‘... like our springs
That kind o’ haggle with their greens and things.’
But I believe other places are no better than New England this season. Letters from Florida, Carolina, and New Jersey all complain of the cheerless weather. Lizzie [his niece] has been for some weeks at Statesville, N. C., but is probably now on her way home. A part of the time the water froze in the pitcher in spite of a fire on the hearth. Then warmer weather with awful thunder-showers and hail stones three inches in diameter and mud so deep that she could not ride out. I shall be at Amesbury most of May, probably.”
It is worth while to realize how frail he was, that we may realize better how wonderful was the work he accomplished. Any man might well be thankful that it had been given him to help to carry through one reform—that of helping to give freedom to the slave.
But Whittier did not stop there. He had been so faithful in one mission that, as reward, another was given to him, in a sense, along the same lines, yet on a spiritual plane. In following the footsteps of his Master, he was still a disciple of freedom. Having known sorrow, he was taught how to comfort; he spoke to souls in prison and led them forth into the clearer air and sunlight. Neither health, nor strength, nor wealth, nor happiness, as the world counts these things, did Whittier require for his work. He leaves without excuse those who shrink from a lesser mission. Yet for them he himself would be the first to find a plea.
In the August of 1879 he wrote: “I am half sick and must try some change. I may go to New Hampshire in a few days if I feel able.”
In the June of another year, in a letter from Intervale, he says: