Part 19 (1/2)
His niece, who bears the name of his beloved sister, was then the mistress of his house, and we were soon made heartily welcome.
Everything was plain and neat as became a Friend's household; but as the village had grown to be a stirring place, and the house stood close upon the dusty road, such charming neatness must sometimes have been a difficult achievement. The noonday meal was soon served and soon ended, and then we sat down behind the half-closed blinds, looking out upon the garden, the faded vines, and almost leafless trees. It was a cosy room, with its Franklin stove, at this season surmounted by a bouquet, and a table between the windows, where was a larger bouquet, which Whittier himself had gathered that morning in antic.i.p.ation of our arrival. He seemed brighter and better than we had dared to hope, and was in excellent mood for talking. Referring again to the Millerites, who had been so reanimated by the forest fires, he said he had been deeply impressed lately with their deplorable doctrines. ”Continually disappointed because we don't all burn up on a sudden, they forget to be thankful for their preservation from the dire fate they predict with so much complacency.”
He had just received a proof of his poem ”Miriam,” with the introduction, and he could not be content until they had both been read aloud to him. After the reading they were duly commented upon, and revised until he thought he could do no more; yet twice before our departure the proofs were taken out of the hand-bag where they were safely stowed away, and again more or less altered.
Whittier's ever-growing fame was not taken by him as a matter of course. ”I cannot think very well of my own things,” he used to say; ”and what is mere fame worth when thee is at home, alone, and sick with headaches, unable either to read or to write?” Nevertheless, he derived very great pleasure and consolation from the letters and tributes which poured in upon him from hearts he had touched or lives he had quickened. ”That I like,” he would say sometimes; ”that is worth having.” But he must often have known the deeps of sadness in winter evenings when he was too ill to touch book or pen, and when he could do nothing during the long hours but sit and think over the fire.
We slept in Elizabeth's chamber. The portrait of their mother, framed in autumn leaves gathered in the last autumn of her life, hung upon the wall. Here, too, as in our bedroom at d.i.c.kens's, the Diary of Pepys lay on the table. d.i.c.kens had read his copy faithfully, and written notes therein. Of this copy the leaves had not been cut; but with it lay the ”Prayers of the Ages,” and volumes of poems, which had all been well read, and ”Pickwick” upon the top.
In the year 1867 Charles d.i.c.kens came to America to give his famous Readings. Whittier, as we have seen, was seldom tempted out of his country home and habitual ways, but d.i.c.kens was for one moment too much for him. To our surprise, he wrote to ask if he could possibly get a seat to hear him. ”I see there is a crazy rush for tickets.” A favorable answer was dispatched to him as soon as practicable, but he had already repented of the indiscretion. ”My dear Fields,” he wrote, ”up to the last moment I have hoped to occupy the seat so kindly promised me for this evening. But I find I must give it up. Gladden with it the heart of some poor wretch who dangled and s.h.i.+vered all in vain in your long _queue_ the other morning. I must read my 'Pickwick' alone, as the Marchioness played cribbage. I should so like, nevertheless, to see d.i.c.kens and shake that creative hand of his! It is as well, doubtless, so far as he is concerned, that I cannot do it; he will have enough and too much of that, I fear. I dreamed last night I saw him surrounded by a mob of ladies, each with her scissors snipping at his hair, and he seemed in a fair way to be 'shaven and shorn,' like the Priest in 'The House that Jack Built.'”
The large events of humanity were to Whittier a portion of his own experience, his personal life being, in the ordinary sense, devoid of incident. The death of Charles d.i.c.kens, in 1871, was a personal loss, just as his life had been a living gain to this remote and invalid man. One long quiet summer afternoon shortly after, Whittier joined us for the sake of talking about d.i.c.kens. He told us what suns.h.i.+ne came from him into his own solemn and silent country life, and what grateful love he must ever bear to him. He wished to hear all that could be told of him as a man. Tea came, and the sun went down, and still he talked and questioned, and then, after a long silence, he said suddenly: ”What's he doing now? Sometimes I say, in Shakespeare's phrase, O for some 'courteous ghost,' but nothing ever comes to me. He was so human I should think thee must see him sometimes. It seems as if he were the very person to manifest himself and give us a glimpse beyond. I believe I have faith; I sometimes think I have; but this desire to see just a little way is terribly strong in me. I have expressed something of it in my verses to Mrs. Child about Loring.”
He spoke also of the significance of our prayers; of their deep value to our spirit in constantly renewing the sense of dependence; and further, since we ”surely find that our prayers are answered, what blindness and fatuity there is in neglect or abuse of our privilege!”
He was thinking of editing a new edition of John Woolman. He hoped to induce certain people who would read his own books to read that, by writing a preface for it.
The death of Henry Ward Beecher was also a loss and a sadness to him in his solitary life. ”I am saddened by the death of Beecher,” he wrote; ”he was so strong, so generous, so warm hearted, and so brave and stalwart in so many good causes. It is a mighty loss. He had faults, like all of us, and needed forgiveness; but I think he could say, with David of old, that he would rather fall into the Lord's hands than into the hands of man.”
