Whittier-land Part 6

Rev. J. C. Fletcher, in an article published in 1879, says that he was with Whittier at Salisbury Beach, in the summer of 1861, when he saw the remarkable mirage commemorated in these lines in "The Tent on the Beach:"--

"Sometimes, in calms of closing day, They watched the spectral mirage play; Saw low, far islands looming tall and nigh, And s.h.i.+ps, with upturned keels, sail like a sea the sky."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOUTH OF HAMPTON RIVER

Scene of "The Wreck of Rivermouth"]

Mr. Fletcher was spending several weeks that summer with his family in a tent on the beach. He says: "Here we were visited by friends from Newburyport and Amesbury. None were more welcome than Whittier and his sister, and two nieces, one of whom, Lizzie, as we called her, had the beautiful eyes--the grand features in both the poet and his sister.

Those eyes of his sister Elizabeth are most touchingly alluded to by Whittier when he refers to his sister's childhood in the old Snow-bound homestead:--

"'Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, Now bathed in the unfading green And holy peace of Paradise.'

"One day, late in the afternoon, I recall how Elizabeth was enjoying a cup of tea in the family tent, while Whittier and myself were seated upon a hillock of sand outside. It had been a peculiarly beautiful day, and as the sun began to decline, the calm sea was lit up with a dreamy grandeur wherein there seemed a mingling of rose-tint and color of pearls. All at once we noticed that the far-off Isles of Shoals, of which in clear days only the lighthouse could be seen, were lifted into the air, and the vessels out at sea were seen floating in the heavens.

Whittier told me that he never before witnessed such a sight. We called to the friends in the tent to come and enjoy the scene with us.

Elizabeth Whittier was then seeing from the sh.o.r.e the very island, reduplicated in the sky, where two years afterwards she met that fatal accident which, after months of suffering, terminated her existence."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SALISBURY BEACH, BEFORE THE COTTAGES WERE BUILT

Scene of "The Tent on the Beach"]

Elizabeth fell upon the rocks at Appledore in August, 1863. It was not thought at the time that she was seriously injured, and perhaps Mr.

Fletcher is wrong in attributing her death solely to this cause. For many years before and after the death of his sister, Mr. Whittier spent some days each summer at Appledore. It was at his insistence that Celia Thaxter undertook her charming book, "Among the Isles of Shoals."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HAMPTON RIVER MARSHES]

Other ballads of this region are "The Changeling," and "The New Wife and the Old." The ancient house which is the scene of the last named poem is still standing, and may be seen by pa.s.sengers on the Boston and Maine road, near the Hampton station. It has a gambrel roof, and is on the left when the train is going westward. On the right as the train pa.s.ses Hampton Falls station may be seen in the distance, shaded by magnificent elms, the house of Miss Gove, in which Whittier died. It was upon these broad meadows and the distant line of the beach that his eyes rested, when he took his last look upon the scenery he loved and has so faithfully pictured in his verse. The photographs here reproduced were taken by his grandnephew a few days before his death, and the last time he stood on the balcony where his form appears. The room in which he died opens upon this balcony. It was his cousin, Joseph Cartland, who happened to stand by his left side when the picture was taken. This house is worthy of notice aside from its connection with Whittier, as one of the finest specimens of colonial architecture, its rooms filled with the furniture and heirlooms of the ancestors of the present proprietor. A trolley line from Amesbury now pa.s.ses the house.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOUSE OF MISS GOVE, HAMPTON FALLS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHAMBER IN WHICH WHITTIER DIED]

As a coincidence that was at the time considered singular, the superst.i.tion in regard to the matter of thirteen at table was recalled when Whittier dined for the last time with his friends. During the summer he had lodged at the house of Miss Gove, taking his meals with others of his party in a house adjoining. One evening all had taken their places at the table except Mr. Whittier. His niece noticed there were twelve seated, and without comment took her plate to a small table in a corner of the room. When her uncle came in, he said in a cheery way, "Why, Lizzie, what has thee been doing, that they put thee in the corner?" Some evasive reply was made, but probably Mr. Whittier guessed the reason, for he was well versed in such superst.i.tions, and sometimes laughingly heeded them. In a few minutes, Mr. Wakeman, the Baptist clergyman of the village, just returned from his summer vacation, came in unexpectedly, and took the thirteenth seat that had just been vacated. Whittier's grandnephew, to again break the omen, took his plate over to the table in the corner with his mother. It was all done in a playful way, but the matter was recalled while we were at breakfast next morning. The news then came of the paralysis which had affected Mr. Whittier while dressing to join us. He never again came to the dining room. Another incident of the same evening was more impressive, and remains to this day inexplicable. After sitting for a while in the parlor conversing with friends, he took his candle to retire, and as he said "Goodnight" to his friends, and pa.s.sed out of the door, an old clock (the clock over the desk) struck once! It had not been wound up for years, and as no one present had ever before heard it strike, it excited surprise--the more so as the hands were not in position for striking. It was an incident that had a marked effect upon a party little inclined to heed omens; and in many ways, without success, we tried to get the clock to strike once more.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AMESBURY PUBLIC LIBRARY]

