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Ten years afterward Longfellow reverted to the subject, and asked the poet if he had attempted the romance. On learning that he had not, he himself wrote the poem which so vividly and elegantly pictures the usual course of domestic history.
The story of Evangeline was first related to Longfellow by Hawthorne, who had been advised to write a romance upon it. But Longfellow gave the Acadian jewel a choicer setting. The story of Hiawatha was related to Schoolcraft by Abraham Le Fort, an Onondaga chief, and may in part be found in Schoolcraft's " Indian Tribes." Longfellow has woven much Indian legendary lore into the warp of the original tradition, which is in itself the poetry of romance. The "Tales of the Wayside Inn " were suggested by the old colonial hostelry at Sudbury, which may still be seen.
The poems of Longfellow touch tenderly on sorrow, for his life has been full of affections and friendships broken by death. His first wife, as we have stated, died in a foreign land. His second wife died young, under very afflicting circumstances. His intimate friends, Hawthorne, Felton, Sumner, Agassiz, are gone. Thoughts of the unseen world seem ever welcome to his mind. One needs to know these facts of his personal history to understand how closely his inner life is reproduced in his poetry. His poems on bereave- ment are no affected sentiment, but the sincere language of a bereaved, trustful heart.
The shadows were lengthening along the lawn, and the crickets singing plaintively in the hedges, as we turned reluc-
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tantly away from the old house in which the spirit of departed days seems to linger, and around which, in the dim future, other memories will gather.
It was evening when we returned to Boston, by way of the old Charles River Bridge, which some thirty years ago sug- gested to Longfellow the writing of his beautiful poem, "The Bridge," beginning, -
" I stood on the bridge at midnight, As the clocks were striking the hour, And the moon rose o'er the city, Behind the dark church-tower.
" And far in the hazy distance Of that lovely night in June, The blaze of the flaming furnace Gleamed redder than the moon.
" How often, O how often, In the days that had gone by- I had stood on that bridge at midnight, And gazed on the wave and sky !
" How often, O how often, I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom O'er the ocean wild and wide !
" For my heart was hot and restless, And my life was full of care, And the burden laid upon me Seemed greater than I could bear."
ELMWOOD : THE HOME OF LOWELL.
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Fames Russell Lowell.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
Among the living writers of poetry that Boston claims are James Russell Lowell, J. T. Trowbridge, T. B. Aldrich, and W. D. Howells. Though belonging to Boston's literary circle, they, like Longfellow and Whittier, are not, except for brief
:
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
periods, residents of the city. Lowell lives at " Elmwood," an historic estate near Mount Auburn, associated in literature with his thoughtful work, " My Study Windows." Governor Oliver was mobbed here during the excitement that preceded
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the Revolution. Mr. Lowell was born in 1819. In 1848 he published " The Vision of Sir Launfal" and "The Biglow Papers." He succeeded Mr. Longfellow as Professor of Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres at Harvard University in 1855. He has travelled extensively and is now U. S. Minister to the Court of St. James. Mr. Trowbridge lives at Arlington, on the borders of Spy Pond. His place is also associated with an incident of the Revolution. It is on Pleas- ant Street, one of the most beautiful streets in any New Eng- land town. Mr. Aldrich has done some of his best literary work at his country residence at Ponkapog, Massachusetts, but his home at present is in Boston. Mr. Howells resides in Belmont in a unique English house commanding beautiful views. He is neighbor to Mr. Trowbridge.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
The works of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, more than those of any other poetical writer, are associated with Boston's history and with recent public events. He lives in Boston, is a home-poet, and for half a century has usually been invited to celebrate in song notable public occasions. He was born in Cambridge in 1809. He is a medical professor in Har- vard College, and has delivered medical lectures before the students in Boston for many years. In 1857 he began to publish in the Atlantic one of his most popular works, "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table." His poems, " Cambridge Churchyard," " Boston Common," "Under the Washington Elm," &c., are local pictures in verse. One of his poems, " The Dorchester Giant," pretends to explain a sight that any visitor to the Highlands may see, and it is so agreeable as a local fancy that we give it here.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
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The Dorchester Giant.
THE DORCHESTER GIANT.
