No restriction was placed on his doing work at home. He wrote unceasingly, prose and verse, reaching his literary audience through the ‘Democratic Review’ and his audience of reformers through Bailey’s paper, ‘The National Era,’ both published in Washington. Whittier was corresponding editor of the ‘Era’ from 1847 to 1850, and printed in its columns, besides political articles, such now famous poems as ‘Maud Muller,’ ‘Ichabod,’ ‘Tauler,’ and ‘The Chapel of the Hermits.’
The list of Whittier’s chief publications up to the year 1857 contains seventeen titles: Legends of New England, 1831; Moll Pitcher, 1832 (revised edition 1840); Justice and Expediency, 1833; Mogg Megone, 1836; Poems written during the Progress of the Abolition Question, etc., 1837 (unauthorized issue); Poems, 1838; Lays of my Home and Other Poems, 1843; The Stranger in Lowell, 1845; Voices of Freedom, 1846; The Supernaturalism of New England, 1847; Leaves from Margaret Smith’s Journal, 1849; Poems, 1849;[36] Old Portraits and Modern Sketches, 1850; Songs of Labor and Other Poems, 1850; The Chapel of the Hermits and Other Poems, 1853; Literary Recreations and Miscellanies, 1854; The Panorama and Other Poems, 1856.
The founding of the ‘Atlantic Monthly’ (1857) gave Whittier a more assured place. His work was sought and the pay was generous. He became an overseer of Harvard College in 1858. In 1860 the college made him a Master of Arts, and in 1866 a Doctor of Laws.
His home for many years was in Amesbury, the farm at East Haverhill having been sold in 1836. After the death of his mother and younger sister he passed much of his time with kinsfolk at the house known as ‘Oak Knoll,’ in Danvers. For all his admiration of women, Whittier never married. He enjoyed allusions to a supposititious Mrs. Whittier. Writing to his niece, Mrs. Pickard, about some friend who was unhappy over political defeat, Whittier said: ‘I told him I had been in the same predicament ... and got abused worse than he did, for I was charged with ill-treating my wife!’
Whittier was a birthright member of the Society of Friends and influential in their councils. His advice was much sought and freely given in terms of blended modesty, good sense, and humor.
During the last twenty years of his life Whittier published the following volumes: Home Ballads and Poems, 1860; In War Time and Other Poems, 1864; National Lyrics, 1865; Snow-Bound, 1866; The Tent on the Beach and Other Poems, 1867; Among the Hills and Other Poems, 1869; Ballads of New England, 1870; Miriam and Other Poems, 1871; The Pennsylvania Pilgrim and Other Poems, 1872; Mabel Martin, 1874; Hazel-Blossoms, 1875; The Vision of Echard and Other Poems, 1878; The King’s Missive and Other Poems, 1881; The Bay of Seven Islands and Other Poems, 1883; Saint Gregory’s Guest and Recent Poems, 1886; At Sundown, 1892.
The honors accorded him on his seventieth, eightieth, and eighty-fourth anniversaries gave Whittier much happiness. He was especially pleased to learn that the bells of St. Boniface, in Winnipeg, Manitoba (celebrated in his ‘Red River Voyageur’), were rung for him at midnight of December 17, 1891. Said the poet in his letter to Archbishop Tâché: ‘Such a delicate and beautiful tribute has deeply moved me. I shall never forget it.’
Nothing was left undone that the tenderest love and wisest solicitude could do for his comfort. His last illness was brief. He died at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, on September 7, 1892.
II
WHITTIER’S CHARACTER
Whittier’s shyness was proverbial. Those who knew him also knew that beneath that shyness was a masterful spirit. Evasion and inconclusiveness on the part of those with whom he dealt would not avail. Whittier wanted to know where public men stood and for what they stood. A politician himself, he understood the art of dealing with politicians. To a certain candidate he said: ‘Thee cannot expect the votes of our people unless thee speak more plainly.’ Being in great need of the votes of ‘our people,’ the candidate was compelled to speak at once and to use the words Whittier put into his mouth.