A beautiful little lake in the northern part of Amesbury, formerly known as Kimball's Pond, is the scene of "The Maids of Att.i.tash." Its present name was conferred by Whittier because huckleberries abound in this region, and Att.i.tash is the Indian name for this berry. His poem pictures the maidens with "baskets berry-filled," watching

... "in idle mood The gleam and shade of lake and wood."

In a letter to the editor of "The Atlantic" inclosing this ballad, he says of Att.i.tash: "It is as pretty as St. Mary's Lake which Wordsworth sings, in fact a great deal prettier. The glimpse of the Pawtuckaway range of mountains in Nottingham seen across it is very fine, and it has n.o.ble groves of pines and maples and ash trees." A trolley line from Amesbury to Haverhill pa.s.ses this lake; but this is not the line which pa.s.ses the Whittier birthplace.

Annually, in the month of May, the Quarterly Meeting of the Society of Friends is held at Amesbury, and during the fifty-six years of Mr.

Whittier's residence in the village, this was an occasion on which he kept open house, and wherever he happened to be, he came home to enjoy the company of friends, giving up all other engagements. He could not be detained in Boston or Danvers, or wherever else he might be, when the time for this meeting approached. It was an annual event in which his mother and sister took much interest, and after they pa.s.sed away, the custom was maintained with the same spirit of hospitality with which they had invested it, to the last year of his life.

Among Mr. Whittier's neighbors was an aged pair, a brother and sister, whose simple, old-fas.h.i.+oned ways and quaint conversation he much enjoyed. He thought they worked harder than they had need to do, as the infirmities of age fell upon them, for they had acc.u.mulated a competency, and on one occasion he suggested that they leave for younger hands some of the labor to which they had been accustomed. But the sister said, "We must lay by something for our last sickness, and have enough left to bury us." Whittier replied, "Mary, did thee ever know any one in his last sickness to stick by the way for want of funds?" The beautiful public library of Amesbury was built with the money of this aged pair, whose will was made at the suggestion of Whittier. Part of the money Whittier left to hospitals and schools would have been given to this library, had he not known that it was provided for by his generous neighbors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHITTIER AT THE AGE OF FORTY-NINE]

In his poem "The Common Question," Whittier refers to a saying of his pet parrot, "Charlie," a bird that afforded him much amus.e.m.e.nt, and sometimes annoyance, by his tricks and manners. His long residence in this Quaker household had the effect to temper his vocabulary, and he almost forgot some phrases his unG.o.dly captors had taught him. But there would be occasional relapses. He had the freedom of the house, for Whittier objected to having him caged. One Sunday morning, when people were pa.s.sing on the way to meeting, Charlie had gained access to the roof, and mounted one of the chimneys. There he stood, dancing and using language he unfortunately had not quite forgotten, to the amazement of the church-goers! Whatever Quaker discipline he received on this occasion did not cure him of the chimney habit, but some time later he was effectually cured; for while dancing on this high perch he fell down one of the flues and was lost for some days. At last his stifled voice was heard in the parlor, in the wall over the mantel. A pole was let down the flue and he was rescued, but so sadly demoralized that he could only faintly whisper, "What does Charlie want?" He died from the effect of this accident, but we will not dismiss him without another story in which he figures: He had the bad habit of nipping at the leg of a person whose trousers happened to be hitched above the top of the boot. One day Mr. Whittier was being worn out by a prosy harangue from a visitor who sat in a rocking-chair, and swayed back and forth as he talked. As he rocked, Whittier noticed that his trousers were reaching the point of danger, and now at length he had something that interested him. Charlie was sidling up unseen by the orator. There was a little nip followed by a sharp exclamation, and the thread of the discourse was broken! The relieved poet now had the floor as an apologist for his discourteous parrot.

At a time when Salmon P. Chase was in Lincoln's Cabinet, but was beginning to think of the possibility of supplanting him at the next presidential election, he visited Ma.s.sachusetts, and called upon his old anti-slavery friend, Mr. Whittier. Chase told him among other things that he did not like Abraham Lincoln's stories. Whittier said, "But do they not always have an application, like the parables?" "Oh, yes," said Chase, "but they are not decent like the parables!"