THERE was a giant in time of old, A mighty one was he ; He had a wife, but she was a scold, So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold ; And he had children three.
It happened to be an election day, And the giants were choosing a king ; The people were not democrats then, They did not talk of the rights of men, And all that sort of thing.
Then the giant took his children three And fastened them in the pen ; The children roared ; quoth the giant, " Be still !" And Dorchester Heights and Milton Hill Rolled back the sound again.
Then he brought them a pudding stuffed with plums As big as the State House dome ; Quoth he, "There's something for you to eat ; So stop your mouths with your 'lection treat, And wait till your dad comes home."
So the giant pulled him a chestnut stout, And whittled the boughs away ; The boys and their mother set up a shout ; Said he, "You're in, and you can't get out, Bellow as loud as you may."
Off he went, and he growled a tune As he strode the fields along ; 'T is said a buffalo fainted away, And fell as cold as a lump of clay, When he heard the giant's song.
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But whether the story 's true or not, It is not for me to show ; There 's many a thing that 's twice as queer In somebody's lectures that we hear, And those are true, you know.
What are those lone ones doing now, The wife and the children sad ? O ! they are in a terrible rout, Screaming, and throwing their pudding about, Acting as they were mad.
They flung it over to Roxbury hills, They flung it over the plain, And all over Milton and Dorchester too Great lumps of pudding the giants threw ; They tumbled as thick as rain.
Giant and mammoth have passed away, For ages have floated by ; The suet is hard as a marrow-bone, And every plum is turned to a stone, But there the puddings lie.
And if, some pleasant afternoon, You 'Il ask me out to ride, The whole of the story I will tell, And you shall see where the puddings fell, And pay for the treat beside.
MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE.
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, author of the " Battle Hymn of the Republic," is a resident of Boston. She has written much in the interest of the charities of the city and of the social improvement of women. Among her best poems are " Lyrics of the Street."
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James T. Fields.
JAMES T. FIELDS.
The grave has recently closed over James T. Fields, who for years was the central figure among Boston publishers, editors, and literary men. He belonged to the publishing house of Ticknor & Fields.
Mr. Fields was more than an author or a publisher. He was a sympathetic gentleman, who passed beyond the limita- tions of business and letters, that he might become the friend of the writers whose works he published. Several notable authors, as a tribute to the sympathy of the man, and the generosity of the publisher, dedicated to him their best works. Not a few poems and novels, now ranked among American classics, owed their appearance to Mr. Fields. It is not strange that these authors should become the friend of the man who had discerned their gold while in the ore. They associated themselves heartily with Ticknor & Fields, and helped to make the "Old Corner Bookstore " one of the landmarks of Boston, and famous in the annals of American literature.
No publishing house could show a more brilliant galaxy of authors than Ticknor & Fields. Among American authors whose books bore their imprint were Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, Saxe, Bayard Taylor, Hawthorne, Whipple, Hillard, Stoddard, Stedman, Agassiz, Aldrich, Howells, Trow- bridge, Alice Cary, Gail Hamilton, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Two visits which Mr. Fields made to England, where he was an honored guest, put the firm's name upon the works of De Quincy, Thackeray, Dickens, Tennyson, Kingsley, Reade, and Leigh Hunt.
Mr. Fields, though intimately associated for fifty years with the literary and social life of the city, was a " Boston boy "
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only by adoption. He was born in Portsmouth, New Hamp- shire, Dec. 31, 1817, and graduated from its High School at the age of thirteen. He came to Boston, a poor lad, to find a place where he might earn his living. He found it in a bookstore, and began at once to make the use of such talents as God had given him.
His days were given to faithful clerkly service, and his nights to reading and composition. So well did he serve, and such were the taste and discernment which study de- veloped, that within twelve years he became a member of the firm. He made the name of Ticknor & Fields famous. Sagacious in divining the public taste, he was also quick to discern what young authors were likely to become eminent. His genial stimulus so encouraged these that they did their best work for the man who trusted them.
While serving as a clerk, Mr. Fields developed by study and practice the poetical faculty with which he had been gifted. At the age of eighteen, he caught the public ear by a poem delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library Asso- ciation, on one occasion when Edward Everett was the orator. It was the beginning of a series of occasional poems recited at public commemorations and college commence- ments. Harvard and Dartmouth recognized the poet's merits, - the former by making him an A. M., and the latter by permitting him to annex, which he seldom did, LL.D. to his name.
Mr. Fields also became favorably known as the contributor to several periodicals, and as the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Subsequent to his retirement from the publishing business, he stood frequently upon the lecture platform. Appreciative audiences greeted him, and listened with pleasure to his reminiscences of the great authors whose works were their favorite reading.
Mr. Fields's merit is not that he was a great poet or great
A Protest. 417
writer of English prose. His limitations kept him within the circle of minor poets. But what he undertook he did well. His work showed no marks of slovenliness. Good taste dic- tated what he should and should not say.
Mr. Fields's literary and business life is an example to youth. The poor lad made himself a name in the annals of literature. He did it by a kind heart, an energetic habit, and patient industry. He strove to make the best use of his talents, and to do so thoroughly his work that no carelessness would beget an occasion for apology.
He was a man of the best moral influence. He had no sympathy with those who think it bold to trifle with the claims of religion. In his last years he gave to one of the editors of a popular publication for young people a little poem, saying, "I want to give my testimony to the value of Christian faith," or words of that import. We produce it here : -
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A PROTEST.
Go, sophist ! dare not to despoil My life of what it sorely needs In days of pain, in hours of toil, - The bread on which my spirit feeds.
You see no light beyond the stars, No hope of lasting joys to come ?
I feel, thank God, no narrow bars Between me and my final home !
Hence with your cold sepulchral bans, - The vassal doubts Unfaith has given ! My childhood's heart within the man's -
Still whispers to me, - " Trust in Heaven !"
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" Do thou thy work; it shall succeed In thine or in another's day, And if denied the victor's meed Thou shalt not miss the toiler's pay."
CHAPTER XXII.
ASSOCIATIONS OF WHITTIER'S POETRY.
" BEAUTIFUL! beauti- ful !" exclaimed Presi- dent Washington, in 1789, as, riding into the town of Haverhill, his eye caught an ex- tended view of the Merrimack. It was
autumn. The trees seemed jewelled with rubies and gold, and the streams went wind- ing away like a ribbon amid the unnumbered gems. " Haverhill," said Washington, “is the pleasantest village I ever passed through."
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
His eye was feasted with a continuous picture of forest- crowned hills, dreamy valleys, shadowy woods, and sparkling waters. He must have felt that such a region deserved to be the birthplace of a true poet, and would be in time.
There are poets who cull flowers from a limited field, and poets who gather blossoms in every land ; poets who travel over the world in search of scenes and associations of ro-
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mance and beauty ; and untravelled poets to whom the world brings its riches in the solitude of fameless places. The trav- eller finds the associations of Moore's poetry on the streams of many lands, but the scenes of Wordsworth's poetry only on the quiet lakes of Grasmere and Windermere.
A like contrast presents itself in two of our own poets. Longfellow, spending the calm decline of life in delicious re- tirement on the banks of the Charles, has delved in all mines for poetic treasures. He wandered over Europe in his stu- dent days, studying her poets in new languages, as he trav- elled ; and his own songs have since gone over the same journey, having been translated into all the languages he then learned. Whittier, in a busy little town on the Merri- mack, has found an ample field for poetic thought amid the scenes and associations of home. Though he has temporarily lived in several American cities, his muse has not often wandered from a single rural district in Massachusetts, com- prising less than twenty square miles.
To this we must make two exceptions. No "pent-up Utica" confined his muse in those soul-stirring lyrics inspired by his intense love of liberty and hatred of oppression. " Massachusetts to Virginia," with its clarion tones, echoed " and re-echoed from every hillside and through every valley, firing anew the patriotism so long dormant in the great and prosperous North. Closely related to this in spirit is his " Pennsylvania Pilgrim." Ready at all times to do justice to the Pilgrims of New England, who have not lacked historian and poet, he felt that the Quaker pilgrims of Pennsylvania, " seeking the same object by different means, had not been equally fortunate." In this little poem he has tried, and not in vain, to erect a simple monument over the unmarked resting-place of one of the two " historical forces with which no others may be compared in their influence on the people."
