No less than he loved Milton’s poetry did Whittier love the great poet’s sonorous prose. As has been said before, Whittier’s rendering of his own poems brought forth their swing and rhythm and their innermost meaning with a vividness that no one else could give them. To watch the poet as he thus rendered one of his own poems, to listen to the intonations which deepened the melody of the verse was an experience not to be forgotten.
One day Whittier told the writer of his having begun a poem—his biographer also tells this—upon the banishing of the Arcadians from their country. But he added that he had abandoned it on learning that Longfellow was writing “Evangeline.” His listener realized the fervor of Huguenot indignation (for Whittier had Huguenot blood in his veins) which would have inspired his muse at the wrongs of those innocent people and the pathos with which he would have told their story, and expressed her regret that he had not written the poem.
But he answered with decision: “No; it was better so. Longfellow has done the work as it should have been done.”
One day the doctor said to the poet: “You have written so much, Mr. Whittier, that I suppose you write now without labor—that writing is easy to you?”
“No,” returned Whittier emphatically. “Everything is labor to me. I don’t know any easy writing.”
In addition to this careful work—rather, as a part of it—no one realized better than the poet the difference between a poem in manuscript and the same poet in print. So, he would often say to one of his young neighbors—a printer—“Fred, I want to see thee a minute.” And he would hand the young man the poem—or a portion of it—to put into type, so that the poet before sending it to the publishers might judge for himself how it would look printed. He used to say, appreciative of the glamour of acceptance, that print improved things.