Henry Taylor was a village philosopher of Amesbury given to the discussion of high themes in a somewhat eccentric manner, and Whittier had a warm side for such odd characters. Once when Emerson was his guest, he invited Taylor to meet him, knowing that the Concord philosopher would be amused if not otherwise interested in his Amesbury brother. Taylor found him a good listener, and gave him the full benefit of his theories and imaginings. Next morning Whittier called on him to inquire what he thought of Emerson. "Oh," said he, "I find your friend a very intelligent man. He has adopted some of my ideas."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WOOD GIANT, AT STURTEVANT'S, CENTRE HARBOR

"Alone, the level sun before; Below, the lake's green islands; Beyond, in misty distance dim, The rugged Northern Highlands."]

The likeness of Whittier on page 97 is from a daguerreotype taken in October, 1856, and has never before been published in any volume written by or about the poet. Mr. Thomas E. Boutelle, the artist who took this daguerreotype, is now living in Amesbury at the age of eighty-five. He tells me how he happened to get this picture,--a rather difficult feat, as it was hard to induce the poet to sit for his portrait. He had set up a daguerrean saloon in the little square near Whittier's house, and Whittier often came in for a social chat, but persistently refused to give a sitting. One day he came in with his younger brother Franklin, whose picture he wanted. When it was finished, Franklin said, "Now, Greenleaf, I want your picture." After much persuasion Greenleaf consented, and Mr. Boutelle showed him the plate before it was fully developed, with the remark that he thought he could do better if he might try again. By this bit of strategy he secured the extra daguerreotype here reproduced, but he took care not to show it in Amesbury, for fear Whittier would call it in. He took it to Exeter, N. H., and put it in a show-case at his door. His saloon was burned, and all he saved was this show-case and the daguerreotype, which many of the poet's old friends think to be his best likeness of that period.

Several of Whittier's poems referring to New Hamps.h.i.+re scenery celebrate particular trees remarkable for age and size. For these giants of the primeval forest he ever had a loving admiration. The great elms that shade the house in which he died would no doubt have had tribute in verse if his life had been spared. He invited the attention of every visitor to them. The immense pine on the Sturtevant farm, near Centre Harbor, called out a magnificent tribute in his poem "The Wood Giant." Our engraving on page 99 gives some idea of "the Anakim of pines." There is a grove at Lee, N. H., on the estate of his dearly-loved cousins, the Cartlands, to which he refers in his poem "A Memorial:"--

"Green be those hillside pines forever, And green the meadowy lowlands be, And green the old memorial beeches, Name-carven in the woods of Lee!"

There is a "Whittier Elm" at West Ossipee, and indeed wherever he chose a summer resort, some wood giant still bears his name.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CARTLAND HOUSE, NEWBURYPORT

Where Whittier spent the last winter of his life. A century ago the residence of the father of Harriet Livermore.]

Visitors to Whittier-Land will find an excursion to Oak Knoll, in Danvers, to be full of interest. Here the poet, after the marriage of his niece, spent a large part of each of the last fifteen years of his life in the family of his cousins, the Misses Johnson and Mrs. Woodman.

Without giving up his residence in Amesbury, where his house was always kept open for him during these years by Hon. George W. Cate, he found in the beautiful seclusion of the fine estate at Oak Knoll a restful and congenial home. Many souvenirs of the poet are here treasured, and the historical a.s.sociations of the place are worthy of note. Here lived the Rev. George Burroughs, who suffered death as a wizard more than two centuries ago. He was a man of immense strength of muscle, and his astonis.h.i.+ng athletic feats were cited at his trial as evidence of his dealings with the Evil One. The well of his homestead is shown under the boughs of an immense elm, and the canopy now over it was the sounding-board of the pulpit of an ancient church of the parish so unenviably identified with the witchcraft delusion.

Inquiries are sometimes made in regard to the places in Boston a.s.sociated with the memory of Whittier. His first visit to the city was in his boyhood, when he came as the guest of Nathaniel Greene, a distant kinsman of his, who was editor of the "Statesman" and postmaster of Boston. Many of his earliest poems were published in the "Statesman" under a.s.sumed names, and until lately never recognized as his. Not one of these juvenile productions, of which I have happened upon many specimens, was ever collected. When he was editing the "Manufacturer," he boarded with the publisher of that paper, Rev. Mr.

