In this conversation he seemed in clearness of vision, wideness of range, strength and grasp of subject, and especially in a certain energy, to carry her back to his days of comparative bodily vigor. All that his soul had had or held, it had and held more firmly than ever, and it had gained that higher outlook spread before the eyes of him whose feet are upon the mountains.
Not only did Whittier believe in immortality, but his very presence helped others to believe in it.
XXX
“And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day,”
sang the poet when through time and trial somewhat of the rest of eternity had come to him and in the beginning of age—that youth of immortality—he could say:
“... all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm.”
With all the elements so mixed in him—pride, power, ambition, indignation against wrong, intense love of liberty, keenness in character-reading, political acumen, delight in beauty, with humor illuminating all it lighted upon—and not inclined to overlook anything—we find in many-sided Whittier nothing more strongly marked than praise of all things good, which flows inevitably into worship of the Giver. For simplicity is not at all one idea; it is one purpose.