John Greenleaf Whittier: His Life, Genius, and Writings

Mr. James H. Carleton knew Whittier in connection with a circle of intellectual and social people that centred around the family of Judge Pitman in the years just preceding the rise of the abolition movement. "The Pitmans were neighbors of mine," said Mr. Carleton, "and I (I hardly know why) was admitted to the meetings of the people who gathered there. They were the leaders in everything that was progressive. They have since become widely scattered.

"I remember Mr. Whittier as a leader of these leaders. These people formed to a large extent his social world at that time. It was the one place at which Mr. Whittier threw off his natural reserve and took his proper place. He was a good conversationalist on occasion, and when he spoke he was worth listening to. I remember him as intensely interested in whatever subject occupied the attention of the circle. He was never the first to begin a discussion, but rather bided his time for an especial opportunity."

Mr. George C. How wrote of Mr. Whittier's friendliness, his cordiality, and his unassuming manner: "In the few delightful days I spent in his company in the White Mountain region, I saw no signs of formality or reserve. He told me, under the trees, many stories of his life and of his earliest successes. He impresses you strongly as a true and generous friend to everything and every man he believes good and honest. He does not like to be lionized, and refused to be introduced to a man whose only claim to his friendship was that he had read all his works. When, however, Mr. Whittier learned that this same man was an ardent admirer of the poet Hayne, a chord of sympathy was struck that made them firm friends during this stranger's stay."

At Oak Knoll the winter day was clear and sunshiny, if cold, and warm hearts within laughed the season to scorn. The ladies of Boston, at the suggestion of Mrs. D. Lothrop, sent up a most unique and exquisite gift; eighty beautiful roses edged a large basket fringed with fern-sprays, that held an open book of white roses, across whose face lay a pen of violets, and on the wide satin book-mark was inscribed the closing stanza of "My Triumph." The Essex Club of Boston presented a large album; fruit and flowers flanked a mighty birthday cake in the dining-room. Mr. Charles F. Coffin, of Lynn, sent a large overflowing basket of fruit, arranged under his personal supervision, "every fruit in its season," of exquisite colors and shapes, to express his affection for his life-long friend, the poet.

The new town of Whittier, in California, sent an advance copy of the first issue of the town's newspaper; the Governor of the Commonwealth, as the winter afternoon quickly declined, cut and distributed to the guests slices of the birthday cake, while all through the day Whittier passed to and fro from room to room, conversing with young and old, and hospitable to all.

Whittier himself is reported as saying on his eightieth birthday: "When a man is eighty years old, it is time to give up active mental work. Oh! I am able to go about these grounds pretty well. I have never attempted to imitate Gladstone and chop down trees, but I like to split wood."

This was James Russell Lowell's verse for Mr. Whittier on his eightieth birthday:—

The excitement and nervous exhaustion attendant upon these birthday occasions, it always took Mr. Whittier three or four weeks fully to recover from. Hence in 1889 (and partly on account of the recent death of a beloved cousin), the poet announced, through the press, that he should have to ask his friends to spare him any public reception. However, December 17 was observed as "Whittier Day" very generally throughout the country, as it had been in 1887, in accordance with the custom that has grown up of celebrating the birthdays of eminent men in the schools, and introducing into their courses of supplementary reading selected portions of the writings of each. Among the gifts received at Oak Knoll was a painting of a golden vase by Mr. Herman Marcus, of New York City, to whom the poet had appeared in a dream, bearing in his hand an elegant portfolio of red morocco, containing a picture of a vase of Grecian design, richly ornamented, and inscribed with the legend, "May in the smallest part thy sorrows lie concealed and all the rest be filled with joy overflowing." The portfolio and the picture on its page are a close realization of what the donor saw in his dream.

Speaking of visitors, Col. Higginson tells two incidents in point. He says two nice little boys called one day on Whittier, saying that they had recently called on Longfellow, and, as he had died soon after, they thought it best to call at once on Mr. Whittier. One of the poet's housekeepers once asked him in severe tones whether all "these people" came on business or whether they were relatives. When told that neither was the case, she said she did not see what they came for then. "Neither did I," said Whittier, with laughing eye.

