(handwritten note)
Dr Holmes.
Beloved physician of an age of ail
When grave prescriptions fail
Thy songs have cheer and healing for us all
As David's had for Saul.
John G Whittier
Hampton Falls, NH
Aug 26 1892
The above fac-simile of the last verse written by Mr. Whittier, is kindly loaned us by the "Boston Journal." The following letter was sent with the verse:
Hampton Falls, August.
Dear Mr. Wingate:
I have only time and strength to write a single verse expressive of my love and admiration of my dear old friend, Dr. Holmes.
John G. Whittier.
[1] "The History of Haverhill, Mass.; from its first settlement in 1640 to the year 1860. By George Wingate Chase, Haverhill. Published by the author, 1861."
[2] The foregoing statements are taken from the Whittier genealogy. But the author finds that there are a few slight discrepancies of date between this book and the inscriptions on the family tombstones in Amesbury. The tombstones say that John Whittier died "11th of 6 mo., 1831," and that Mary died "1st mo. 7, 1861."
[3] Whittier has thus alluded to this surmise:—
"The name the Gallic exile bore,
St. Malo! from thy ancient mart,
Became upon our Western shore
Greenleaf for Feuillevert."
[4] It may be added that the ancestral home of the Longfellows is still standing in Byfield, about five miles distant from the Whittier homestead in Haverhill. (See the author's Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, p. 15.)
[5] The name of Daniel Webster's paternal grandmother was Susannah Bachelor, or Batchelder.
[6] See histories of Lynn and Newbury, passim.
[7] For many items of information concerning this strange woman we are indebted to the sketch of her published by Miss Rebecca I. Davis, of East Haverhill.
[8] The old brown school-house is now no more, having been removed to make room for a reservoir.
[9] This was in 1665, when Milton was living at Giles-Chalfont. Ellwood says: "After some common discourse had passed between us, he called for a manuscript of his, which he delivered to me, bidding me take it home with me and read it at my leisure; and, when I had done so, return it to him with my judgment thereon." It was "Paradise Lost." When Ellwood returned it, and was asked his opinion, he gave it, and added: "'Thou hast said much here of "Paradise Lost," but what hast thou to say of "Paradise Found"?' He made no answer, but sat some time in a muse."
[10] See Appendix II.
[11] See note on p. 301.
[12] Mr. Whittier quotes this fine ballad in Vol. II. p. 243 of his prose works, but with numerous changes of punctuation and phrase. The differences between the poem as it there appears and as it is given in his own edition of Brainard, published in 1832, seem to show that he has amended the ballad and punctuated it to suit himself, or else has quoted it from memory, or at third or fourth remove. It must be admitted that the changes are all improvements, however they were made. The ballad is quoted above, however, as it appears in Brainard's Poems.
[13] "He gave us a kind word of approval," says Whittier, "and invited us to his mountain home, on the banks of the Pemigewasset, an invitation which, two years afterwards, we accepted."
[14] Twenty-one of these persons were Quakers, as Mr. Whittier and the writer proved by actual count of the names on Mr. Whittier's fac-simile copy of the Declaration.
[15] Mr. Whittier here made a slip of memory. His first work was "Legends of New England," as he himself testifies, in his own handwriting, in a memorandum sent to the New England Historic-Genealogical Society.
[16] For these details about days on the Bearcamp, the writer is indebted to Dr. Robert R. Andrews, an acquaintance of the poet.
[17] The writer remembers once speaking with a laborer whom Mr. Whittier had employed. The good fellow could not conceal his admiration for the poet, "Why," he said, "you wouldn't think it, would you, but he talks just like common folks. We was talkin' about the apples one day, and he said, 'Some years they ain't wuth pickin','—just like anybody, you know; ain't stuck up at all, and yet he's a great man, you know. He likes to talk with farmers and common folks; he don't go much with the bigbugs;—one of the nicest men, and liberal with his money, too."
[18] The Emperor has translated Whittier's "Cry of a Lost Soul" into Portuguese, and has sent to the poet several specimens of the Amazonian bird whose peculiar note suggested the poem.