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Associations of Whittier's Poetry.
Whoever reads the " Pennsylvania Pilgrim," with the notes, in which he has rescued a few names from oblivion, will have a picture, though drawn in sober colors, as becomes the sub- ject, in which the figures will stand out from the canvas in bolder relief as the ages glide away and the spirit of Christian- ity is better understood.
With these exceptions, as we have said, the muse of Whit- tier seldom wandered beyond the limits of old Essex.
But these twenty square miles of old Essex County are rich with poetic subjects, scenes of rural simplicity, landscapes diversified with river views and sea views, old colonial super- stitions, and historic and legendary lore. From the calm hills of East Haverhill, where the poet was born, to the murmur- ous beaches of Cape Ann, which he has famed in ballad, the region is worthy of a poet, and has found a poet faithful and true to the trusts of home. To this district the genius of Whittier has always turned in its poetic moods, like Gold- smith's to Auburn and Lissory, and like Burns's to the Doon and Ayr. While the poetry of Longfellow shows how thought is enriched by travel, the poetry of Whittier illustrates the wealth of beauty an observant mind may find in restricted limits and native soil. His songs are not the notes of mi- grations, but native inspirations, attuned to the hills, vales, and rivers of home. If we know less of the world at large by this untravelled culture, we know more of the rich en- dowments of special places and localities. His estimate of Wordsworth's poetic mission is a just measure of himself : -
"The sunrise on his breezy lake, The rosy tints his sunset brought, World-seen, are gladdening all the vales And mountain-peaks of thought.
" Art builds on sand ; the works of pride And human passion change and fall, Dut that which shares the life of God With him surviveth all."
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The localities that have furnished the most frequent sub- jects for Whittier's pen, and that have helped form the frame- work, texture, and coloring of nearly all that he has written, are the old towns of East Haverhill, Newbury, Newburyport, Gloucester, the thriving town of Amesbury, the river Merri- mack, and the fine Atlantic beaches from Cape Ann to Mar- blehead.
In the first of these places, East Haverhill, the poet was born, in 1808. He is a descendant of a Quaker family, who early settled upon the banks of the Merrimack, and whose members, from early colonial times, have had a local reputa- tion for piety, good sense, and hospitality. In the perilous times of the Indian war the Whittier family refused to accept the offer of armed protection, though their house was near a garrison, but trusted to the effects of their honor and kind and just dealing with the savages, and were unmolested. Whittier's father, as described in "Snow-Bound," was "a prompt, decisive man." But his energy of character was quite equalled by his benevolence ; for he was always chari- table to others' failings, and good to the poor. His mother was a patient, loving woman, with a heart to feel for every one, always contented and happy in the affection of her chil- dren.
The family library consisted of few books, chiefly of a reli- gious character, and among these "The Pilgrim's Progress " seems to have been the favorite of John's early years. The district school was not favorable to large literary acquire- ments, being kept by an odd genius, who was sometimes more fond of his toddy than his pupils, and who at these intervals used to have sharp words with his wife, who tended her baby in an adjoining room. The school-room and the queer old pedagogue are described in some lines "To my Old Schoolmaster," with much tenderness of feeling and an evasive deliciousness of humor that makes the smile tremble on the reader's lips : -
THE CARWITHAM VIEW OF BOSTON ABOUT 1730.
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Associations of Whittier's Poetry.
"Through the cracked and crazy wall Came the cradle-rock and squall, And the goodman's voice at strife With his shrill and tipsy wife, Luring us by stories old, With a comic unction told, More than by the eloquence Of terse birchen arguments."
The picture of Whittier's early home, which was as hospitable as that which wandering Oliver Goldsmith so much loved to remember, is familiar to all the readers of "Snow-Bound." The very barn is as a familiar place, and all the members of the old family are acquaintances. The reader remembers the kind-hearted uncle, " innocent of books," -
" A simple, guileless, child-like man, Content to live where life began."
the sweet-faced " elder sister," -
" How many a poor one's blessing went With thee beneath the low green tent Whose curtain never outward swings."
and even poor crazy Harriet Livermore, whose visits were the one terror to the children of the house.