In December, 1890, Mr. Whittier, who had gone down to Amesbury to vote, had been taken ill there, and hardly expected to be able to get back to Oak Knoll by the seventeenth. He did arrive, however, on a sunny day. Many of his friends spared him visits, merely leaving their cards or sending remembrances. His mail was very large, as usual on this day.

In the summer of 1891 Mr. Whittier's health was so feeble that he was obliged to abandon his daily walks, except about the grounds at Oak Knoll. Driving was too fatiguing for him, and his hearing had grown so bad that he could converse only with difficulty.

In Whittier's poem, "The Red River Voyageur," there is a beautiful allusion to the "bells of the Roman mission," now the Archepiscopate of St. Boniface. Archbishop Tache was reminded by Lieut.-Gov. Schultz that December 17, 1891, was the eighty-fourth birthday of the poet, the suggestion being made that the anniversary should be greeted by a joy-peal from the tower of the Cathedral of St. Boniface, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His Grace cordially concurred, and the graceful tribute was rendered at midnight with the last stroke of the clock ushering the natal day. Mr. Whittier, having been informed of the incident by United States Consul Taylor, wrote to the Archbishop: "I have reached an age when literary success and manifestations of popular favor have ceased to satisfy one upon whom the solemnity of life's sunset is resting; but such a delicate and beautiful tribute has deeply moved me. I shall never forget it. I shall hear the bells of St. Boniface sounding across the continent, and awakening a feeling of gratitude for thy generous act."

Our poet's eighty-fourth birthday (1891), and alas! his last on earth, was delightfully observed at the home of the Cartlands, his cousins, in Newburyport, with whom he was spending the winter. Mr. Joseph Cartland is himself a Quaker, and his white hair and genial cheery temperament are quite of the old régime. He and his wife were teachers in the Friends' School at Providence, R. I. Their fine old mansion on High Street is the identical one built and lived in by Judge Livermore, father of the shrewish saint and devotee of "Snow-Bound." It may be stated, too, that it was to succeed one of the Cartlands in the editorial chair of the Pennsylvania Freeman that Whittier went to Philadelphia in 1838. In this house is kept the old maple-wood desk, made by Joseph Whittier, grandfather of the poet, who, by the way, "wrote on it his first poem." The desk is about one hundred and eighty years old now. On the back are carved the initials "J. W., 1786," in large letters. The wood has been smoothed down a little and a coat of shellac applied. On the back of the drawers are memoranda in chalk and pencil made by Greenleaf's father. On December 17, 1891, the old piece of furniture was covered with hundreds of congratulatory letters which would have made the old farmer Quaker, its builder, rub his eyes in astonishment, could he have seen them.

"As he walks slowly down the broad stairs of the Cartlands at Newburyport," says one who saw him on his birthday, "there is much to suggest his years, it is true, yet no signs of unusual feebleness. He is erect for a man of eighty-four; his early litheness has not degenerated into the hopeless leanness of an ill-nourished and uncared-for old age; his step does not drag after his body as if unwilling to carry the burden longer; his head is not lowered, awaiting the smite of Time."

Another thus describes Whittier in 1891: "In personal appearance he is remarkable. Tall, and as straight as one of the young pines in his favorite grove, it seems impossible that he is at the end of fourscore years. The crown of his head is bald, and his hair is glossy silver; but his great black eyes are as clear, bright and piercing as if he were in the prime of life. He walks with the deliberation and dignity of age, but without a suggestion of physical feebleness, and while he remains standing his head is as finely poised as a soldier's. The straightness of his figure is the more noticeable on account of his Quaker dress, the coat of which fits him as neatly and closely as if it were the conventional 'swallow-tail.' When seated and listening, his head drops slightly forward and aside—a pose which seems peculiar to poetic natures the world over. He is a most appreciative reader of other men's books and poems, and talks admirably of all good writings except his own, of which he can scarcely be persuaded to speak, even to his dearest intimates."

Mr. S. T. Pickard, and Mr. and Mrs. Cartland received the guests in the wide hall of the old-fashioned hospitable Quaker home; and the poet himself wandered here and there about the room, so said the Boston Advertiser, "greeting every guest informally and pleasantly, from the old and tried comrades of anti-slavery's earliest days to the little girl in cream-white dress and wide hat, his little friend Margaret Lothrop, who had to stand on tip-toe to greet the bowed head with her childish kiss; and whose small hand he held closely as he kept her by his side."