[19] Mrs. Sargent's "Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical Club," pp. 301, 302.
[20] The same sterling material that went to the making of the Quaker went also to the making of the Puritan farmer-and-artisan victors of Naseby, and Worcester, and Marston Moor. The same faults characterized each class. In stiff-backed independence and scorn of the gilt-edged poetry of conventional manners, and in the absurd extreme to which they carried that independence and scorn, the Quaker and the Puritan were alike. Only the Quaker out-puritaned the Puritan,—was much more consistent in his fanatical purism, scrawny asceticism, and contempt for distinguished manners and the noble imaginative arts.
[21] In his work "No Cross, No Crown."
[22] Their ideas on this subject are very well stated in the following words taken from a Quaker pamphlet by Mary Brook: "Solomon saith, 'The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, are from the Lord.' If the Lord alone can prepare the heart, stir it up, or incline it towards unfeigned holiness, how can any man approach him acceptably, till his heart be prepared by him?—and how can he know this preparation except he wait in silence to feel it?"
[23] See Appendix I.
[24] Mrs. John T. Sargent's "Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical Club."
[25] Hear Whittier himself on the subject:—
"Without intending any disparagement of my peaceable ancestry for many generations, I have still strong suspicions that somewhat of the old Norman blood, something of the grim Berserker spirit, has been bequeathed to me. How else can I account for the intense childish eagerness with which I listened to the stories of old campaigners who sometimes fought their battles over again in my hearing? Why did I, in my young fancy, go up with Jonathan, the son of Saul, to smite the garrisoned Philistines of Michmash, or with the fierce son of Nun against the cities of Canaan? Why was Mr. Greatheart, in Pilgrim's Progress, my favorite character? What gave such fascination to the grand Homeric encounter between Christian and Apollyon in the valley? Why did I follow Ossian over Morven's battle-fields, exulting in the vulture-screams of the blind scald over his fallen enemies? Still, later, why did the newspapers furnish me with subjects for hero-worship in the half-demented Sir Gregor McGregor, and Ypsilanti at the head of his knavish Greeks? I can account for it only on the supposition that the mischief was inherited,—an heirloom from the old sea-kings of the ninth century."—Prose Works, II., 390, 391.
[26] The beginning of this decade nearly coincides with the fourth or final period in our classification, upon the consideration of which we shall now enter.
[27] What is the subtle fascination that lurks in such bits of winter poetry as the following, collected by the writer out of his reading?
"Yesterday the sullen year
Saw the snowy whirlwind fly."—Gray.
"All winter drives along the darkened air."—Thomson.
"High-ridged the whirled drift has almost reached
The powdered keystone of the churchyard porch;
Mute hangs the hooded bell; the tombs lie buried."—Grahame.
"Alas! alas! thou snow-smitten wood of
Troy, and mountains of Ida."—Sophocles.
"O hard, dull bitterness of cold."—Whittier.
"And in the narrow house o' death
Let winter round me rave."—Burns.
"The mesmerizer, Snow,
With his hand's first sweep
Put the earth to sleep."—Robert Browning.
"And the cakèd snow is shuffled
From the plough-boy's heavy shoon."—Keats.
[28] "There is a story," says Dr. George E. Ellis, "that Burroughs got access to the king out of doors, while his Majesty was playing tennis. As Burroughs kept on his hat while accosting the king, the latter gracefully removed his plumed cap and bowed. The Quaker, put to the blush, said, 'Thee need'st not remove thy hat.' 'Oh,' replied the king, 'it is of no consequence, only that when the king and another gentleman are talking together it is usual for one of them to take off his hat.'"
[29] Mr. Whittier stated to a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society that it was his intention "at some time to prepare a full and exhaustive history of the relations of Puritan and Quaker in the seventeenth century." It may be added that the newspaper articles quoted above, with the several replications of their authors, may all be found in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for 1880-81 (see the index of that volume).
[30] "The Pastoral Letter" was an idiotic manifesto of the clergy of Massachusetts aimed at the Grimké sisters.