Part 19 (2/2)
His common sense was so great and his own habits so frugal, that no one could imagine a dollar wasted or misapplied that was confided to his stewards.h.i.+p. His benefactions were ceaseless, and they were one of the chief joys of his later life. The subject of what may be done for this or that person or cause is continually recurring in his letters.
Once I find this plea in verse after the manner of Burns:--
”O well-paid author, fat-fed scholar, Whose pockets jingle with the dollar, No sheriff's hand upon your collar, No duns to bother, Think on 't, a t.i.the of what ye swallow Would save your brother!”
And again and again there are pa.s.sages in his letters like the following: ”I hope the Industrial Home may be saved, and wish I was a rich man just long enough to help save it. As it is, if the subscription needs $30 to fill it up, I shall be glad to give the mite.” ”I have long followed Maurice,” he says again, ”in his work as a religious and social reformer--a true apostle of the gospel of humanity. He saw clearly, and in advance of his clerical brethren, the necessity of wise and righteous dealing with the momentous and appalling questions of labor and poverty.”
He wrote one day: ”If you go to Richmond, why don't you visit Hampton and Old Point Comfort, where that Christian knight and latter-day Galahad, General Armstrong, is making his holy experiment? I think it would be worth your while.”
General Armstrong and his brave work in founding and maintaining the Hampton School for the education, at first, of the colored people alone, and finally for the Indians also, was one of the near and living interests of Whittier's life. Often and often in his letters do we find references to the subject; either he regrets having to miss seeing the general, upon one of his Northern trips, or he rejoices in falling in with some of the teachers at Asquam Lake or elsewhere, or his note is jubilant over some new gift which will make the general's work for the year less difficult.
Once he writes: ”I am grieved to hear of General Armstrong's illness.
I am not surprised at it. He has been working in his n.o.ble cause beyond any mortal man's strength. He must have a rest if it is possible for him, and his friends must now keep up the school by redoubled efforts. Ah me! There is so much to be done in this world! I wish I were younger, or a millionaire.”
And yet again: ”I had the pleasure of sending General Armstrong at Christmas, with my annual subscription, one thousand dollars which a friend placed in my hand. I wish our friend could be relieved from the task of raising money by a hundred such donations.”
The choice of the early breakfast hour for his visits was his own idea. He was glad to hit upon a moment which was not subject to interruptions, one when he could talk at his ease of books and men.
These visits were always a surprise. He liked to be abroad in good season, and had rarely missed seeing the sun rise in forty years. He knew, too, that we were not late people, and that his visits could never be untimely. Occasionally, with the various evening engagements of a city, we were not altogether fit to receive him, but it was a pleasure to hear his footstep in the morning, and to know that we should find him in the library by the fire. He was himself a bad sleeper, seldom, as he said, putting a solid bar of sleep between day and day, and therefore often early abroad to question the secrets of the dawn. We owe much of the intimate friends.h.i.+p of our life to these morning hours spent in private, uninterrupted talk.
”I have lately felt great sympathy with ----,” he said one morning, ”for I have been kept awake one hundred and twenty hours--an experience I should not care to try again.”
One of Whittier's summer pleasures, in which he occasionally indulged himself, was a visit to the Isles of Shoals. He loved to see his friend Celia Thaxter in her island home, and he loved the freedom of a large hotel. He liked to make arrangements with a group of his more particular friends to meet him there; and when he was well enough to leave his room, he might be seen in some carefully chosen corner of the great piazzas, shady or sunny, as the day invited him, enjoying the keenest happiness in the voluntary society and conversation of those dear to him. Occasionally he would pa.s.s whole days in Celia Thaxter's parlor, watching her at her painting in the window, and listening to the talk around him. He wished to hear and know what interested others. He liked nothing better, he once said, than going into the ”store” in the old days at Amesbury, when it was a common centre, almost serving the purpose of what a club may be in these later days, and sitting upon a barrel to hear ”folks talk.” The men there did not know much about his poetry, but they understood his politics, and he was able to put in many a word to turn the vote of the town. In Celia Thaxter's parlor he found a different company, but his relations to the people who frequented that delightful place were practically the same. He wished to understand their point of view, if possible, and then, if he could find opportunity, he would help them to a higher standpoint.
I remember one season in particular, when the idle talk of idle persons had been drifting in and out during the day, while he sat patiently on in the corner of the pretty room. Mrs. Thaxter was steadily at work at her table, yet always hospitable, losing sight of no cloud or shadow or sudden gleam of glory in the landscape, and pointing the talk often with keen wit. Nevertheless, the idleness of it all palled upon him. It was Sunday, too, and he longed for something which would move us to ”higher levels.” Suddenly, as if the idea struck him like an inspiration, he rose, and taking a volume of Emerson from the little library he opened to one of the discourses, and handing it to Celia Thaxter said:
”Read that aloud, will thee? I think we should all like to hear it.”
She read it through at his bidding; then he took up the thread of the discourse, and talked long and earnestly upon the beauty and necessity of wors.h.i.+p--a necessity consequent upon the nature of man, upon his own weakness, and his consciousness of the Divine Spirit within him.
His whole heart was stirred, and he poured himself out towards us as if he longed, like the prophet of old, to breathe a new life into us.
I could see that he reproached himself for not having spoken out in this way before, but his enfranchised spirit took only a stronger flight for the delay.
I have never heard of Whittier's speaking in the meeting-house, although he was doubtless often ”moved” to do so; but to us who heard him on that day he became more than ever a light unto our feet. It was not an easy thing to do to stem the accustomed current of life in this way, and it is a deed only possible to those who, in the Bible phrase, ”walk with G.o.d.”
Such an unusual effort was not without its consequences. It was followed by a severe headache, and he was hardly seen abroad again during his stay.
We heard from him again, shortly after, under the shadow of the great hills where he always pa.s.sed a part of every year. He loved them, and wrote eloquently of the loveliness of nature at Ossipee: ”the Bearcamp winding down,” the long green valley close by the door, the long Sandwich and Waterville ranges, and Chocorua filling up the horizon from west to northeast.
The frequent loneliness of his life often found expression. Once he says:--
”I wish I could feel that I deserved a t.i.the even of the kind things said of me by my personal friends. If one could but _be_ as easily as preach! The confession of poor Burns might, I fear, be made of the best of us:--
”'G.o.d knows I'm no the thing I would be, Nor am I even the thing I could be.'
And yet I am thankful every day of my life that G.o.d has put it into the hearts of so many whom I love and honor and reverence to send me so many messages of good will and kindness. It is an unspeakable comfort in the lonely and darkening afternoon of life. Indeed, I can never feel quite alone so long as I know that all about me are those who turn to me with friendly interest, and, strange to say, with grat.i.tude. A sense of lack of desert on my part is a drawback, of course; but then, I say to myself, if my friends judge me by my aim and desire, and not by my poor performance, it may be all right and just.”
The painful solitude of his life after his dear niece's marriage was softened when he went to live with his cousins at Oak Knoll, in Danvers, a pleasant country seat, sheltered and suited to his needs.
Of this place Mrs. Spofford says, in a delightful biographical paper: ”The estate of Oak Knoll is one of some historical a.s.sociations, as here once lived the Rev. George Burroughs, the only clergyman in the annals of Salem witchcraft who was hung for dark dealings, Danvers having originally been a part of the town of Salem, where witchcraft came to a blaze, and was stamped out of existence.... The only relic on the place of its tragedy is the well of the Burroughs' house, which is still in the hay-field, and over which is the resting-place of the sounding-board of the pulpit in the church where the witches were tried.”
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