Grand Rapids morning telegram., 1885-02-19
wAgsx WHITTIER LIVES.


A Delightful Pen Portrait Of the Poet and
his Pleasant Home.
Mr. Whittters dwelling in Amesbury
is exceedingly simple aud eaquisitely
neat, the exterior Of pale cream color.
with many trees and shrubs about II,
while within. one room opens into an
other till YOU reach the study that should
De haunted by the echoes of all sweet
sounds, for here have been written the
most of those verses full of the ftful
music
'Of winds thar ont OF dreamiand blew"
Here. in the proper season, the flames
of a cheerful fire dance upon the brass
sndigons OF the open hearth, in the
center of a wall lined with books; water
colors bv Harry Fem and Lucy Larcom
and Celia Thaxter, together with inter
esting prints, hang on the other walls.
rivaled. il NAV be. by the window that
looks down sunny little orchard, and
by the glass-topped door through which
YOU see the green dome of Powow Hill.
What worthless have been entertained in
this enticing placei Garrison and
Phillips and Higginson and Wasson and
Emerson and Fields and Bayard Taylor
and Alice and Phoebe Carey and Gail
Hamilton and Anna Dickinson are only
a few of the names that one first re-
members, to say nothing of countless
sweet souls, unknown TO any other roll
of fame than heavens, who have found
the atmosphere there kindred to their
own.
10 g nd ST
| adjoining villages and towns feel pc
culiar ownership of their poet; there Is
scarcely a legend of all the region
round which he has not woven into his
song, and the neighborhood feel not
only as if Whittier were their poet, but
in some way the guardian spirit, the
genius of the place. Perhaps in his
stern and sweet life he has been so, even
as much as in his song.
'There is no charge to Mr.. Whittier,
once said shopman, of whom he had
made small purchase, and there is no
doubt that the example would have been
contagious if the independent spirit Of
the poet would ever have. allowed it.
These Indian summer days of the
poets life are spent not all in the places
that knew him of old. The greater part
of the winter is passed in Boston; a
share of the summer always goes to the
| White Hills, of which he is passionately
fond, and the remainder of the time
finds him in the house of his cousins at
Oak Knoll, in Danvers, still in his ma
tive County of Essex. This is mansion,
with its porches and porticos and sur
rounding lawns and groves, which seems
! - L.
in spacious and secluded grounds,
shadowed by mighty oaks and
with that woodland character which
birds and squirrels and rabbits darting
in the checkered sunshine must always
give. 1t is the home of culture and re-
finement, too, and as full. of beauty
within as without. Here many of the
latter poems have been sent forth, and
here fled dglings have the unwarrantable
impertinence to intrude with their cal
low manuscripts, and here those pests
of prominence, the autograph seekers,
send their requests by the thousands.
But in the early fall the poet steals qui-
etly back to Amesbury, and there awaits
election day, period in which he relg-
iously believes that no man has right
to avoid h is duty, and of which he still
thinks as when he saw
"Along the street
The shadows meet
OF Destiny whose hands conceal
The m0lds of fate
That shape the State
And make or mar the common veal"
What life he has to look back upon as
be sits with his fame about him-what
storms and what delights, what strug-
| gle and what victoryi With all the deep
and wonderful humility of spirit that he
bears before God and man, yet it is
doubtful if he could find any one day in
it that he would change, so far as his
own acts are concerned. 1t is certain
that no one else could find it.
In appearance, Mr.. Whittier is as up
right in bearing as ever. His eve is as
black and burns with as keen fire as
when it flashed over the Concord mob,
and sees beauty everywhere as freshly
a. when he ci,ed with the Voices of
Freedom" and sang the Songs of
Labor and his smile is the same smile
that has won the worship of men, and
of women, too, for sixty years and over.
Now. it is with a sort of tenderness that
people speak and think of him whose
walk will, perhaps, 90 but little farther
with their own; not that shey deem
such vitality and power and spirit can
ever cease. bat that they are warned of
its apotheosis. as it were, into loftier
regions, where his earthly songs shall
be turned to the music of the morning
stars as they sing together.-Ho Horyst
Prescott Spo1ord, in the Critic.
he Had the Receipt.