XXVIII
In memory of the dear ones gone before, Whittier was desirous to buy back the old birthplace in Haverhill. To his friend, Colonel F——, conducting the negotiations for him, he wrote:
“I would leave it to any three competent judges of property in the neighborhood to fix a price, if we could not agree among ourselves.”
The purchase, however, fell through on account of the unreasonable price demanded. The owners reckoned upon Whittier’s vanity in desiring to get possession of the scene of “Snow-Bound.”
But the poet was full of thoughtfulness of what his money should do for others. Long before the possibility of this purchase came to him, he used to say that a great part of the land in the old farm was “only good to help to hold the world together.” In his letter desiring to buy the property he stated that the part he wanted was about the poorest part of the farm. “And the house to anybody but myself,” he added, “would be only valuable as firewood.”
After his death the birthplace was bought by “The Whittier Homestead Association” which has its membership among lovers of Whittier in Haverhill and elsewhere. The care bestowed upon it and the many pilgrims whojourney to it prove the house of greater value to his admirers than to the poet.
If anything in Whittier showed, pre-eminently, the quality of his soul, it was his absolute loyalty. His allegiance once given, he was always true, whether to person or to cause. The friends of his earlier days lost none of their dearness when wide fame and comparative wealth opened the world to him. His old companions seemed to be to him a part of the old family life that he cherished so unremittingly. In life he loved them; and he always carried in his heart the friends who had passed beyond the veil.
“The sudden death of one of my oldest friends, J. T. Fields, was a great shock to me,” he wrote. “For forty years we have been very intimate. No man save thy father has ever seemed nearer to me. It is very strange to outlive so many of my dear friends.” Of still another he says: “Thus our loved ones pass on. I at least shall soon follow.”
His letters are full of thought of those dear to him here or in the world beyond. About three years before his death he said in one of these:
“I have been miserably ill in August and September and have not been able to read or write much. My eyes fail me and I cannot usethem without pain. I have thought a great deal of thy father during my illness. I shall never see a ‘beloved physician’ like him. When I was in C—— the only visit I made was to the house where he lived,” [in former days]. Elsewhere he says again: “Reading Miss Jewett’s new book, “A Country Doctor,” I could not help thinking of thy dear father. I have never ceased to miss him and have always been thankful that I was permitted to know and love him.”
“I have been miserably ill in August and September and have not been able to read or write much. My eyes fail me and I cannot usethem without pain. I have thought a great deal of thy father during my illness. I shall never see a ‘beloved physician’ like him. When I was in C—— the only visit I made was to the house where he lived,” [in former days]. Elsewhere he says again: “Reading Miss Jewett’s new book, “A Country Doctor,” I could not help thinking of thy dear father. I have never ceased to miss him and have always been thankful that I was permitted to know and love him.”
“Don’t work too hard, too continuously,” he advised a young friend. “I have not been able for years to write more than half an hour at a time because I wrote too steadily long ago. My work, however, is nearly done. I am feeling what old age is more and more, pain, loneliness, and failing powers. But I have no right to complain. For the many blessings which remain I am very grateful, not the least of which is the love of my friends.”
Later, he wrote: “I can say but little for myself. The cold, wet season has been hard for me and has made me very sensible that I am old. I have little strength. Everything tires me. After writing a letter or seeing company, I feel exhausted.
“I am here [in Amesbury] at the election, and am glad of the result. I shall probably go backto Danvers soon. I dread the coming winter. But all will be as God wills and that will be best.”
But neither age nor illness made him neglect his vote.
Later, regretting a friend’s illness, he says:
“There is so much to be done in this world and so many of us are unable to take our part in the work our hands find to do.”
Again, he dreads the winter. “I wait for it in no defiant mood,” he says, “I can scarcely imagine that I am the same person who used to welcome it.”
A band of colored singers whom the Hampton Institute had trained to delight Northern ears with their music, came to the poet at Oak Knoll, and standing about him with a reverence born of their knowledge of what he had been to their race, they sang to him.
As the poet listened he was filled with remembrances of the days of slavery and the contrast of their present freedom and hope, and wept in gratitude and joy.
Happily, the length and sufferings marking the upward road of the race were concealed from him.