, said that as he grew older he could perceive traits of his father coming out more strongly in himself.
It was the same way with his journeys. An announcement at the breakfast table would often be the first intimation that his bag was packed for the next train. That alertness distinguished him to the very last. He knew what he wanted and went straight to the mark.
Yet when in pursuance of his object, the success of the anti-slavery movement, or helping to plan and organize that party to which slavery owed its downfall, no one could navigate the troubled waters of politics and tack to fill the sails or avoid the flaws with more skill than Whittier. The power to manipulate men he had to a degree that would have made him dangerous but for his high principle. For with him honor was always first.
He never lost interest in politics in its highest sense, nor failed in his part as freeman and patriot. In 1883 he wrote:
“I have been ill almost ever since the first of September. I managed to go to the Convention at Boston and staid only long enoughto vote for Robinson, after which I was ill and sleepless for four days and nights——more than one hundred and twenty hours in all. I am now somewhat better and shall go to Amesbury this week.”