A pleasant note was received from Phillips Brooks:—

"Dear Mr. Whittier:

"I have no right save that which love and gratitude and reverence may give, to say how devoutly I thank God that you have lived, that you are living, and that you will always live. May his peace be with you more and more.

"Affectionately your friend,
"Phillips Brooks."

The first guests to arrive were a deputation of fifty from Haverhill, members of the Whittier Club of that town. Whittier made them a little speech, saying it was evident that sometimes a prophet was honored in his own country.

The house was filled with cut flowers—in the window-seats, on the tables, in the poet's bedroom, up-stairs—all gifts from friends. The Whittier Club of Haverhill brought eighty-four roses. There was a basket of English violets from Mr. and Mrs. D. Lothrop. Mr. C. F. Coffin, of Lynn, sent, as usual, his generous basket of fruit. From Mr. E. C. Stedman came a painting "High Tide, Hampton Meadows," by Carroll D. Brown. And some kindly old soul sent a half-dozen pairs of socks—the spirit that prompted the gift as deeply appreciated as that of others. Other gifts were: an oil painting of a scene at York Harbor, painted by J. L. Smith, of Boston, the frame carved by A. G. Smith; a ruler of various inlaid woods from California, the gift of pupils of the workshop at West Point, Calaveras County, who wrote a letter, saying that they would devote the birthday to reading and speaking selections from his works; a paper-cutter made from the wood of Fort Loudon, of Winchester, Penn., and sent by the ladies of that place; a hand-painted tray from artist Florence Cammett of Amesbury; a late photograph of Dr. Holmes, "with his hat in his hand, and his most man-of-the-world air;" a souvenir spoon of Independence Hall from W. H. and S. B. Swazey, of Newburyport; a picture of the old Mission at Santa Barbara, done on native olive-wood, from Professor John Murray, of California; a handsome footstool from Elizabeth Cavazza, of Portland, Me.; photogravures of scenes about the Whittier homestead in Haverhill; a transparency ("Snow-Bound") from Austin P. Nichols; eighty-four roses from the girls of Lasell Seminary near Boston, and a wreath of evergreens from Mrs. Annie Fields.

Among the messages was one from a little Indian maiden whom Whittier had befriended: "Your young Mohawk friend asks for you to-day the Great Spirit's blessing"—signed, E. Pauline Johnson; a letter came from Abby Hutchinson, of the Hutchinson singers.

Among those present were, Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, Sarah Orne Jewett, "Margaret Sidney," Mrs. James T. Fields, Mrs. William Claflin, Harriet McEwen Kimball, T. E. Burnham, Mayor of Haverhill, and others.

Among the company, conspicuous by those natural gifts that make one a centre for intellectual and genial comradeship, was Mr. D. Lothrop—the eminent publisher—(since passed away, mourned by all) who probably has done more than any other man of present times to create a new literature for children and young people, all achieved when it cost to do it, and that consumed years of patient, persistent struggling, till his splendid success was won.

Mr. Whittier writes to his widow, "Thy husband and Mr. Coffin" (the old-time friend referred to), "were the life of my birthday reception, and now both are gone before me." (Mr. Coffin died the week after the birthday.)

Again, to quote one of the many extracts of Mr. Whittier's letters concerning Mr. Lothrop: "Let me sit in the circle of thy mourning, for I too have lost in him a friend."

There was much to draw the two men together; both sprang from New England ancestry, sturdy as the granite hills of their native State; each possessed the same indomitable will, where a question of right was involved, and the same breadth of charity for all, of whatsoever creed or divergence of opinion.

Mr. Whittier partook of but little food in the dining-room, nibbling a bit here and there, and refusing firmly all offers of tea or coffee. His eyes, every one noticed, flamed with old-time lustre, whenever he was interested.

Letters of congratulation were received from Robert C. Winthrop, Celia Thaxter, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Andrew P. Peabody, Rose Terry Cooke (who has since died), George W. Cable, T. W. Higginson, Charles Eliot Norton, and others.

