“A man’s a man for a’ that.”
For Whittier lived so much in the realities that he held men as they stood in the ranks of character, and in reading them he was wonderfully keen.
So, he talked and listened and joked and laughed with his fellow-townsmen, and reckoned among them many a true friend.
In a letter to Mrs. F—— written in the November of 1876, he says:
“What does the Colonel think of the election? I staid to vote in Amesbury and have been here for ten days or more. The dismal and misty weather seems to correspond with the doubtful and wearisome political condition of the country. For myself, I would prefer to see Tilden president than to elect Hayes by fraud. Yet there seems a possibility of his fair election.”
After giving some Amesbury news to a correspondent, he adds:
“Do thee ever think of our sojourn at the Bearcamp House? I always recall it with pleasure. H—— C—— X