Collier, at No. 30 Federal Street. When visiting Boston in middle life, he felt most at home in the old Marlboro Hotel on Was.h.i.+ngton Street. He would often leave the hotel for a morning walk, and find a hearty welcome at the breakfast hour from his dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. James T. Fields, at No. 148 Charles Street. In later life, at the home of Governor Claflin, at No. 63 Mount Vernon Street, he was frequently an honored guest. It was here he first met Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, who gives this account of their meeting: "On this morning he came in across the thick carpet with that nervous but soft step which every one who ever saw him remembers. Straight as his own pine tree, high of stature, and lofty of mien, he moved like a flash of light or thought. The first impression which one received was of such eagerness to see his friends that his heart outran his feet. He seemed to suppose that he was receiving, not extending the benediction; and he offered the delicate tribute to his friend of allowing him to perceive the sense of debt. It would have been the subtlest flattery, had he not been the most honest and straightforward of men. We talked--how can I say of what? Or of what not? We talked till our heads ached and our throats were sore; and when we had finished we began again. I remember being surprised at his quick, almost boyish, sense of fun, and at the ease with which he rose from it into the atmosphere of the gravest, even the most solemn, discussion. He was a delightful converser, amusing, restful, stimulating, and inspiring at once." The winter of 1882-83 he spent at the Winthrop Hotel, on Bowdoin Street, where the Commonwealth Hotel now stands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHITEFIELD'S CHURCH AND BIRTHPLACE OF GARRISON]

A visit to Whittier-Land is incomplete if Old Newbury and Newburyport (originally one town) are left out of the itinerary. At the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Newbury, in 1885, a letter from Whittier was read in which he recites some of the reasons for his interest in the town. He says: "Although I can hardly call myself a son of the ancient town, my grandmother, Sarah Greenleaf of blessed memory, was its daughter, and I may therefore claim to be its grandson. Its genial and learned historian, Joshua Coffin, was my first school-teacher, and all my life I have lived in sight of its green hills, and in hearing of its Sabbath bells. Its history and legends are familiar to me.... The town took no part in the witchcraft horror, and got none of its old women and town charges hanged for witches. 'Goody' Morse had the spirit rappings in her house two hundred years earlier than the Fox girls did, and somewhat later a Newbury minister in wig and knee-buckles rode, Bible in hand, over to Hampton to lay a ghost who had materialized himself and was stamping up and down stairs in his military boots.... Whitefield set the example since followed by the Salvation Army, of preaching in its streets, and now lies buried under one of the churches with almost the honor of sainthood. William Lloyd Garrison was born in Newbury. The town must be regarded as the Alpha and Omega of the anti-slavery agitation."

The grandmother to whom he refers was born in that part of the town nearest to his own birthplace. The outlet to Country Brook is nearly opposite the Greenleaf place, and Whittier's poem "The Home-Coming of the Bride" describes the crossing of the river and the bridal procession up the valley of the lesser stream, a part of which is known as Millvale because of the mills alluded to in the poem.

The house in which Garrison was born is on School Street next to the Old South meeting-house, in which Whitefield preached, and under the pulpit of which his bones are deposited. Whitefield died in the house next to Garrison's birthplace. The ancient Coffin house, built in 1645, the home of Joshua Coffin, to whom Whittier addressed his poem "To My Old Schoolmaster," is on High Street, about half a mile below State Street. Whittier's cousins, Joseph and Gertrude Cartland, with whom he spent a large part of the last year of his life, lived at No. 244 High Street, at the corner of Broad.

WHITTIER'S SENSE OF HUMOR

III

WHITTIER'S SENSE OF HUMOR

Few men of his day, of equal prominence, have been so greatly misunderstood as Whittier by the public which knows him only by the writings he allowed to be published. These reveal him on the one hand as an earnest reformer bitterly denouncing the sins of a guilty people, and on the other as a prophet of G.o.d, with a message of cheer to those who turn them from their evil ways. While slavery existed, he lashed the inst.i.tution with a whip of scorpions, and in later years, in poems of exquisite sweetness, he sang of "The Eternal Goodness," and brought words of consolation and hope to despairing souls. In the popular mind there has been built up for him a reputation for extreme seriousness and even severity. To be sure, some of the poems in his collected works have witty and even merry lines, but they usually have a serious purpose. The real fun and frolic of his nature were known only to those privileged with his intimacy. He delighted at times in throwing off his mantle of prophecy, and unbending even to jollity, in his home life and among friends. The presence of a stranger was a check to such exuberance. And it was not from any unsocial habit that he fell into this restraint. It was because he found that the unguarded words of a public man are often given a weight they were not intended to bear. If he unbent as one might whose every word has not come to be thought of value, it led to misunderstandings. In his home and among near friends he revealed a charming readiness to engage in lively and frolicsome conversation.