Donald G. Mitchell wrote that above Whittier's literary art he admired the broad and cheery humanities of the man.

For the eighty-fourth birthday the Boston Advertiser printed a superb illustrated Whittier number, as did also the Boston Journal. For the latter Dr. Holmes contributed the following letter:

My Dear Whittier:—I congratulate you on having climbed another glacier and crossed another crevasse in your ascent of the white summit which already begins to see the morning twilight of the coming century. A life so well filled as yours has been cannot be too long for your fellow-men and women. In their affections you are secure, whether you are with them here or near them in some higher life than theirs. I hope your years have not become a burden, so that you are tired of living. At our age we must live chiefly in the past. Happy is he who has a past like yours to look back upon.

It is one of the felicitous incidents—I will not say accidents—of my life that the lapse of time has brought us very near together, so that I frequently find myself honored by seeing my name mentioned in near connection with your own. We are lonely, very lonely, in these last years. The image which I have used before this in writing to you recurs once more to my thought. We were on deck together as we began the voyage of life two generations ago. A whole generation passed, and the succeeding one found us in the cabin, with a goodly company of coevals. Then the craft which held us began going to pieces, until a few of us were left on the raft pieced together of its fragments. And now the raft has at last parted, and you and I are left clinging to the solitary spar, which is all that still remains afloat of the sunken vessel.

I have just been looking over the headstones in Mr. Griswold's cemetery, entitled "The Poets and Poetry of America." In that venerable receptacle, just completing its half-century of existence—for the date of the edition before me is 1842—I find the names of John Greenleaf Whittier and Oliver Wendell Holmes next each other, in their due order, as they should be. All around are the names of the dead—too often of forgotten dead. Three which I see there are still among those of the living. Mr. John Osborne Sargent, who makes Horace his own by faithful study and ours by scholarly translation; Isaac McLellan, who was writing in 1830, and whose last work is dated 1886; and Christopher P. Cranch, whose poetical gift has too rarely found expression.

Of these many dead you are the most venerated, revered and beloved survivor; of these few living the most honored representative. Long may it be before you leave a world where your influence has been so beneficent, where your example has been such inspiration, where you are so truly loved, and where your presence is a perpetual benediction.

Always affectionately yours,
Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Following is one of two stanzas sent to the Poet of Freedom by his friend "Margaret Sidney," and which, says the Advertiser, with one other tribute, was the only one of the innumerable letters and poems sent him that he read in its entirety that day, owing to his failing eyesight:

Mr. F. B. Sanborn wrote some interesting autobiographical reminiscences for the Advertiser. He stated: "I can scarcely remember when I did not read Whittier and Holmes. Their verses were eagerly caught up and reprinted by all the newspapers, and I knew them by heart before I ever saw a volume of them. Whittier, indeed, was almost my neighbor, living only eight miles away across the Merrimack, and sometimes coming for silent worship or to hear Mrs. Edward Gove speak in the Quaker meeting-house at Seabrook, only three miles from the farm of my ancestors. But I did not know this then; I never went there to see him. He is a distant cousin of mine, both of us tracing descent, through his daughters, from that stout and ungovernable old Puritan minister, Stephen Bachiler, who planted the old town of Hampton, in whose wide limits I was born, and which extended almost to Amesbury."

Another scholarly writer in the same paper wrote instructively of Whittier in the Massachusetts Legislature. The Legislature of 1835 he describes as a notable one in the quality of its members and in the work accomplished. An extra session was held in the autumn. The Speaker of the House was Judge Julius Rockwell of Pittsfield, with whom Whittier had already formed a personal acquaintance through Judge Rockwell's contributions to the New England Review. Among the Suffolk County representatives were such names as Frothingham, Brooks, Otis, Sturgis, Peabody, and Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, also Col. J. B. Fay, the first mayor of Chelsea. It is not remembered that Whittier made any set speech, but he nevertheless did so much and such arduous work as to make himself ill before the session was half over. Dr. Bowditch, he often recalled with amusement, told him that, if he followed implicitly the rules he laid down for him, he might live to see his fiftieth birthday; otherwise, not.

