Chapter VIII: Part 8

His verses are always sensible, healthy and elevating. Complaint has been made that they are too much haunted by the spectre of his schoolmate; but without saying this, we could wish that such an immature affection had been replaced afterwards by a deeper and more manly attachment. He was assisted in the arrangement of his collection of poetry (which Lowell and other good critics considered the best we have) by his poetical friend Miss Lucy Larcom, and this was chiefly no doubt that she might receive a share of the profits from its publication. The sonnets from Shakespeare and many others, were of her selection. The art of poetry came so naturally to Whittier, that he said he could not understand why every one did not write it as well as or better than he could.

At the time of Hawthorne's last visit to the Isles of Shoals in company with his friend the ex-President, there was also a party of business men from Concord, New Hampshire, who tried to make his acquaintance, but without much success. Afterwards we went to Portsmouth with the same party and were becalmed on the way for nearly four hours, so that we had an excellent chance to become acquainted with our fellow passengers. One of them said:--"Nathaniel Hawthorne was a very reserved man. There's Franklin Pierce: he has been President of the United States, and yet anyone can go up and speak to him; but we found Hawthorne very different." Of course we had to tell this on our return, and Whittier laughed heartily. Mrs. Thaxter said, "Reserved was no word for it;" and Whittier added, "Hawthorne was a strange puzzle. I never felt quite sure whether I knew him or not. He never seemed to be doing anything, and yet he did not like to be disturbed at it." He disliked to hear people say that Hawthorne wrote the life of General Pierce for the sake of a government office. They were old college friends, and without doubt he would have obtained the office whether he wrote it or not. If he wished to live in Italy Buchanan should have given him the consulship of Leghorn or Venice. He looked on "Septimus Felton" as a failure, and thought that probably Hawthorne considered it so himself. He thought it not unlikely that Hawthorne would outlive every other writer of his time.

At another time he came to me and said, "What deep problems of government are you thinking over there all by yourself?" I laughed and told him that I was thinking of Rome; and how much that little patch of water looked like the piece of sea in Guido's Aurora; but I was glad to have him speak of politics, for the present condition of affairs was such as to give every serious man anxiety for the moral welfare of the country.

"Indeed it is," he replied. "What we read in the newspapers is bad enough; but I have information from private sources which represents matters as being even worse than is generally supposed." [Footnote: This was in 1875.]

"Perhaps," I said, "it is one of those evils which will cure itself after a certain time."

"It will, no doubt," he answered, "bring about a strong reaction against the Republican party; but even that is a thing to be deplored. Meanwhile what an example we present to the monarchical governments of Europe!"

"I suppose," said I, "that it is one of the consequences of our civil war."

"Yes," said he, "I am ready to agree to that,--a long and protracted war must have a hardening and brutalizing influence on the community even when it is fought for a good cause."

"Did not Hawthorne," I said, "predict something like this in an article in the 'Atlantic Monthly'?"

"Yes," he replied, "I remember that article,--it was just a year before his death,--and there was a good deal of wisdom in it. Some of my friends are inclined to think that woman suffrage would improve the present condition of politics, but I do not feel sure that it would."

"I have no doubt it would do good if only the sensible women were permitted to vote," I said. "My faith is that what we need to purify politics in America is not an extension, but a restriction of the suffrage. It is easy to see, for instance, how favorably that would work in the city of New York, which with its custom-house is now the heaviest burden we have to bear."

What Whittier thought of this idea I never knew; he seemed to be reflecting on it when the ladies of his party came in sight and we both rose to meet them.

Though he was not fond of travelling, he liked to read books of travel; and once, according to his doctor's advice, spent a winter at Amesbury reading everything of the kind that he could hear of and obtain. He spoke of Wilson's book on the Himalaya Mountains as the most interesting of them. "It seems as if there was nothing that a cultivated Englishman could not and would not go through with," he said. I mentioned Humboldt. "Yes," he replied, "Humboldt certainly accomplished wonderful things, but the Germans are generally more cautious and prudent. A cultivated Englishman seems to be equal to anything." Among modern travellers however, Vambery, the Hungarian, takes the highest rank.

At a later period, I was journeying through the White Mountains and reached West Ossipee one afternoon tired with travelling and weary from a sleepless night. I hastened to my room and threw myself upon the bed, but had scarcely closed my eyes when there was a knock at the door and there stood Mr. Whittier,--the pleasantest of all apparitions for some years. The next few days were like dwelling in the islands of the blest, compared with the ordinary current of human life. It was a holiday within a holiday. He was surrounded by charming ladies, among them his niece Mrs. Caldwell, and as it was late in the season we had the Bear Camp House--a place that now ought to be historic--almost to ourselves.

We had never known Whittier to be so friendly and companionable before. We walked under the elms, talked about books, and our absent friends, gazed at the mountains, and admired the sunsets which just at that time were remarkably brilliant. There was one, I remember, composed largely of luminous clouds, and a general translucent effect of the atmosphere, which Whittier could not remember he had ever seen the like of. He said, "I don't believe Emerson loves Nature any better than I do, though he has written more about it." There was a delightful lady in the party who told us pleasant and amusing stories of New York social life. She could go on in this way for a very good length of time, and Whittier would listen to her without saying a word, exactly as if she were reading to him.

The magnates of West Ossipee had named a mountain near Chocorua for Whittier and challenged him to climb to the top of it and christen it properly with a bottle of champagne, but he said No, that his days for climbing were over; that he thought mountains belonged to the whole country and he had no desire to appropriate any of them. He liked such names as Chocorua, Katahdin and Wachusett much better for mountains than Washington and Adams. The Bear Camp House is a rare sort of a tasteful country inn, and its proprietor was of course very proud of his distinguished guest, but at the same time sufficiently dignified to prevent this from being too apparent. It was there Whittier spent the last summers of his life, as long as he was able to leave his own home.

In his old age he enjoyed the celebrity of his more vigorous years as if it had been the fame of a constant friend; but I think he enjoyed still more the consciousness of having succeeded in living through life as he intended to do in the beginning.