It is antic.i.p.ating the years and interrupting the narrative to mention here a few of the men who gladdened his later life by their friends.h.i.+p, but the subject demands a brief s.p.a.ce before we return to the current story of his days.
Matthew Arnold went to see him upon his arrival in this country, and it is needless to say that Whittier derived sincere pleasure from the visit; but Arnold's delightful recognition of Whittier's ”In School Days” as one of the perfect poems which must live, gave him fresh a.s.surance of fulfilled purpose in existence. He had followed Arnold with appreciation from his earliest appearance in the world of letters, and knew him, as it were, ”by heart” long before a personal interview was possible. In a letter written after Arnold's return to England, he says: ”I share thy indignation at the way our people have spoken of him--one of the foremost men of our time, a true poet, a wise critic, and a brave, upright man, to whom all the English-speaking people owe a debt of grat.i.tude. I am sorry I could not see him again.”
When the end came, a few years later, he was among the first to say, ”What a loss English literature has sustained in the death of Matthew Arnold!”
As I have already suggested, he kept the run of all the noteworthy persons who came to Boston quite as surely as they kept in pursuit of him.
”I hope thee will see the wonderful prophet of the Bramo Somaj, Mozoomdar, before he leaves the country. I should have seen him in Boston but for illness last week. That movement in India is the greatest event in the history of Christianity since the days of Paul.
”So the author of 'Christie Johnstone' is dead. I have read and re-read that charming little story with ever-increasing admiration.
I am sorry for the coa.r.s.eness of some of his later writings; but he was, after all, a great novelist, second only in our times to George Eliot, d.i.c.kens, and Thackeray.... I shall be glad to hear more about Mr. Wood's and Mrs. ----'s talks. Any hint or sign or token from the unseen and spiritual world is full of solemn interest, standing as I do on the sh.o.r.e of 'that vast ocean I must sail so soon.'...
”You will soon have Amelia Edwards again with you. I am sorry that I have not been able to call on her. Pray a.s.sure her of my sincere respect and admiration.”
And again: ”Have thee seen and heard the Hindoo Mohini? He seems to have really converted some people. I hear that one of them has got a Bible!”
The phrase that he is ”beset by pilgrims” occurs frequently in his letters, contrasted with pleased expressions, and descriptions of visits from Phillips Brooks, Canon Farrar, Governor and Mrs. Claflin, and other friends whose faces were always a joy to him.
I have turned aside from the narrative of every-day life to mention these friends; but it is interesting to return and recall the earlier years, when he came one day to dine in Charles Street with Mr.
Emerson. As usual, his coming had been very uncertain. He was never to be counted upon as a visitor, but at length the moment came when he was in better health than ordinary, and the stars were in conjunction.
I can recall his saying to Emerson: ”I had to choose between hearing thee at thy lecture and coming here to see thee. I chose to see thee.
I could not do both.” Emerson was heard to say to him solicitously: ”I hope you are pretty well, sir! I believe you formerly bragged of bad health.”
It was Whittier's custom, however, to make quite sure that all ”lions”
and other disturbing elements were well out of the way before he turned his steps to the library in Charles Street. I recall his coming one Sunday morning when we were at church, and waiting until our return. He thought that would be a safe moment! He was full, as Madame de Sevigne says, ”_de conversations infinies_” being especially interested just then in the question of schools for the freedmen, and eagerly discussed ways and means for starting and supporting them.
We were much amused by his ingenuity in getting contributions from his own town. It appears he had taken into consideration the many carriage-makers in Amesbury. He suggested that each one of these men should give some part of a carriage--one the wheels, one the body, one the furnis.h.i.+ngs, thus dividing it in all among twenty workmen. When it was put together, there stood a carriage which was sold for two hundred dollars, exactly the sum requisite for Amesbury to give.
He had just parted from his niece, who had gone to teach the freed people in a small Southern village. He could not help feeling anxious for her welfare. She and her young co-workers would be the only Northerners in the place. Of course, such new comers would be regarded with no friendly eye by the ”mean whites,” and their long distance from home and from any protection would make their position a very forlorn one indeed if the natives should turn against them. He was fearful lest they should be half starved. However, they had departed in excellent spirits, which went a long way to cheer everybody concerned.
He was also full of sympathy and anxiety regarding the well being of a young colored girl here at the North, whose sad situation he had been called upon to relieve; and after discussing ways and laying plans for her comfort (which he afterwards adhered to, until in later years she was placed in a happy home of her own), he went on to discuss the needs of yet a third young person, another victim of the war, who was then teaching in Amesbury. He was almost as remarkable as Mrs. Child in his power of making his own small provision into a broad mantle to cover many shoulders. He was undaunted, too, in his efforts, where his own resources failed, to get what was needed by the help of others.