Perhaps no one man has been more frequently interviewed concerning the policy of party politics than John G. Whittier. With gifted qualities of heart and mind, was added wisdom, prudence and sagacity, in all that related to governmental affairs. The late Henry Wilson once said of him, "I can rely more safely upon the advice of Whittier than upon any other man in America."

In the early movements of the Republican party he was acknowledged to be the power behind the throne. Sumner, wise and learned, could trust to the advice of Whittier. His correspondence with such men as Giddings, Chase, Sumner, Wilson, John P. Hale, Upham and other celebrities, upon national topics, is known to a few of his friends. They contain sentiments which prove him as wise in statesmanship as he is eloquent in verse.

How well and faithfully he labored is best expressed in his words:

"I am not insensible to literary reputation; I love, perhaps too well, the love and praise of my fellow-men; but I set a higher value on my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of 1833, than on the title page of any book."

On the subject of the abolishment of capital punishment, Whittier's vote is found recorded in the affirmative, as might have been expected. He has said that one of the pleasantest years of his life was that passed during the session of the Legislature in 1835.

One of the chief reasons why Whittier went seven miles from his Amesbury home last summer was to "escape pilgrims" (as he called them). One Sunday after meeting at Amesbury he said to his life-long friend, Miss Gove, "Abby, has thee a spare room up at thy house?" She responded in the affirmative, and he went to her home in Hampton Falls for the latter part of the summer. It was here he penned his last poem—the verses "To Oliver Wendell Holmes:"

In a letter to one of the editors of the Critic (August 29, 1892), Dr. Holmes wrote, concerning his birthday:

"I have received two poems in advance, and our dear friend Whittier, whose heart is a cornucopia of blessings for his fellow-creatures, has remembered me in the pages of the Atlantic, where we have found ourselves side by side for so many years. Long may the sands of his life keep running, for they come from the bed of Pactolus."

The news of his friend's death was received by Dr. Holmes in Beverly, just as he was coming in from a drive along the shore. It was a heavy blow, coming as it did just upon the death of Lowell, Thomas Parsons, and George William Curtis. He remarked that his acquaintance with Whittier dated from the year of the founding of the Atlantic Monthly. He had frequently visited him at Oak Knoll. He was there last year, and the two old fellows walked and talked among the trees and had a good time together. When the Doctor was leaving, his friend loaded him down with fruit. It was on one of these recent visits that Dr. Holmes with characteristic keenness of perception, discovered the beautiful symmetry of the grand Norway spruce in front of the mansion on the wide sweep of lawn, and he laughingly named it "The Poet's Pagoda," and this name it has kept ever since.

To return to "Elmfield," as the old Gove mansion is called. The old-fashioned house, with its upper balconies, heavy chimneys, and rich collection of historical relics, stands on a hill not far from the falls which gave the name to the village—Hampton Falls. The sight from Whittier's window commanded a little balcony, with a view of the distant blue sea. One day after another passed quietly away, he rising at seven, going across through a pine grove to the adjoining tavern for his breakfast, getting the mail at the little post-office, reading the papers, looking at the distant sails on the sea through a glass, conversing with friends or walking in the neighboring orchard, with its paths and rustic seats. The region is that where his Bachiler and Hussey ancestors both lived, as Mr. F. B. Sanborn tells us (Boston Advertiser, September 8, 1892). Daniel Webster's Bachiler ancestors also lived on a farm, a mile and a half from the Gove mansion; namely, where now stands the villa of Warren Brown. As Mr. Sanborn truthfully says, Whittier has been the local poet of this whole region of Essex and adjoining counties. "No poet of New England," he continues, "has lived so close to the actual habits of the people, in the present and the past centuries, as did Whittier; and his poems of locality will become as much a feature of New England literature as are those of Burns and Scott in their native country. This fidelity to homely fact and profound sentiment have made Whittier more than any other the patrial and religious poet of New Hampshire and Eastern Massachusetts. He has done in verse what Hawthorne did in prose. It was only the accident or accomplishment of verse which separated these two poets, and made one of them our most graceful and romantic prose-writer, while the other became our most spiritual and literal poet."

The truth of these statements comes home to me with force since I made a week's itinerary through this Whittier ballad land a year ago, and saw how every mile of coast land was celebrated in storied verse by Whittier.

