“Oh—Mr. Whittier!” Her voice choked, her face lighted, her eyes filled with tears. She saw the past with its many trials and sufferings, and to relieve these whenever possible, that blessed presence whose visits to her in her need had not been in one respect as is wrongly said of the angels—“few and far between.” In a moment she added brokenly, “When you need him, you never have to say, ‘Come!’ he’s always there!”
He was “always there” for any need of any one that he could meet, and he could meet many and diverse needs. For his was his Master’s definition of his neighbor. There was nothing in the range of human experience to which he did not accord open-hearted sympathy—except meanness of motive and falsity of any kind. Yet mixed with hatred of the sin was always compassion for the sinner; for no empty words to him were these:
“And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust.”
VIII
It was not Whittier’s habit to say in word or manner,
“Vex not the poet’s mind
With thy shallow wit.”
On the contrary, if the wit were shallow this poet was likely to gather amusement from its exhibition, and so reimburse himself for any small outlay of patience. Nor was this all, nor even half. For if the best in persons was small, it was his joy to bring out this best. So he found interest in persons in whom others could see none and sometimes developed in them unexpected possibilities. For more than anything except faith in God, he had faith in men; speaking reverently, he read them Godward—as they were meant to be.
Yet his often silent laugh at men’s foibles was hearty; and nothing so amused him as the bewildered expression of one lost in the mazes of a joke. And not seldom he tried his hand at bringing such an expression; for he had an immense enjoyment of credulity.