John Greenleaf Whittier: His Life, Genius, and Writings

by William Sloane Kennedy

It was a winter full of pleasure to the poet. He was then not too feeble to go out evenings, and he spent many pleasant hours with friends like the Claflins and others. But the hours in the parlor of the hotel make the place historic, and give it a special interest and meaning for his future biographer. Mr. Whittier had room fourteen (the number of a sonnet's lines, twice seven, with luck for a poet), and the fire-escape made a little balcony for him on a corner toward St. John's. The landlord had a door cut through the thick old wall to the rooms adjoining, and these were the rooms of Mrs. Woodman and the rest. It is old Boston decidedly in that quarter. The brick of the houses is mellow old red, and there is nothing newfangled anywhere about. Mr. Whittier said he preferred coming here rather than to one of the big hotels, because there he was "overwhelmed with the service," and here it seemed "more like Amesbury," where people "are neighborly and drop in without knocking." He had "always been used to waiting upon himself," and he "liked being in a place where they would let him."

It was his custom, mornings, to come down into the little reception-room on the street floor, and "sitting right in that chair where you're sitting," as the writer was told, he "used to read his letters and throw all the papers in a pile on the floor and go off and leave them." That little room was a great place of congregation for "the family," as the boarders who were there with Mr. Whittier liked to call themselves.

The poet would sit on the sofa with a favored one on each side of him and the rest in a group about, "often on footstools or on the floor, as like as not," while he "told stories of war times." Gen. Stevens was there during one of the poet's long stays; he had been a classmate of Gen. Lee and of Jefferson Davis at West Point, and he and the abolition poet discussed these men and their times from the broader view of later days.

"Once a friend, a lady who had some property in Virginia, wrote Mr. Whittier of having named a street in a new town for him, and of having set aside a portion of ground in his name. He replied with thanks, saying that he had that week received news of no less than three towns or streets being named for him with a gift of town lots, adding, 'If this sort of thing goes on much longer, I shall be land poor.'

"During the winters he was at the Winthrop, Mr. Whittier's favorite way of getting about was in a herdic. They were 'not pretty,' but they 'knew the way to places.' Politicians used to go there to see him and try to get him to banquets. But his life-long avoidance of politics in the minor sense made him easily resist their wiles. 'I have seen Mr. —— (a well-known name) come here and just about go down on his knees to get Mr. Whittier to speak or even to come to a banquet,' says the landlord (who is, by the way, an old-time character worthy of a novelist's pen), 'but Mr. Whittier would just sit here—right in that chair you're in—and kind of smile to himself as if to say, "Oh! your talk don't amount to anything." Well, once Mr. —— came here and staid and staid a-talking and persuading, and gave Mr. Whittier an earache if ever a man had one. But he didn't make anything by it, although he finally had to take a bed and stay all night.'"

Mr. Charles Brainard visited Whittier soon after the publication of "Snow-Bound." Finding his house painted and improved, he remarked to him, "It is evident that poetry has ceased to be a drug in the market."

"The next morning Mr. Whittier's answer came. It was in the winter, and, as the poet went up to the fire to warm his boots preparatory to putting them on, he said, 'Thee will have to excuse me, for I must go down to the office of the Collector.' Then, with a humorous gleam in his eye, he added, 'Since "Snow-Bound" was published, I have risen to the dignity of an income tax.'"

To an Englishman who visited him not long before his death, Mr. Whittier expressed his surprise that his guest should know so much of his poetry by heart. "I wonder," he said, "thou shouldst burden thy memory with all that rhyme. It is not well to have too much of it: better get rid of it as soon as possible. Why, I can't remember any of it. I once went to hear a wonderful orator, and he wound up his speech with a poetical quotation, and I clapped with all my might. Some one touched me on the shoulder, and said. 'Do you know who wrote that?' I said, 'No, I don't; but it's good.' It seems I had written it myself. The fault is I have written far too much."

Here is a story illustrating Whittier's kind-heartedness: A young lady, a neighbor, was asked to take tea at his house. "He had no servant at the moment, and, with the assistance of his guest, prepared the simple meal with his own hand. She contributed to the press for her support, and prepared a minute account of the affair, of which Mr. Whittier chanced to be advised, and sent off a remonstrance post haste. But when the young author pleaded the real need of the money which the little story was to bring her, and the harmlessness to its subject of its effective details, the former reason (for the latter would never have overcome his abhorrence of what he must have felt a vivisection) actually prevailed, and he permitted the publication with a benignant forbearance."

The Hon. Nathan Crosby, LL. D., writes in the Essex Institute Collections for 1880.