On Wednesday, August 31, Mr. Whittier was taken ill. The malady was acute diarrhea, which by the Saturday following developed a new and alarming symptom, a remarkable irregularity of the heart's action, accompanied by partial paralysis of the left side, arms, and vocal organs. He remained conscious until Tuesday at three P. M., when the symptoms became markedly worse. He was surrounded by ministering relatives and friends, who gave him every loving attention, but all were powerless to stay the hand of death.

When urged to take the nourishment prescribed by his physicians, he said: "I want water from Abby's (Miss Gove) nice well," and as it was given, remarked with a bright smile, "That's good—nothing better." Soon after, as his forehead was being bathed, he said, "That is all that can be done." To his attending physicians, Drs. Douglass and Howe, and nurse, he said: "I am worn out—thee have done what thee could—I thank thee." And as the end drew near the dying poet recognized his niece from Portland, and remarked in faltering words, "Love—to—the—world." These were his last words. He died at four-thirty on the morning of the seventh. At seven o'clock on Friday evening the silent form of the poet was brought to Amesbury, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. S. T. Pickard, and Mr. and Mrs. Cartland.

On Saturday morning business was entirely suspended in Amesbury. The selectmen issued the following proclamation:—

"To the Citizens of Amesbury:—Our town has been saddened by the death of its great poet and one of its noblest and best-loved citizens. We feel that our country at large, and the civilized world, mourns with us the death of the poet and liberty-loving philanthropist, John G. Whittier.

"Sharing the sadness which must come to the wise and good everywhere, we, the people of Amesbury, mourn the loss of a friend and neighbor endeared to us by his lovable qualities and the purity of his daily life in our midst.

"We revered him for his greatness, and loved him for himself. Always identified with every good work in Amesbury, sustaining the right and defending the oppressed, his life for more than half a century has been to us a daily sermon.

"If it be true that

'The heart speaketh most when the life move,'

we can only add that such a life, with its fullness of years and its crown of blessings, is a rich legacy to the community."

THE GOVE HOUSE, HAMPTON FALLS, N. H., IN WHICH WHITTIER DIED.

At ten o'clock the public was admitted to the house, passing in a continuous line (as at the funeral of dear old Walt Whitman, his brother poet of Democracy, a few months before in Camden) through the humble little parlor of the Amesbury home. It was originally intended to hold the services in the Friends' meeting-house near by; but the dense fog clearing up and the bright sun coming out—as one beautifully said, "the mystery of death typified by the shifting and elusive shadows of the fog, and the glory and hopefulness of the resurrection by the bright rays of the sun"—it was decided to let the body rest in the house, and hold memorial services in the quiet garden in the rear of the house. The funeral arrangements were in charge of William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., S. T. Pickard and Judge G. W. Cate, the tenant of the house. The atmosphere was one of peace and restfulness, and the simplicity of the life of the Friends was seen in all the arrangements. In the quaint parlor of the homestead lay all that was mortal of the poet, on whose face was an expression of supreme peace; his form was encircled by a delicate fringe of trailing fern. A most beautiful wreath from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes—eighty-four white roses, fringed with carnations and maidenhair ferns, one for each year of the poet's life,—was laid around the name-plate on the coffin. It was a touching tribute by the last one of that remarkable galaxy of poets that marked such a distinguished era in our American literature. Two crossed palms, with the Japan lilies Whittier loved so well, encircled by a broad white satin ribbon, were from Mrs. Daniel Lothrop. The fronds of the long palms encircled the face of the dead poet as it looked out from the large engraving between the windows of the parlor. Upon the end of the ribbon was delicately painted six lines from Whittier's "Andrew Rykman's Prayer:"

Upon the accompanying card was this: "In memory of my husband's dear friend. This verse of 'Andrew Rykman's Prayer' was consolation in the hour of death to both him who wrote it, and to him who loved it.—Mrs. Daniel Lothrop."

Another exquisite floral offering came with these lines:

On the back of the card were the words "Oak Knoll."