Whittier speaks with great tenderness of the insanity of this last-named religious enthusiast : -
" Whate'er her troubled path may be, The Lord's sweet pity with her go ! The outward wayward life we see, The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern What threads the fatal sisters spun, Through what ancestral years has run The sorrow with the woman born ; What forged her cruel chain of moods, What set her feet in solitudes."
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She was a woman of wonderful genius, and with a kindling fancy that startled those around her ; but she was harsh and cruel in her darker moods, and sometimes inflicted personal violence on the children, to whom she was an object of awe. She expected to see the coming of the Lord with her own eyes, and, in this confidence, set out for Jerusalem.
" Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thoroughfares, Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs, Gray olive slopes of hills that hem Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, Her tireless feet have held their way ; And still unrestful, bowed and gray, She watches under Eastern skies, With hope each day renewed and fresh, The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, Whereof she dreams and prophesics."
It was in Haverhill that Whittier, in boyhood, wrote his first poems. He was, at the time, an almost unlettered and a very hard-working farmer's boy, upon whom the cares and responsibilities incident to New England farm-life had come early, and who had little home-sympathy in fostering a poetic taste. He sent one of these early rhymes, with much timid- ity, to William Lloyd Garrison, then an obscure editor of a free-speech paper, published in Newburyport.
It met with a more favorable reception than one of Long- fellow's early efforts, which was returned with the gratuitous advice to the author, "t& buckle down to the law." Mr. Garrison, on going into the office one day, found the poem under the door. It was written on coarse paper and in blue ink, and, thinking it was doggerel, he was about to throw it into the waste-basket, when some good angel of conscience stayed his hand, and he gave it a reading. In the poem he discovered a poet. Other poems arrived from the same source, and he at last inquired of the postman from what
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quarter these manuscripts came. The postman believed that they came from a farmer's boy in East Haverhill. "I will ride over and see him," said Garrison ; and he made good the generous resolution. He found the young poet at work with his father on the old place. It was the first meeting of the two philanthropists, who were to become so famous in the antislavery contest, and wield so strong an influence in the world.
Young Whittier acknowledged to Garrison the authorship of the poems. The confession may have been hardly pleas- ing to Whittier's father, who, adhering to plain Quaker prin- ciples, did not look upon poetry as a very useful or promising vocation. Garrison urged the duty of sending a boy of such genius to school; but though the Quaker farmer did not seem convinced, John was soon after sent to the academy.
Whittier taught school for a time, and the district trustee thought him "a good tutorer." He came to Boston as an editor in 1829 ; went to Hartford, in 1830, to take charge of the New England Weekly; and afterward returned to Haverhill, to engage in agricultural pursuits. In 1835 he was elected to the Massachusetts Legislature, and afterward went to Philadelphia as an editor of the Freeman. These experiences are hardly brought into public notice in his poems. His Indian legends, recounting the old tales he had heard at Haverhill, were only passably successful ; his poetic genius was of slow growth, and its recognition was slow.
But his opportunity came at last. The antislavery conflict furnished him a subject that kindled the lyric fire in his soul. His stirring odes, written at this period, which embraced the latter part of the brief portion of his life devoted to editing and politics, are everywhere known, and, as they are not directly connected with our subject, we pass their history.
Whittier's love of retirement led him to the Merrimack again. He settied at Amesbury, where his purely literary life
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may be said to have begun. Here he wrote "The Chapel of the Hermits," "Snow-Bound," "The Tent on the Beach," " In War Time," "Among the Hills," and nearly all of the domestic ballads which have become household words.
His home is a simple cottage, near the skirts of the town, plain without. but with an air of hospitable comfort within. Near it, on the borders of a tangled grove, is the little Quaker church, looking like an old-fashioned country school- house, standing, as it does, "at the parting of the ways." Here, on Thursdays and Sundays, the poet used to resort, with a few descendants of the old Quaker families, for silent worship. Many of his devout meditations here have doubt- less proved the germs of those religious poems which have gone forth with their messages of love and peace to the world.
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