Two friends of the poet had been invited to his house to tea.
In the garden room with the flashings of the open fire pointing and illustrating his words, Whittier sat entertaining his guests with a fish story—a whale story in which the originator had striven to outdo Jonah. The poet’s countenance was as grave as a judge’s; his eyes were now dropped as if recalling the points of the story—which lost nothing in their narration—and now fastened upon the faces of his listeners. He found one hearer’s eyes dilated and her lips parted in absolute absorption and faith. With unshaken gravity the poet continued, until the voice of his other listener broke in upon the tale with the suggestion that this was really a most remarkable yarn. Like a flash he turned upon her in mock anger. “Thee doubts that, Lucy?” he cried. “Why, a Quaker told me that story.” But the spell being broken, he laughed as heartily as the others.
A former resident of Amesbury brought up most strictly, and rigid in adherence to her tenets, was taken out of these grooves and put into an entirely different life in New York City, a life much more liberal in creed and practice. The unwonted freedom delighted her and she came home to visit, full of enthusiasm for her new surroundings. She was welcomed by the poet who liked her well. With secret note of the new vivacity in look and manner, he asked her with much interest, “And how does thee like New York?”
At the question her enthusiasm burst forth, and she declared with unction that she liked it very, very much.
A sparkle of mischief kindled in the poet’s eye. “Thee likes it because it is so wicked,” he commented demurely.
But although the poet could laugh at others, never did he put himself in a position to be laughed at. So great was his sensitiveness, that his friends have often heard him say how keenly he felt mistakes of his which he alone had perceived—or perhaps imagined; for he was so resourceful and quick at retort that nobody could succeed in cornering him in an argument or a situation.
When in the days of his later fame he had that well-known meeting with the Emperor of Brazil, where Dom Pedro in the fashion of his country had embraced the poet, the company present after the Emperor’s departure began to rally the poet upon this form of greeting. But Whittier turned to his hostess with that gleam of fun in his eyes which his friends knew so well, and retorted, “That was meant for thee!”
Unlike many persons, themselves apt, he enjoyed other people’s wit. It was worth a thousand miles’ journey to hear him say, “Capital! Capital!” accompanying the words and his laugh with that light blow of his hand upon his knee which was an exclamation point in pantomime. Such a gesture must have come into play when he learned Harriet Livermore’s reception of his description of herself in the “not unfeared, half welcome guest” of “Snow Bound.” She is said to have retorted, “He always was a saucy boy!”