The alcove behind the casket was filled with floral tributes. Here was a large St. Andrew's cross of exquisite white roses upon a bed of ivy, from a very near and dear friend of Mr. Whittier's at Lexington, whose name is withheld. There was a ladder of hydrangeas, gladioli, carnations and snow-balls from Mrs. Albert Clarke of Amesbury, an ivy wreath from Sarah Orne Jewett, a sheaf of wheat from Mrs. Lizzie Cheney and the Misses Coffin of Lynn, a broken shaft of white carnations from Mr. and Mrs. J. Henry Hall of Amesbury. A massive wreath of Whittier's own much-loved pine tassels was hung above the portrait of his sister Elizabeth, the tribute of Mrs. Joseph A. Purington; the heavy green was relieved by a spray of bright, contrasting goldenrod. Mrs. Samuel Rowell, Jr., sent a basket of white roses and maidenhair. There was a beautiful spray of the passion flower from L. Kelcher, Hotel Winthrop, Boston, and an hour-glass of white carnations from Mr. J. R. Fogg. Many touching little clusters of flowers came from the children; and his neighbors sent a beautiful wreath of fringed gentian—Whittier's favorite flower. This came from the far Pacific Slope: "Lay one flower for me upon the bier of the beloved friend who rests. No purer soul ever passed from earth to Heaven, or bore with it greater love and blessing than does his.—Ina D. Coolbrith, Oakland, Cal."

In the garden, and overlooked by the windows of the study where Mr. Whittier wrote and thought for so many years, was gathered to pay the last tributes of love and reverence to the dead poet, a large and notable assemblage: Gen. O. O. Howard, E. C. Stedman, Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-Ward, Gail Hamilton, Lucy Larcom, Edna Dean Proctor, Horace E. Scudder, T. W. Higginson, ex-Governor Claflin, Parker Pillsbury, Francis H. Underwood, Edward L. Pierce, Robert S. Rantoul, Mrs. C. A. Dall, "Margaret Sidney," Harriet Prescott Spofford, Mrs. Endicott, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Jr., Frank J. Garrison, etc.

And the sight was one never to be forgotten. Under the soft September sky, blue and cloudless, in the shade of pear and apple trees which Whittier himself had planted and tended and loved, were his relatives, friends, neighbors and men and women whose names are known wherever the English language is spoken.

It scarcely seemed like a funeral, so unaffectedly natural and sincere was every spoken word and every act. And the entire absence of formality and stiffness deprived the occasion of that artificial gloom which is so often characteristic of funerals.

Perhaps, too, the subtle influence of the balmy air and the beauties of the place helped to lift the pall that must have hung over many a heart. It was as if the friends of some dearly beloved man, who was going on a journey, had gathered to bid him God-speed—not as if they had come to bid him farewell.

A hollow square was formed around a low platform, and near by was a table with a Bible upon it. Gentians, one of Whittier's favorite flowers, and goldenrod formed the only floral ornaments. Back of the seats stood a dense crowd that must have numbered thousands, almost filling the garden. Children climbed the trees and looked with open-eyed wonder on the scene. On an apple bough, his naked legs dangling in the air almost over the head of Edmund Clarence Stedman, was an urchin who might have inspired the "Barefoot Boy;" faces peered from many a tree, from the vine-clad arbor and from the window of a neighboring barn, down upon the crowd.

The poet's relatives, and members of the Society of Friends from various places, occupied the seats forming the hollow square, an easy-chair being reserved for Oliver Wendell Holmes, but he was unable to be present.

The Friends gave the exercises their peculiar complexion; first one and then another rising to eulogize their friend as the "Spirit moved them." Verses of Whittier were recited by "that lovely Quaker lady," Mrs. Gertrude Cartland, and by Mrs. James H. Chace. Mr. E. C. Stedman was the last speaker.

He spoke of the personal loss he felt in the poet's death. "To know him was a consecration, to have his sympathy a benediction. His passing away was not so much a death as a translation. He is gone, and has not left his mantle! How could he? Why should he? No one can overestimate his artless art, his power, vigor and effect in his polemic efforts. No one put so much heart or so much religion into his writings. He was one of the great trio of New England poets, of whom there is only one now left. They are the vanishers of whom he spoke. He was a believer in the inward life, as a poet should be. He will be his own successor, and belongs to our time as well as to that earlier time to which he is linked by his work. We may say of him that the chariot swung low and he was translated, dividing the waters of truth, beauty, and religion, with his mantle. The last time I spoke at a memorial service was at Bayard Taylor's funeral. Taylor was Whittier's friend, and like Whittier he had a firm belief in immortality."

