“So do I, Mrs. S——,” he answered eagerly. “I read them too well.” His sensitive organization which vibrated to the least change in the winds of heaven, vibrated also to human emotions and passions in others.
And yet here his kindness did not fail him; nor when face to face with evil, did he rebuke the evil-doer with any consciousness of superior personal merit. Instead, he appealed from the evil in evidence to the good in reserve.
As when one morning in the garden room he listened to an amazing proposition, namely—that his visitor should write the poetry, which the poet was assured by the speaker the latter could do fluently, and that Whittier should put his name to it, which would make it sell, and that the two should share the profits!
The poet showed no anger at the suggestion of linking his name with doggerel, or contempt for the other’s stupendous conceit. It was the deceit which he attacked.
“Thee is a minister of the Gospel,” he answered the man. “Now, does thee think it would be right to do a thing like that?”
XI
Whittier was not one of the philanthropists whose affections are all for the world in general with home left out in the cold. On the contrary, his home affections were very strong; and his thought of his sister Elizabeth in her invalidism was constant, his care and anxiety for her unremitting. Whatever suited Elizabeth best was what he desired; wherever she would be most benefitted was where he wished to go. Although he preferred the mountains, yet for his sister’s sake he would go to the seaside; as for his sake she would choose the mountains when the ocean breezes suited her better.
On entering his home after an absence, his first question always was, “Well, Elizabeth, how has thee been since I’ve been away?”
His publication of her poems and what he says of them prove his estimation of her as a poet. Her judgment, her sympathy, her affection, her criticism, her inspiration were all in all to him.
To the outside world she was a brilliant talker, a cordial hostess, a devoted friend. To her brother she was home itself.