It is to Mr. Stedman that Whittier dedicated in a few choice lines his latest volume of verse, "At Sundown," which the poet, as if prescient of his coming death, had had privately printed and circulated among a few friends a year before his fatal illness.

The most picturesque and striking figure at Whittier's funeral was that of the venerable John W. Hutchinson, whose long gray hair fell over a broad white Rembrandt collar. He and his sister, Abby Hutchinson Patton, were life-long friends of Whittier, and their voices in the song they sang—"Close his eyes, his work is done"—were, "like the echoes of sweet bells from the far-away time of their youth, when they and Whittier were one in endeavor."

And then the long procession was formed. In the family lot, in the Friends' section of the Union Cemetery, where are buried his father, mother, sisters and brother, John Greenleaf Whittier was laid to rest.

The Boston Journal, in writing of Whittier's obsequies, gathered up this tender reminiscence:—

"We recall the incident of some ten years since, when Mr. Daniel Lothrop, the late publisher, while visiting in California, used Whittier's poem, 'Andrew Rykman's Prayer' to comfort the bereaved. Mr. Lothrop had, as it were, been brought up on Mr. Whittier's poems, there being in many ways a great similarity of tastes and characteristics between them. Of late years there was a strong friendship. The clergyman of a prominent Oakland church had died suddenly in the pulpit some few weeks before, and at the large memorial meeting Mr. Lothrop was asked without warning by the chairman to recite this poem, as he had heard him repeat a few lines from it during a consecration meeting. Mr. Lothrop ascended the platform and gave the poem entire. There was a profound hush throughout the vast assembly, like that following the instant when the beloved pastor had suddenly fallen before their eyes. Many were in tears, all agreeing that Whittier's strong, uplifting words comforted them more than anything else that had been said. Rev. Dr. Gordon, in the address at Mr. Lothrop's funeral in the Old South Church, appropriately recited this poem for the late publisher, who on his death-bed used this poem, as he had in health and strength."

James G. Blaine telegraphed that he had "long regarded Whittier with affectionate veneration," and over the wire came from Frederick Douglas the words, "Emancipated millions will hold his memory sacred." Speaking of Mr. Blaine, a writer, "S. F. M.," in the Boston Journal, December 18, 1891, tells of Mr. Blaine's presenting his, "S. F. M.'s," brother with a morocco-bound copy of the beautiful Mussey edition, and of Mr. Blaine's reading and re-reading aloud, one Sunday at their house in Charlestown, Mass., the poem "Among the Hills," which had then just been issued.

Memorial services on the afternoon of the funeral were held in Danvers, Haverhill, Salem, Mass., and Vassalboro, Maine. The old Whittier grange at the cross roads in Haverhill was draped in mourning. The present owner of the birthplace is Mr. George E. Elliott, a retired wealthy gentleman of Haverhill; and it is hoped that at no distant day he may be induced to sell it to the town of Haverhill, who would sacredly keep this cherished spot marking the nativity of her distinguished son, so that all lovers of John G. Whittier's poetry may have an opportunity to see his early home.

The day after the funeral between seventeen and eighteen hundred people visited the grave. And, as in the case of Walt Whitman's grave, each one wanted a leaf or flower as a memento, so that it was necessary in both cases to have the place of sepulture guarded by special watchmen, in order that anything green be left.

The funeral of the poet was conducted as he himself wished. For in his will he wrote, "It is my wish that my funeral may be conducted in the plain and quiet way of the Society of Friends, with which I am connected not only by birthright, but also by a settled conviction of the truth of its principles and the importance of its testimonies." Mr. Whittier, by the way, in his will requests all who have letters of his to refrain from publishing them unless with the consent of his literary executor, Mr. S. T. Pickard.

So beautifully ended a most beautiful life—beautiful because just and heroic in the defense of justice. As says of him James Herbert Morse:—

And as Lowell says:—

The lines strong and resonant, of Stedman's "Ad Vatem," addressed to Whittier while living, might well have been uttered over his bier:—